This is a shame. In a joint statement with developers DB Logic, publisher Paradox have announced that East vs. West: A Hearts of Iron Game has been cancelled. EvW was a grand strategy game set during the cold war, in which you made decisions about the fate of the world under the constant threat of a doomsday clock counting down to nuclear oblivion. The idea was that you could play out alternate histories like delaying the foundation of Israel, or maintaining the Berlin wall, but your every aggressive action might move you closer to mutually assured destruction.

Alas, it wasn’t to be.



Here’s what it would have been:



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The statement posted on the Paradox forums explains that the decision was taken due to the number of delays the game has suffered, but doesn’t offer any detail as to the cause of those delays. I’d all but given up hope that we would never see the game when Paradox hadn’t mentioned it for over a year, so this isn’t exactly a shock, just a disappointment.

This isn’t the first time Paradox have cancelled a game. In a not-so-mutual, more aggressive statement in 2012, Paradox pulled the plug on Magna Mundi, a grand strategy game ambitious enough that even Europa Universalis paled alongside. There were fewer nice words said about the developer of that game – and for their part, that developer later threatened to sue – so the situation this time around seems more amicable.

In fact, this might be a trend. Paradox also dropped crafting MMO Salem from their roster last summer, although that game has continued development since.

To find out what you’re missing, you can read the preview I wrote of East vs. West for some other place I dunno.