Speculations about Hearts of Iron V

It’s been 7 years from the release date of HOI IV and I see more and more people asking if/when will come HOI 5 to us. I think that one day we may get a sequel but I’m a little skeptical about this…

…current version still has 24 hours peak of about 50 000 active players. Moreover, there are big modding communities and developers are working on a new DLC. Because of that, I assume that we will not see a new HOI5 in 2023, nor its sequel in 2024.

But let’s speculate about the release date at least, let’s look closely at the wishes and check if there are at least some leaks about this great grand strategy game.

HOI V release date speculations

HOI5 hasn’t been announced yet
It’s been 7 years since the release of HOI4

If we look at the table of other games which are created by Paradox Developer Studios, we should see that the games have a lot of years between their sequels. But if we look even closer…

… then we should see that the latest game of Paradox Development Studios published in 2022 was Victoria 3 (published two years after Crusader Kings 3). This fact means that we will get the next game in two or three years => which means that the next game will be in 2024 or 2025.

But if we look at their gaming brands, we could see that the oldest one so far (Europa Universalis IV) will be next, and probably this game as well. Yes, you probably don’t want to hear this, but this is what it looks like to me. We’ll either get an EU V or a HOI V.

So I predict that we will get HOI V in 2024 – 2028.
It depends on the potential of the EU or HOI brand.

Is there space for HOI 5?

The potential release date is followed by the question if there is any space for another sequel. This question is important because, in the last years, we got three big DLCs in HOI 4: No Step Back (rework of supplies and USSR), By Blood Alone (rework of aircraft and Italy) and now we are waiting for Arms Against Tyranny (rework of infantry, special forces and North Europe nations).

All three last DLCs brought new game features to the game and I dare say, like you, that I find the game consistently entertaining. A lot of features were reworked and also a lot of features were processed deeply. And a lot of players that can be seen playing HOI4 show that this path is paying off for the PDX.

So there isn’t motivation to remake and create a sequel. From the Paradox’s point of view, it would be a risk. All is working now and the community is happy with it I think. However, do not overlook the fact that the motivation here might be more “technological”.

Probably some decisions which the PDX made in 2015 – 2016 around the current version could be limiting for the most actual version of HOI and it also could be a kind of freedom to avoid mistakes. It could mean the evolution of the game in a direction where it wasn’t a few years ago and is now getting there.

Community wishes for HOI 5

I searched for community wishes for HOI5 and there are some features which could the potential sequel have and are requested by members of the community:

• More realistic fronts, commands and battles.
• More detailed selections on how to play each battle.
• Detailed economy.
• Propaganda.
• Detailed troop equipment.
• Rework of mobilization and reserves.
• Characters models and RPG elements like in CK3.
• Rework of naval battles.

And I bet that just by picking a few topics here, there will be a lot of discussion on Reddit or elsewhere about what the new HOI5 should contain.

Anyway, when I was browsing the forums I could clearly see that the opinions on HOI5 were not just “give me a new game”. The system of “DLC” which constantly brings the game to life, works really well. And a lot of players seem happy.

Leaks of HOI5

After some research, I must say that there aren’t any leaks about HOI5. In addition, it looks like the developers don’t work on this sequel, at least for now. So we need to wait for some leaks about Hearts of Iron V. When something new comes up, I’ll make sure to post it here.