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Every Hearts of Iron game, ranked

All 3 Hearts of Iron games we hold, spanning 2002 to 2016: 2 ranked by the GamingPickz Score and plotted below, the rest listed in release order so nothing in the series is missing. Together they carry 381,739 Steam reviews.

Where to start

  • For the best-reviewed: Hearts of Iron IV (GamingPickz Score 8.4), the highest-rated entry we can score.
  • For canon order: begin with Hearts of Iron (2002) and follow the release-order timeline below.
  • For the money: Hearts of Iron III gives the most score per dollar right now.

The Hearts of Iron games on the grid

Compare the whole catalogue

The same 2 games, plotted rather than listed. The two axes below are the ones the ranking is built from, so a game sitting high and right is a game the formula placed near the top. Change either axis to see the field a different way. Where we hold a publisher wordmark, the game is drawn as its mark rather than a dot.

2 games have both

74924992Players →Popularity →Hearts of Iron IVHearts of Iron III

Axes are fitted to these 2 games rather than the full 0 to 100 scale, because a filtered list shares a narrow band and would otherwise sit in one corner. End values are marked. A point on the left edge is the lowest of thesegames, not a low score.

Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.

Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.

  • PC

Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.

How positions are decided

No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
  • Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
  • Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
  • No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
  • A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
  • Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.

Every game by critic score

The grid above is built from Steam data, so it can only place the Hearts of Iron games that were on Steam. This one uses the Metacritic critic aggregate, which the older console-only entries have too, so the whole series lands on a single chart: critic score against release year.

708020022004200620082010201220142016MetacriticHearts of Iron — Metacritic 72 (2002)Hearts of Iron III — Metacritic 77 (2009)Hearts of Iron IV — Metacritic 83 (2016)

On Steam (also has a GamingPickz Score) Console-only (Metacritic only)

2 best Hearts of Iron games, ranked

Ordered by GamingPickz Score. Every figure links back to the source that produced it.

Sort by
  1. 1Hearts of Iron IV logo

    Hearts of Iron IV

    Best for: The safest bet on this list, by weight of evidence

    8.4GamingPickz Scorehigh confidence
    Hearts of Iron IV at a glance
    Released2016StudioParadox Development Studio
    Player sentiment90% positive of 375,658Critics83/100
    Price$49.99Steam Deckplayable
    Install size2 GBAccessibility0 declared features

    Raw 90% shrinks to 90.0 on 375,658 reviews, then blends with the 83 critic aggregate, giving 8.4.

    What the data supports
    • 90% positive across 375,658 reviews is a strong signal at that volume, where a few enthusiasts cannot move the number.
    • Cloud saves and cross-platform play, so progress follows you between machines.
    • Small install at 2 GB.

    PC

    Full entryGames like thisModsStore page

  2. 2Hearts of Iron III logo

    Hearts of Iron III

    Best for: Playing with other people

    6.8GamingPickz Scoremedium confidence
    Hearts of Iron III at a glance
    Released2009StudioDevelopment Studio
    Player sentiment76% positive of 6,081Critics77/100
    Price$9.99Steam Deckunsupported
    Install sizeNot statedAccessibility0 declared features

    Raw 76% shrinks to 76.5 on 6,081 reviews, then blends with the 77 critic aggregate, giving 6.8.

    Worth checking first
    • Valve rates it Unsupported on the Steam Deck.

    PC

    Full entryGames like thisStore page

Only the 2 Hearts of Iron games with Steam review data can be scored and ranked. The complete series, scored or not, is charted in order below.

Best and worst entry

The best-received Hearts of Iron game we can score is Hearts of Iron IV at 8.4. The lowest is Hearts of Iron III at 6.8, a 1.6-point spread across the series. The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment, critics and popularity, computed the same way for every game.

Cheapest way in, and best value

  • Cheapest right now: Hearts of Iron III at $9.99. Prices are read live from Steam and move.
  • Best value: Hearts of Iron III, the most GamingPickz Score per dollar in the series at its current price.

On a Steam Deck

Valve's own Deck compatibility rating for the Hearts of Iron entries on Steam:

  • Playable: Hearts of Iron IV
  • Unsupported: Hearts of Iron III

Platforms across the series

Where the 3 Hearts of Iron games have landed, counting every entry we hold:

Platform familyEntries
PC3 of 3

The Hearts of Iron series, game by game

Every Hearts of Iron game we hold, in release order. Each description is the game's own, from Steam where it has a listing and Wikipedia for the older entries, never ours.

