Hearts of Iron 4’s new expansion is ‘La Resistance’ By Joe Robinson

Paradox’s annual fan convention is underway and the company has just formerly announced what the new expansion for their WW2 grand-strategy game is going to be. Tying together the themes of civil strife, occupation and intelligence gathering, ‘La Resistance’ goes in-depth into France and Spain’s very unique stories during the course of the period.

A lot of this has been covered in dev diaries already, especially the changes to the Spainish Peninsular and how the Civil War plays out, but here’s a quick recap of features:

New Focus Trees for both main ‘sides’ of the Spanish Civil War, with unique mechanics and operations to flesh out the narrative.

A new Espionage system that fleshes out the idea of code-breaking, and allows you to recruit and deploy agents capable of carrying out unique tasks.

You can also develop your own intelligence agency, and the role of ‘reconnaissance’ in WW2 has been enhanced.

France’s struggle with the competing governments of Free France and Vichy France has been fleshed out, with both sides competing to be the ‘legitimate’ government if/when France falls to the Blitzkrieg.

Overhaul of the occupation and resistance mechanics.

We had a behind-the-scenes demonstration that we can’t really talk about yet, but there’s a lot going on in this expansion already, and that’s not to mention the free features and content that will be added as part of the 1.8 update. These will include a more basic reworking of the resistance system and interface improvements to battleplans and air operations.

La Resistance is not quite the Soviet/Communism overhaul I imagine that a lot of people were hoping for, but the way the occupation system has changed means that gobbling up the entire USSR in one go should be a lot harder, at least, and the management and interactions with occupied territory should be more meaningful. Personally, I'm looking forward to testing how the new recon systems effect the flow of combat.

Hearts of Iron 4: La Resistance is due for release at some point. Maybe.