Crusader Kings 3 is a mammoth of a game, respected for its commitment to simulating the throes of medieval life. A master strategy game with beautiful presentation and enough random events to make a D20 weep, players have loved marrying their cousins and dying of the plague since it released in 2020. In honor of the game's fifth anniversary, developer Paradox Interactive has released some fun statistics about the past year of crusading and kinging.
According to Paradox's stat-counters, nearly 30 million custom characters have been made since 2024, and over 3.5 million pets have been, well, pet. This is a year where Crusader Kings 3 welcomed over 1.7 million new players to experience one of the best strategy games around.
It's unclear exactly when in 2024 these stats were counted from, but the fact it's an anniversary post suggests that it's an annual tracker. With that in mind, I'm in disbelief that Crusader Kings 3 players have clocked over 110 million hours in the game in 365 days. Considering there are just 8,760 hours in a year, that's the equivalent of nearly 12,600 people playing 24/7 for the last 12 months.
Even more embarrassing is the fact that there have been nearly ten failed seduction attempts every minute of the past year. Strategy gamers clearly need to work on their rizz. That's what the kids say, right? They might need to improve their relationships in general, as there have been over 30 divorces a day for the past year. There's an open goal for a joke about real-life divorces here, but I'm not going to make it. Please praise my restraint.
I'm frankly staggered by these numbers. I understand the game has averaged around 17,500 players a day on Steam for the past year (according to SteamDB), but I'm impressed with how efficiently players have filled each of these hours.
If you played Crusader Kings 3 for 8,760 hours this year and want more of the same, try out our favorite medieval games. Alternatively, you might like our list of the best Crusader Kings 3 mods, if you're not ready to leave Basileus Basileios behind just yet. If you're the outlier who has divorced 10,000 wives this year in order to skew the numbers, maybe consider counseling?
I bet you've got some cracking stories from your games, with all those hours in the bank. Let us know your favorite over on our community Discord server, where staff and readers share their tales.