  1. 2002

    Hearts of Iron

    Metacritic 72

    Development Studio · pc

    Hearts of Iron is a 2002 grand strategy video game developed by Paradox Development Studio and originally published by Strategy First for Microsoft Windows. A Mac OS X version was released by Virtual Programming the following year. In 2004, Atari SA published Hearts of Iron: Platinum, an updated version that sought to… (Wikipedia)

    Reception

    Hearts of Iron The game received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic . Tom Chick of Computer Games Magazine summarized Hearts of Iron as "an ambitious mess, a noble mess, certainly a well-intentioned mess, but ultimately a mess nonetheless". Hearts of Iron: Platinum Hearts of Iron: Platinum Hearts of Iron: Platinum was released in 2004 with the intention of improving several elements of the original game. (Wikipedia)

  2. 2009

    Hearts of Iron III

    6.8

    Development Studio · pc

    Hearts of Iron III lets you play the most engaging conflict in world history, World War 2, on all fronts as any country and through multiple different scenarios. Guide your nation to glory between 1936 and 1948 and wage war, conduct diplomacy and build your industry in the most detailed World War 2 game ever made. (Steam)

    Grand StrategyStrategyWorld War IIHistorical

    Reception

    Reception Hearts of Iron III initially received a mixed reception because the game shipped with a large number of bugs in the early release. After several patches eliminated many bugs, reception improved and the game received generally positive reviews. In 2009 December it had a combined average of a 77 on Metacritic and a 79% on Gamerankings . (Wikipedia)

  3. 2016

    Hearts of Iron IV

    8.4

    Paradox Development Studio · pc

    Victory is at your fingertips! Your ability to lead your nation is your supreme weapon, the strategy game Hearts of Iron IV lets you take command of any nation in World War II; the most engaging conflict in world history. (Steam)

    StrategyWorld War IIGrand StrategyWar

    Reception

    Reception Hearts of Iron IV was a commercial success. It sold more than 200,000 units within two weeks of its launch, which made it the fastest-selling historically themed Paradox title by that time, ahead of Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV . The game's sales surpassed 500,000 units in February 2017, and 1 million units in May 2018. (Wikipedia)

Hearts of Iron, head to head

Two entries side by side on score, price, specs and reception:

Hearts of Iron IV vs Hearts of Iron IIIScores, price and specs side by side

Hearts of Iron vs other series

How Hearts of Iron stacks up against other series in the same genre, as a whole:

Hearts of Iron vs Total WarTwo series side by sideHearts of Iron vs Football ManagerTwo series side by sideHearts of Iron vs Age of EmpiresTwo series side by sideHearts of Iron vs Company of HeroesTwo series side by sideHearts of Iron vs HitmanTwo series side by sideHearts of Iron vs Sid Meier's CivilizationTwo series side by side

Also: Hearts of Iron vs Anno, Hearts of Iron vs Tropico, Hearts of Iron vs Age of History, Hearts of Iron vs Beholder, Hearts of Iron vs Bloons TD, Hearts of Iron vs Brothers in Arms, Hearts of Iron vs Call to Arms, Hearts of Iron vs Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron vs Day of Defeat, Hearts of Iron vs Door Kickers, Hearts of Iron vs Dungeons, Hearts of Iron vs ENDLESS Space, Hearts of Iron vs Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron vs Frostpunk, Hearts of Iron vs Insurgency, Hearts of Iron vs Jurassic World Evolution, Hearts of Iron vs Kingdom, Hearts of Iron vs Men of War, Hearts of Iron vs Overcooked, Hearts of Iron vs Payday, Hearts of Iron vs Poker Night, Hearts of Iron vs Red Orchestra, Hearts of Iron vs Soda Dungeon, Hearts of Iron vs Stronghold, Hearts of Iron vs Stronghold Crusader, Hearts of Iron vs The Escapists, Hearts of Iron vs The Sims, Hearts of Iron vs Transport Fever, Hearts of Iron vs Universe Sandbox, Hearts of Iron vs Victoria

Common questions

How many Hearts of Iron games are there?

We hold 3 Hearts of Iron games in the catalogue, released between 2002 and 2016. 2 of them carry enough Steam data to rank; the rest are listed in release order below, including console-only entries with no Steam listing.

Which Hearts of Iron game is best?

By the GamingPickz Score, Hearts of Iron IV rates highest at 8.4. That is a composite of player sentiment, the critic aggregate and popularity, computed the same way for every game, not our opinion. The full ranking is above.

What order should I play the Hearts of Iron games in?

Release order is listed below, from 2002 to 2016. For most series that is also story order, but we list dates rather than telling you a canon; the timeline is read from Wikidata.

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