Greetings! Alexander Oltner here, Game Director for Crusader Kings III. Today's diary is a little different from our recent ones, in that it's not about a new mechanic we're building for an expansion, but about something we've already made.
So, let's talk about Landless Adventurers!
When we first designed Landless Adventurers, we envisioned them as a transition state, something you'd hop into for a bit and then hop back out of. A deposed ruler licking their wounds, a dynasty member off making their name before claiming a title, a brief interlude between two different, landed lives. We included them as a tertiary feature in Roads to Power with exactly that in mind.
Well, we underestimated how powerful the player fantasy of working your way up from nothing ultimately was. The Adventurer playstyle has resonated with players far beyond what we expected, and we've been very pleasantly surprised by it: a custom 867-start Landless Adventurer is now the single most popular campaign starting point, by a significant margin.
[Our current most popular starting characters in CK3]
That success does present a problem however, and to explain why, it helps to share how we think about DLC.
A healthy base game is the foundation everything else rests on. It should be complete and satisfying in its own right, the version of Crusader Kings III we'd be perfectly happy for a brand-new player to pick up cold. Expansions, in turn, are for going deeper on the aspects of the game you already enjoy, never something you feel you have to buy just to have a whole game. That distinction matters a great deal to us.
It's a balance we keep an eye on, and we weigh it case by case. Every so often a piece of content stops feeling like an enhancement and starts feeling like a prerequisite, and when that happens we ask ourselves whether something needs to change.
In the specific case of Landless Adventurers, we think it does. They've become popular enough that many new players buy the game expecting them to be there, and truth be told: we’d like that too!
So we're addressing it head-on: with the release of Silk & Silver later this year, the Landless Adventurer character type is moving into the base game, free for everyone. This rectifies the situation and puts a feature that players consider a core part of the experience where it belongs: in the core.
There's a second benefit, and it's just as important to us. By decoupling Adventurers from Roads to Power, we remove the rigidity that comes from them being packaged alongside a specific, thematic DLC. Today, anything we build for them has to be thematically tied to Roads to Power. Once they live in the base game, that constraint goes away, and we allow ourselves to dedicate far more time and resources to Adventurers as a concept; building more content for it and developing the playstyle on its own terms, wherever our ideas (and yours) take it.
We want to be upfront that the precise dividing line is still being decided as we work through the details. Here is where we currently stand:
The Landless Adventurer character type will be unlocked for everyone with the free update accompanying Silk & Silver.
We are looking at retaining certain camp purposes and contract types as part of Roads to Power where thematically appropriate.
In other words, the foundation of landless play, being a character without land, roaming the world with your camp and followers, becomes something every player can do. Some of the more specialized purposes and contracts may remain as Roads to Power content. As we lock down exactly what sits on either side of that line, we'll communicate it clearly so there are no surprises.
And to be clear for our Roads to Power owners: you keep everything that shipped with that expansion. Administrative government, Byzantine flavor, and every other Roads to Power feature remain yours. This change is about lifting the baseline for everyone, not taking anything away from the people who supported the DLC.
To better set expectations: for now, this is purely about moving the Landless Adventurer character type into the base game. We are not using this diary to announce a rework or new content for Adventurers. That kind of work becomes more feasible once Landless Adventurers are part of the base game, and it's something we're now actively exploring for the future; just not something we're shipping with this change.
In other words, expect new Adventurer content at some point, but not just yet.
And that's it for today's dev diary. It's admittedly shorter than the ones we usually put out, but we think it's a meaningful one for the long-term health of the game. Making Landless Adventurers free is both an acknowledgement of how our players embraced them and an investment in where we want to take the playstyle next.
We also have other important news coming this week regarding Chapter V, so keep an eye out: you won't want to miss it.
As always, leave your comments and questions below, and we'll do our best to answer what we can.