Players will now buy the DLC subscription service for Europa Universalis IV through Steam directly

If you have an affinity toward strategy games, then Europa Universalis IV may interest you if you haven’t tried it already. But those invested in the game enough to purchase DLC found it rather expansive all things considered. Publisher Paradox Interactive recognized this issue, allowing Steam players to try out a Europa Universalis IV DLC subscription service in March last year. You had to purchase it through the game back then, but now you have to do it directly through Steam.

Released back in 2013, Europa Universalis IV earned quite a bit of praise from both fans and critics. Naturally, it received a significant amount of DLC packs and expansions over the years. Unfortunately, until last year, this meant that delving into the full experience required a bit of an investment — to put it lightly. Although the base game only costs $39.99 USD, combining the prices of all the DLC leads to a total price of $402.68 USD on Steam. The discounted prices on the bundles often do little to alleviate the sting of this entry barrier.

According to a press release, the expansion subscription allows players who own the base game to experience all of the DLC for $4.99 USD a month. This includes the game’s 14 major expansions, four immersion packs, and nine content packs. Additionally, the expansion subscription includes all future expansions and improvements to the game, so players can get some real long-term mileage out of this option.

What does the subscription include?

On paper, the expansion subscription for Europa Universalis IV seems like a generous offer. But judging by many of the top comments under the subscription trailer, a decent few do not see this as a reasonable alternative, arguing that Paradox should have simply lowered the DLC prices instead.

The grievances are understandable. That’s not only because Europa Universalis IV is an eight-year-old game, but also there will come a time when the total cost of the subscription exceeds that of the DLC packs by themselves. With this in mind, the expansion subscription seems less than ideal.

However, if you are still interested, Paradox has more about it in a forum post. But here are the finer details. For those who are already subscribed, you’ll need to resubscribe through Steam. Current subscriptions that last beyond today will end after the current period. Finally, nothing about the subscription has changed since last year, same with the price.