'I worked for like 15 years on just Hearts of Iron and history, so you want
to do something different' Afterworld director explains the fantasy post-apocalyptic setting, and the pub trip that inspired the game

Date:
Fri, 04 Sep 2026 14:49:27 +0000

Description:
The director of Afterworld explains why he wanted to "do something different" to historical games.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Afterworld is the first Paradox grand strategy game with an original fantasy setting in a decade Director Dan Lind says this brings a level of "design freedom" that would be possible in few real-world settings He also wanted "to do something different" after working on historical games for so long The recently revealed Afterworld stands apart from the rest of the recent Paradox Games portfolio. It's the studio's first title in a decade to take place in an original fictional setting, this time post-apocalyptic North America, rather than a real-world historical one.

The game is being directed by studio veteran Dan Lind, who has been working
at Paradox for almost twenty years. He started out on Europa Universalis 3 , working his way up to eventually become game director of the supremely
popular Hearts of Iron 4 a massive-scale WW2 sim. In an interview with TechRadar Gaming at the company's Stockholm HQ, Lind explained that not being tied down by history allows for a whole new level of "design freedom." Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here:

"I worked for like 15 years on just Hearts of Iron and history, so you want
to do something different," he said. "That was a big motivator."

He also thinks that Afterworld , which features a map based on just part of one country rather than a chunk of the globe, will be able to fill a specific niche in Paradox's offering. You may like Director says Afterworld has 'some of the deepest simulation' of any Paradox strategy game The studio behind Crusader Kings and Hearts of Iron just revealed its first non-historical
title in a decade Afterworld is a new strategy game set in an original post-apocalyptic America 'Clair Obscur showed that you can take a genre and
do it in a different and interesting way' The Blood of Dawnwalker director says the ambitious game was made out of a 'love for RPGs'

"Looking at our games, I think there's a niche in between a couple of them that we're not tapping," he explained.

"I think there's another different, fresh grand strategy game experience that you can have at a bit of a smaller scale, but with more detail basically.
Also having worked with 'crunchy' games such as Hearts of Iron , I wanted to see if we could find a way to make the game easier for people to get into." Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our
trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

He continued: "It's kind of a bit 4X like this, and you can start scaling the mechanics over time. It makes it so much easier, right? It's hard to do that with a historical setting, unless you're doing something like a migration
era, but this game can also tap a lot of those ideas." The company's current office in central Stockholm. (Image credit: Future) He also revealed the surprising origin of his pitch for the game, which he's wanted to bring to life for over two decades.

"I think the first draft for this was super long ago. I'm not sure; it might have been like 2011 or something," he began. "We used to do these brainstorms at the pub, where the idea was to just come up with a bunch of games." What
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The team would sift through all of them at the end of the night, deciding which were "a terrible idea" and which were "actually an interesting idea."

"This was a good idea. I had one that was playing DNA chains through primordial soup, which we rejected, but this one was something that was
pretty cool.

"I've always believed that you could do grand strategy games at slightly different scales. It doesn't always have to be big; the entire world. It can be just as interesting, but you've got to add details in the other direction as well.

At that point, it was a different scale. It was even smaller; I would say it was maybe the size of three states or something like that. When I was working on Hearts of Iron and a bunch of other stuff, I always had this in the back pocket as something I wanted to try and get back to."

Naturally, the idea evolved over time as Lind became "more and more
interested in things that were...less board game, more simulation," leading
to the current scale and focus on deep societal simulation .

"Now I'm shifting it more to groups of people, but not country level."

Afterworld is set to launch for PC in the future. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/gaming/pc-gaming/i-worked-for-like-15-years-on-just- hearts-of-iron-and-history-so-you-want-to-do-something-different-afterworld-di rector-explains-the-fantasy-post-apocalyptic-setting-and-the-pub-trip-that-ins pired-the-game


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