I like tactics games such as Gears Tactics and Steamworld Heist, but it sounded like the structure of this game was ultra-high-stakes consequences fail-forever setup like XCOM. I guess that appeals to a lot of people but not me.
I’m just through the first mission (gamepass), so take this with a grain of salt, but it’s…fine.
The setting is interesting, but the gameplay is like 100 other games, and this implementation is barely average in the genre.
The biggest reason I wouldn’t buy it now, though, is Paradox itself. If it’s like every single other Paradox title, it will be steeply discounted within a year to promote a bunch of DLC that finishes the game. I like plenty of their games, but I’d never buy one this early. Their reputation is too deeply ingrained in the minds of gamers at this point. They just need to go full F2P, since that’s how almost all their games end up anyway.
You have to split Paradox into two parts: game developer for their own games, and published for games developed elsewhere (externally, or through independently operating owned developers). Their DLC model works well for their in-house games, because they have total control AND people play those games for thousands and thousands of hours (the EU4 joke is that you finish the tutorial at 1444 hours). If you divide the cost of the game and all DLC by hours played, it’s usually cheaper per hour, if not competitive, than most other games.
In this case, the game was developed by Harebrained Schemes, which is a studio Paradox bought five years ago with projects underway. There is absolutely no guarantee of 7+ years of continual updates and DLC. You might be stuck with the game as is, and it’s a flop.
I’d note the recent exceptions to the rule, which may show they’ve changed tactics: Imperator:Rome was a flop that they never did fix and rescue, whereas CK3 felt super polished on launch.
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