It has, somehow, been two years since Victoria 3 first landed on our shores, and to (kind of) mark the occasion Paradox is putting out a thoroughly subcontinental DLC and a hefty new update in the form of patch 1.8.
The DLC is the game’s second immersion pack, called Pivot of Empire, and it’s arriving on November 21 for $10 (£8.50). In general, expect a lot of gussied-up stuff around India, with a bunch of new events and mechanics for the East India Company, British Raj, Sikh Empire, and the Princely States.
I’ll be honest, the thing that strikes me about all this is the way the trailer announcer chirpily tells us about a “new discrimination system” in patch 1.8 that you can probably make use of to do all kinds of terrible things to people who don’t deserve it.
If you’re nice, though, it sounds like the DLC will bring a whole bunch of ways to pry India free of the Raj’s yoke. “Choose the future of India,” goes the blurb, “as nationalists debate between the fight for reform or the dream of full independence, and British administrators anxiously try to preserve their power.” Classic British administrator move, that. Speaking of which, new events like The Indian Uprising will test your ability to navigate tensions between India’s native population and the Angrez.
It’s not all about the Brits, mind you, there are also new mechanics that will let you fiddle about with the Indian caste system, in case those other new discrimination systems aren’t hardcore enough for you, and a new Harvest and Famine system will take “advantage of the unique events and narrative content” in the DLC.
In other words, it’s immersion pack stuff much in the same vein as the France-themed knick-knacks you got in Voice of the People. It all sounds pretty good, but I do wonder if—with Vicky 3’s Steam reviews currently at a ho-hum Mixed rating—players might be after something that makes a bit more of a dramatic splash. But Paradox’s DLC release cadence is what it is, and we probably won’t get that until the studio’s ready for another big, Sphere of Influence-style expansion pack.