Dwarves, Demons, and Medieval Face-Stabbing

If you're a PC gamer, chances are you're familiar with Paradox. It's a publisher well known for its catalog of "grand strategy" titles like Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings, but lately the Swedish company has been widening its output with more humorous and action-oriented fare. We recently got a chance to check out some of the stuff coming to PC from Paradox over the next year and came away with a few developer walkthroughs for you to enjoy…

War of the Roses

Class-based online multiplayer action with a persistence system that grants a dizzying number of unlocks and customization options. Sound familiar? Now imagine that formula against the backdrop of 15th-century England, with crossbowmen, knights on horseback, and lots and lots of blood. War of the Roses is already super fun, and while it's still a little rough around the edges (you'll occasionally spawn 20 feet in the sky) we can tell this one's going to attract quite a dedicated following.

Impire

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you ran into a mighty hell demon with a short man complex? Well, Impire might be able to answer that question for you. This newly announced dungeon-building strategy game has you playing as a powerful lord of evil who's accidentally been turned into an imp after a summoning incident gone slightly awry. But regardless of your size, you'll have to construct dungeons in order to build up your army of hell spawn so that you can send them above ground and do your bidding. There seems to be a pretty heady learning curve here, but we definitely dig the interesting mix of dark imagery with goofy humor.

Dungeonland

Dungeonland is another game that combines dark imagery with goofy humor, only here the emphasis is much more on the goofy side of things. This one's an action-RPG where you venture through a deeply twisted amusement park, one apparently built by some sort of maniacal wizard. You can play co-op, hacking and slashing your way through a cartoonish onslaught of enemies, or you jump into Dungeon Master mode and play as the evil wizard guy himself, deciding which enemies to spawn in front of those poor heroes and just generally acting like a jerk.

A Game of Dwarves

You know that moment in Minecraft when you're digging below ground and wonder to yourself, what would happen if I just kept going? Now, imagine that you're also Scottish. And a dwarf. And control a team of dwarf underlings whose needs and wants you have to keep a close eye on. That's basically A Game of Dwarves, a strategy game where you explore underground worlds while managing your team of workers to ensure you don't work them to death.