Boiled down to its basics, Crusader Kings 3 is a dynastic life simulation game set in the middle ages. You begin by choosing a noble whose life you wish to take control of and follow their family and realm as the world moves into the medieva💎l period. You’ll have to manage titles, a noble council, wars, familial ties, marriages, religion, and culture shifts - there’s always something to do to make your realm richer, stronger, and more efficient. Invite rich priests from foreign realms just to imprison them to steal their gold, invade the county of you🦂r best friend to neaten up your borders, seduce the mysterious new visitor to your court - all possibilities in CK3.
That’s not to say that Crusader Kings 3 is an empty sandbox inside which you’re given no directions - the game has five distinct gameplay philosophies called ‘lifestyles’ that you can pursue to varying degrees based on your goals. A diplomatic lifestyle rewards friendliness by making your character well-liked, while focusing on martial goals will help you expand your realm beyond its original borders and rule with an iron fist. It’s entirely possible, and sometimes a good idea, to pursue both lifestyles simultaneously - these aren’🐟t mutually exclusive. Becoming the most amiable warmonger in Europe is an achievement in and of itself.
Crusader Kings is a rewarding role-playing experience. Characters have distinct personalities dictated by their traits and experiences, and you must make their decisions accordingly - this can be anything from declaring war on a neighbour to befriending the Pope for money. In Crusader 💖Kings, you get out what you put in, and the sheer range of actions exacerbates the random, open-ended nature of the game. No playthrough is the same.
The emphasis on role-playing is felt in the importance of the game’s stress mechanics. If you make decisions that don’t align with your character’s personality, they’ll accrue stress. Once they reach a certain point, they’ll experience a breakdown, and you’ll have to adapt your playstyle accordingly or risk an early demise. You have the tools to stave off such events, such as feasts or adopting a pet, so it never feels like you’re accountable to the randomly generated traits given to your character. This is my favourite aspect of the game - you are heavily encouraged to roleplay the life of a noble in the middle ages, but there’s plenty of wiggle room for metagaming and strategic decisions - ambitious characters will despise giving away counties to their subordinates, but that will sometimes be necessary to avoid a revolt. A neat feature exclusive to the console edition is that the background of your character portrait will gradually turn red as you become stressed, and the trigger buttons will become harder to push on the DualSense. This gives you a convenient sense of your stress levels at a glance and shows that this port made an effort to make full use of console gaming’s architect🌸ure.
This developer forethought is especially felt when war arrives at your gates. In the PC version of the game, combat plays out like any other RTS - you select your armies, choose where they’ll march, and battles happen if two opposing forces meet in the meantime. This often requires some quick reactions, even with the ability to slow time to a crawl. The console edition of the game adds a new army automation option, allowing you to take a hands-off approach to warfare and rely on a sophisticated AI to do the work for you. Taking this route makes for a less♔-efficient strategy overall, but it makes the game far more accessible for those using controllers, emphasising one of the port’s main objectives - to make the game fun, playable, and attractive to people who haven’t played Crusader Kings before.
This level of attention to detail is evident throughout the rest of the port’s control scheme. As I mentioned in my preview of the game, Crusader Kings relies on a ton of menus. Imagine that ruling a dynasty involved the most grotesque Excel spreadsheet you’ve ever seen. It’s a bit like that. As a result, Lab42s’sౠ efforts have resulted in something truly impressive. Navigating menus feels as natural as in any other console game, radial menus are put to great use, and the UI makes excellent use of space to convey all the vital information you need. Looking at the control map will likely overwhelm even the most dedicated player, but it only takes a short amount of time to realise that the game feels like it’s been built by people who know it inside out.
It’s no secret that Crusader Kings 3 is one of the most complex games out there. It’s not f🅷or everyone, but those who get into it will revel in its depth, and the console edition makes getting into it easier than ever. There’s still no dedicated tutorial scenario, but the game has a fantastic tooltip system and a knack for providing hints exactly when you’ll need them - you’ll learn about bringing up a child only when you have one, for example. There are a set of exclusive achievements to encourage this learning, rewarding you for every new feature you dip a toe in.
Where the port falls is almost exclusively in fringe cases. No cross-platform mul𓆏tiplayer is always a frustrating obstacle in this day and age, and this is exacerbated by the fact that Paradox games will always be more popular on PC. In addition, a minim🐻al selection of menus are a pain to navigate - such as the faith creation screen and anything that requires nested tooltips - though these are few and far between. However, these are minor quibbles that don’t detract from the quality experience CK3 provides.
Bringing this game to consol🎃es turned it into the most beginner-friendly and fastest-loading version of Crusader Kings yet. It falls only slightly short of the PC version’s greatness simply thr⛦ough the game being built from the ground up for desktop gameplay. As it stands, Crusader Kings 3: Console Edition is the platonic ideal for console ports when it comes to strategy games.
Score: 4.5/5. A PlayStation 5 code was provided by the publisher for this review.
Crusader Kings 3 puts you in the middle of the grand strategy action i💮n medieval Europe. It features a larger map than its predecessor, more detail, and more rulers to raise to dynastic greatness.
