Just in time for the birthday of Queen Victoria, the team at Paradox Development Studios officially announced it: Victoria III is coming out.

Now, if you’re not a fan of Paradox games, you might not know why this is a big deal. Victoria II was launched way back in August of 2010, and compared to other Paradox games, has very few DLCs, and has gone a long time since its last update. Compare that to another game by Paradox, Europa Universalis IV, which was released in August of 2013, and is still receiving updates and DLC. The latest DLC was…unfinished, to say the least, becoming the lowest-rated product on Steam, something I might talk about later. But while the mass amount of downloadable content is an annoyance to some, it has its benefits. Along with that that bad DLC came version 1.31 of the game: that is, the thirty-first update large enough that it constituted a whole new version. The massive number of paid expansions may a pain in the side to some people, but the revenue also lets the dev team behind the game continue to work on it nearly seven years later, giving the players dozens of major free updates.

I’m getting a bit off track here, but my point is that I legitimately thought that Victoria III was never going to happen. EU4 isn’t the only game that has regular updates, pretty much all of them do…except Vikki 2. Not only that, but a newer game, Crusader Kings II, got its sequel last year, and up until CK3‘s announcement was receiving updates just like other Paradox games. With a newer (albeit more popular) game getting a sequel first, and Victoria III being mostly ignored, I thought that the Victoria series was gone for good.

But beyond knowing it’s coming…we don’t know a lot. The game takes place during the Victorian Era, as one might assume, and has the things that were important during those times. War’s a thing, but with the explored world feeling a lot smaller than it used to, diplomacy is really big. You don’t just hate the people with borders directly beside you and want their land, now you want land across the world. And that land across the world is going to effect you, because you’re trading there, and you have colonies there, and really, how long does it take to get there with modern ships? Maybe a long time, if you’re a colony and need stuff from your overlord….

I’ve never actually played a Victoria game, so I can’t say much more than what the announcement tells us, but I do have a rough understanding of the series. You’re not just controlling some random chunk of land that probably has people somewhere, you have actual citizens, or “pops” doing your work. They have skills, and you have to make use of those skills. And if say, a skilled soldier dies in combat…oops. No pool of exactly equal people here to refill your armies: that person is gone.

I’m somewhat excited, but again, I have very little knowledge about the series, and have no idea if I’ll even like it. But I like most Paradox games, and Victoria III might be among those in the future. I’ll just have to see as we get more dev diaries (the first/zeroth one can be found here) and–after launch–I check out some let’s plays. One thing does suck however: the Vikki 3 Confirmed meme is now officially dead. #RestInPeaceConfirmed.