A game on Steam has 97% positive reviews, but the developers gave up on it 3 years ago

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The strategy game “Imperator: Rome” has received 97% positive reviews on Steam in the last 30 days, although the developers Paradox Interactive actually gave up on the game in 2021. But the fans and an active modding scene just won’t let it die. After 3 years with less than 1,000 average players on Steam, it exceeded the thousand mark again in March 2024.

What kind of game is this?

  • Imperator: Rome takes place from 304 to 27 BC. This is the time when the Roman Empire grew. In 27 BC, Augustus, Caesar’s heir, was crowned the first Roman emperor.
  • It’s a big 4x strategy game in which you can choose between countless factions: from the mighty Rome itself, which consists of a few provinces around Rome at the start of the game, to Carthage, Egypt or Sparta, everything is there. You can also play a tiny tribe in Ireland.
  • You direct the fate of your country, determine your army, the development of your cities, society and the many different peoples that make up your empire: should only Romans receive the power and all the privileges or do you grant the Etruscans and Corsicans the same rights ?

    • Imperator: Rome is a mix of role-playing and strategy games, because every character in the game, every politician, every general and their families are simulated and have values ​​and characteristics. Once you have defeated a people, you can take their leading figures into your ranks, sell them into slavery, have them fight in gladiator fights for the people’s amusement or simply kill them.

    Imperator: Rome – Announcement Trailer

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    Game sells well, gets good reviews – somehow remains unloved

    Why did Imperator: Rome flop? It didn’t really flop. The ratings for the release were okay at 76% on Metacritic, and sales were also better than expected.

    But: There was no support from the fans for the release. Imperator: Rome had weak user scores and was not as well received by fans as Paradox had hoped.

    The reasons were many little things, as you can read in forum threads from 2021 (via paradox):

  • You cannot control the characters directly, but only have indirect influence on them
  • Too much micromanagement was expected from the player. You quickly had a lot of provinces and the game became confusing
  • The vanilla version suffered from too many bugs and was difficult
  • The individual factions didn’t differ enough from each other (via paradox) – There was a lack of details and little things that differentiated each people from each other

    • Somehow, the general impression was, the launch was botched and Imperator: Rome fell short of players’ expectations.

    Although many people liked the idea of ​​playing a strategy game in this era and following in the footsteps of Caesar, Imperator: Rome fell off too much next to the Europa Universalis or Crusaders Kings games that had grown over many years.

    This was Paradox’s decision: The developers at Paradox gave up on Imperator: Rome after just 2 years:

  • Development stopped in 2021 and the last of four expansions “Heirs of Alexander” came out.
  • In June 2022 it was officially announced that development would be stopped unless the game was taken over by another studio or there was a “new sudden interest in the game”.
  • The brains behind the game, Johan Anderson, left the project: For some fans of Paradox, Anderson is something like the Antichrist. Whenever he leaves a project, things suddenly go better (via reddit)

    • Fans react to the end of development with defiance and Steam reviews

    What happened next? As of 2022, there has been a strange development in Imperator: Rome. The developers’ announcement that they would only develop the game further once interest in the game was rekindled triggered a kind of defiant reaction.

    Now the remaining fans of Imperator: Rome really wanted Paradox to see what a gem they were overlooking and treating so badly.

    They shared their opinions with Paradox via reviews on Steam or in posts on social media.

    Patch, a great mod and suddenly the players are back on Steam

    Did that work? At least something. The developers were tricked into developing a new patch 2.0.4 in April 2023, a year after the game was technically dead. But it wasn’t a real victory. Because the developers said a bit rudely: Although they were releasing a new patch, they were sticking with the decision not to develop the game further.

    But this new patch served as a basis for the modders behind the very good Invictus mod to revive the game.

    This is the current status: The reviews on Steam are currently portraying a particularly strange picture:

  • Because thanks to more positive reviews, Imperatpr Rome currently has “97 positive reviews” in the last 30 days
  • Many of the reviews say something like: “Revive the game, you cowards” or bring it back!

    • And in March 2024, Imperator Rome will have more than 1,000 average players online on Steam for the first time in 3 years (via steamcharts).

    And does the game continue now? No, we are still a long way from the renewed interest that Paradox 2022 demanded. Instead of 1,000 players on Steam, you would need around 4,000.

    But on April 1st, someone made a bitter April Fool’s joke: Patch 2.1 was finally coming.

    The joke is a bit cruel, as even former game director Johan Anderson notes.

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    How good is Emperor Rome really?

    Does the game have any great reviews? I’ve spent 43 hours with Imperator Rome in the last few days, including the current Invictus mod, and I say: No, the current 97% positive reviews are more of a reaction of defiance that Paradox “has abandoned its best game of all things.”

    Imperator: Rome is significantly better than when it was released thanks to the current mod and patch, but still has many of the original problems.

    It seems somehow fleshless and colorless. The games tend to drown in micromanagement.

    A big problem is still the missions, which feel repetitive and force players into a kind of corset: When you start a mission tree, the game often feels passive and as if you are following a boring plan that mainly consists of: Wait for timers to expire.

    So you have to expand provinces and wait tens of game months until you have the resources you need.

    There are numerous gameplay hurdles in the way of aggressive expansion, which also force you to wait: first you have to wait for the penalty for aggressive expansion to decrease, then wait until the stability has increased, otherwise you’ll be stuck sooner or later rebellious governors to fight and the Roman Empire crumbles easily.

    Great idea, but the roots of the game are already too crooked

    Basically, Imperator: Rome is an exciting mix of interesting ideas and takes place in a fascinating time, but despite all the fan protests and fan effort, the roots of the game are so wrong that neither Paradox nor a magical miracle mod can fix it.

    No matter how much fans want Paradox to “revive this, you cowards.”

    Ultimately, Imperator: Rome remains the wrong horse – Paradox switched to the right Paradox, Crusader Kings 3, three years ago. That was probably the right decision, as bitter as it is for ancient Romans.

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