Paradox Interactive used Gamescom to announce Afterworld, a new grand strategy game and IP from Paradox Development Studio, the team behind Crusader Kings III and Hearts of Iron IV. The game is coming to PC, though no release date has been set. Sources note that Paradox will continue posting updates on the game's Steam store page ahead of launch.
Afterworld is set in a procedurally generated, post-apocalyptic North America ravaged by nuclear warfare, drawing comparisons to the Mad Max franchise. Players lead a tribe of survivors, starting from origins such as shelterfolk emerging from a failing nuclear bunker or zealots searching for their goddess in the dustlands. The goal is to rebuild settlements, manage scarce resources like food, water, and fuel, and grow from a small band into a continent-spanning empire.
A key feature is the game's dynamic Ideas Tree, which unlocks new technologies and societal advances based on what players actually discover and experience—for example, encountering a river might lead to learning irrigation, while meeting a new tribe could introduce organized religion. Players will also need to organize convoys and supply lines, manage logistics, and decide whether to migrate their settlements as resources run out.
The game emphasizes player choice in how they interact with others, offering both cooperative and competitive multiplayer options. Players can negotiate trades, absorb wandering tribes, or take resources by force from rivals. They will also draft the laws of their society, deciding who gets access to scarce goods and who holds power, with crises forcing difficult decisions that shape their nation's identity over time.
As empires expand, players may face wars over dwindling territory and resources, as well as moral questions about how their society treats the mutated and augmented, and how it handles the rise of new religions. The game also introduces the Ancients, immortal pre-Fall leaders kept alive by forgotten technology, who have their own plans for the new world and will resist being pushed aside.
Dan Lind, Game Director of Afterworld at Paradox Development Studio, described the project as Paradox's first non-historical setting in a decade and the first world the studio has built from scratch in a long time. Wccftech reported that its writer had a hands-on session with Afterworld at Paradox's Stockholm headquarters, with impressions to be shared at a later date.