Hearts of Iron IV remains the evergreen hit for Paradox Interactive. The latest DLC sparked a new wave of interest in the strategy game, helping it set its new concurrent player record.
On October 10, Paradox Interactive released Arms Against Tyranny, a new paid expansion for Hearts of Ironn IV. It added new focused trees for Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, as well as introduced some bug fixes and changes to in-game balance.
Shortly after launch, Hearts of Iron IV peaked at 78,108 concurrent users (CCU), according to SteamDB. The previous record, 70,997 CCU, was set in September 2022, when Paradox released the By Blood Alone expansion. However, the base game was also free for the entire week at the time, which makes the new numbers even more impressive.
The successful release of Arms Against Tyranny also helped Hearts of Iron IV become the 11th highest-grossing product on Steam for the week ending October 10. The base game climbed 32 positions on the chart, while the latest DLC reached 24th place.
When excluding free-to-play titles like Counter-Strike 2 and PUBG, Hearts of Iron IV ranks 8th. Below are the top 10 premium games of the past week by gross revenue:
- Call of Duty (↑2)
- Lords of the Fallen (↑19)
- EA Sports FC 24 (↓1)
- Baldur’s Gate 3 (-)
- Battlefield 2042
- Cyberpunk 2077 (↓1),
- Rainbow Six Siege (↑21)
- Hearts of Iron IV (↑32)
- Elden Ring (↓4)
- New World (↓13)
Top 20 highest-grossing products on Steam, including F2P titles, for the week of October 10-17 (via SteamDB)
The recent results of Hearts of Iron IV are in line with Paradox Interactive’s growth strategy, one of the core pillars of which is adding player value to the already successful titles through live content and DLC subscriptions.
Hearts of Iron IV is also one of the five so-called “endless” live games in the publisher’s portfolio, along with Europa Universalis IV, Cities: Skylines, Stellaris, and Crusader Kings III.