Europa Universalis V Reviews

Loved EU4 but EU5 devs keep trying to fix the game by breaking something else. Why remove swapping cultures and religions its what made the game great. If a king wants to try and convert a religion that only .1% of the pop is let me face the consequences of it.

This game is a disaster, all they had to do was give EU4 a new graphics engine. Boring, flavorless, and this whole "future DLC will make it fun" idea is completely delusional.

Version 1.3 is despairing. After limiting player expansion, you've further weakened players' ability to develop their economy. This means that players interested in developing their economy can only spend most of the game scrolling through TikTok while drinking tea and eating cookies, waiting for their meager income to be enough to build structures that are far more expensive than before. I will not give a positive review to a development team that is addicted to endlessly tormenting players. Unless the team can wake up and stop torturing hardcore players, I will not retract my negative review.

I have never left a negative review on any game ever, but after 5k hours on eu4 and unfortunately dumping too many into eu5, I can safely say it is just not fun. Everything is micromanage hell, and I truly struggle to find myself playing anywhere past 1550. I recommend waiting to buy this until paradox fixes the abysmal issues that plague this game.

Simply put, EU5 does not respect me or my time. Gameplay decisions I make in this game are either too granular or small in effect to form a coherent narrative. I feel similar when playing EU5 to idle games where I press a few incremental buttons and wait a long period of real time. In EU5's case, incredibly slow processing times, lack of flavor from systems, long waits between historical events for countries that even have them (or that I'm able to see for myself that I can actually do) and me automating half the mechanics at the very start of the game all contribute to this feeling I get that where there is nothing different about playing different countries, and everything is equally (almost) meaningless in achieving the one goal this game seems to push me towards: creating a Keynesian-style economic system where I am the ultimate arbiter of a command market economy in the 14th century. It should be telling that as of June 1, 2026, of reviews that have more than 100 hours played, only 54% of them are positive, compared to 68% positive from all reviews. It just takes that long to discover all the bugs, frustrating and misleading UI/UX decisions and general scope of the game. I have been following Tinto Talks on the forums since January 2024. To call EU5 a game in alpha testing in June 2026 would be a kind assessment. It is simply not finished (not nearly enough to be in beta, even.) I could write an entire review on how awful the UI/UX is, but I won't do that because there is already virtually endless feedback on the forums that doesn't seem to be acknowledged (see this thread just for post-release: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/official-megathread-for-ui-feedback.1873166/ ) It's insultingly bad for a game of this magnitude. Even in the screenshots promoting this game above, I would like to both read the actual numbers/text at a glance and enjoy this really nice art that someone spent a lot of time making, but instead I have to strain myself to read poorly accessible text and ignore the art at the same time. At some point after seeing countless UI screens with these accessibility problems, you would think it was intentionally designed to make the player have a bad experience! There is months and months, even years of feedback on how frustrating and misleading the UI is. Don't get me started on tooltips in EU5! Tooltips treat me like I'm a complete idiot. They are either self-circling or misleading and possibly incomplete, or both. I once experienced the game crashing on the country selector screen. No mods, no DLC at the time and I think it was in 1.1. I've had many crash-to-desktops while playing, even sometimes while paused. In-game month ticks take a long time, simulation even on maximum speed 7 takes a long time, loading tooltips takes a long time. These things add up so much, even over a short period. Because EU5 has so many small, inane, virtually meaningless decisions, the AI tries but cannot handle the overwhelming complexity and instead usually chooses to sit on its hands and money. These decisions end up taking a lot of processing power, which in my opinion should instead be streamlined into bigger, more impactful decisions, both freeing up my computer and actually giving a sense of direction to an otherwise generally directionless AI. On a positive note, the map itself is gorgeous, and one of the only redeeming qualities of the game for me. I have spent a lot of time just looking at the locations and details of the buildings and terrain and it really is beautiful. I can only imagine how much effort and knowledge went into making a demographically historically accurate world in 1337. It was genuinely fun to look through all the map feedback on the forums. I have about 2200 hours in EU4. EU5 was easily the most anticipatory I have ever felt for a game. It is saddening and I think a sign of the times that games like this get released in early access, and consumers like myself, who spent US$90 out of my own free will, become paying QA testers. I almost never review games, but combining the personal involvement I have with this franchise, the unequivocal let down that the gameplay has been, and the vote of no confidence that I have in Paradox Tinto to address current issues and not implement (barely) half-baked new systems all leads me to not recommend this game. EU5 does not respect me or my time.

It's in a really good state for alpha testing. Once their done putting flavour into the game so that it doesn't feel like your playing the same nation but in a different place then it will be ready for beta where, with any luck, they'll be able to sort any bugs out before release. Can't wait for it to be out!

Does this game need a lot of polish before it reaches EU4’s level? Yes. Does that mean it’s unplayable? No. A lot of the people criticizing it already have hundreds of hours in the game and have seen most of what it currently offers. Their criticism is often fair. But I also think people forget that EU4 took years to become the game it is today. With every update, this game gets a little closer to being great. That process takes time, money, and a lot of iteration. That said, I genuinely despise Paradox’s marketing strategy here. Not labeling the game as “beta” or “early access” while effectively making players test it is insulting, especially when paid expansions are inevitably part of the plan. That part is unacceptable. But even with all of that, the game is still good. If you have a strong PC and enjoy historical grand strategy games, you can easily spend hundreds of hours with it. Watching it grow, and even being part of the community that helps shape it, can be rewarding. It only becomes exhausting if you play it constantly and expect it to already be as mature as EU4. So, should you buy it? If you are patient, enjoy ambitious grand strategy games, and want to support the developers as they build toward something greater, then yes. A game as ambitious as EU5 takes years to make. Realistically, under the current business model, it probably cannot become profitable without Paradox’s cursed, predatory DLC system. That does not make the system good. It just explains why it exists. If you think that is unfair, blame capitalism, shareholders, and corporate greed, not the developers who are clearly trying to make a great game while working under the demands of the people above them. I despise Paradox as a company, but I still want EU5 to exist and fulfill its potential (at a reasonable price). The problem is that there is no easy solution. Either they spend another decade or two developing it without getting paid, which is unrealistic, or they release it too early and disappoint people. It is a lose-lose situation. The only truly fair solution would be a revolution.

Paradox just hire a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ QA team and get your ♥♥♥♥ together. You only please your shareholders instead of the gamers. Money horny leeches.

I have played well over 600 hours into this game and I think I have finally come to the conclusion on why I never play past 1500. This game was meant to be a nation building sim, but the devs instead turned it into an economic sim. The economy part of the game is so convuluted that after making over 100 ducats a month its easier to just automate it. It doesn't feel like playing a nation, it feels like playing as a corporation managing balance sheets. The fundemental focus of the game was on economics rather than on building a nation.

900 hours... man i really gave it a try Every update is basically 1 step forward, 2 steps back The developers have no idea what direction they want to take the game. Sticking to their vision for a "sandbox" sounds cool in theory, untill you realize its all just sand. The game is also horribly paced, unfortunately thats just how an economy built around exponential growth goes, once you are past the first 100-150 years, all balance gets thrown out the window. These are just a few of the many issues, but in true paradox fashion you can buy small additions (DLC) to this review and in a few years time, with enough dlc bought, you might see a more complete review, just like their games TLDR, dont buy it any time soon, come back in a few years once the devs have found out what they want to do with the game