After a long wait, the Europa Universalis release date is finally out! With 12 years between EU5 and EUIV, fans have been waiting a long time for an update on the preposterously detailed, early modern grand strategy series. Here's what you need to know about EU5.
Even by the standards of Paradox grand strategy games, the venerable Europa Universalis 4 had an extended lifespan - kept afloat by an extraordinary bumper crop of 74 total expansion packs and DLC addons, alongside a slew of free updates and a DLC subscription service. With far-reaching mechanical updates and hyper-focused tweaks, the current iteration of EU4 simply isn't the same game as it was at launch.
But, despite the near-constant flow of additional content, EU4 has finally been retired - Europa Universalis 5 is out!
Europa Universalis 5 release date
The Europa Universalis 5 release date was November 4, 2025. Given that our sister site PCGamesN predicted that it would launch in 2027, this is much earlier than expected.
Paradox announced EU5 with a short reveal trailer in May 2025, but the game's existence had already been an open secret for years, as screenshots and information about it were shared under the 'Project Caesar' codename. Your friendly neighborhood Wargamer reported that EU5 was in discussions at Paradox as early as 2021.
Europa Universalis 5 launched on Steam for $59.99 (£49.99).
Europa Universalis 5 trailers
Launch day came with a brand new gameplay trailer, which has the unenviable job of summarising the entire grand strategy experience for the benefit of the undecided, and for people looking at the series for the first time ever. It's a run-through of what to expect - global scope, a mixture of politics and economics, and options for incredible micromanagement.
The Pre-Purchase trailer above focused hard on introducing us the game's global scope, with playable empires "From Orléans to Beijing, from Timbuktu to Tenochtitlan".
We see the game engine transitioning from the Civilization-esque 3D map and animations of units battling, to the traditional, flat grand strategy maps of imperial, national, and regional borders shifting. At one point, the Kingdom of Sweden is seen owning every bit of land from the Western tip of France, through to the middle of Kazakhstan - pure Paradox alt history there, we love to see it.
A couple of weeks before that, Paradox dropped a mammoth 17 minute explainer video diving into nine separate chunks of the earth, explaining the complex strategic and geopolitical hoo-hah taking place in each of them at the time the game starts: the year 1337.
EU5 is a game that wants to let you play out a history in Spain, Turkey, India, Japan, or Mali, and still find a mind bogglingly complex, historically accurate tapestry of politics, characters, wars, economics, and more that you'll have to rein in in order to build your own imperial legacy.
Before that, we had Paradox Interactive's one minute forty-two second announcement video, released in May 2025.
As you'd expect for an initial announce trailer, we get no hard gameplay footage here, and no detail on mechanics or content. What we do get is a beautiful, stylized run through the themes and global scope for the new game: expansion, ambition, exploration, and the drawing of new borders for the entire world.
Europa Universalis 5 gameplay
Europa Universalis 5 retains the series' trademark focus on politicking and economic management, but with features brought in from Paradox's other recent titles - notably Victoria 3.
Managing the needs of your people is a major concern this time around, with a version of Vicky 3's Pops system representing the people of your nation (every person on Earth is represented - so I hope you have a powerful PC!) and a series of Estates with different rights and expectations to manage.
Warfare is a far more refined part of the game - with loads of interesting mechanics requiring careful micromanagement, like line-of-sight, formations, morale and supply.
Naturally it looks great, with a staggeringly gigantic map that you can zoom right down into like the ultimate Google earth dive. Armies are represented by multiple units, with a distinct look depending on your culture.
Lost of features that return EU4 have been completely reworked. The 'mana system' from that game where you could spend various resources for special powers is completely gone.
Even the most experience Europa Universalis 4 players have spoken about how complex EU5 is. Fortunately, then, the series finally has some automation options, letting you hand off various areas of management to the AI. Hardly a novel system, but a welcome one, that allows you to choose your degree of micromanagement.
For more great PC titles, check out our guides to free strategy games, and turn-based games.