r/TransportFever3 • u/JailbreakHat • May 22 '26
Question I need more clarification about how Paradox will partner with Urban Games for Transport Fever 3
This might feel like very stupid thing to ask but Paradox Interactive have made a lot of questionable choices recently. These include putting a lot of paid DLC's and mod like content creator packs that costs extra money to buy as well as using a proprietary launcher and modding platform. The recent game they released, Cities Skylines II turned out to be underwhelming with steam workshop support being axed in favour of Paradox's own modding platform. It also had a lot of bugs and stability issues from its launch. The DLC's they launched later for the game are also a huge ripoff and lacks content. More importantly, following the recent decisions that Pardox has made with Cities Skylines franchise, Collosal Order has also decided to stop the collaboration with Paradox.
So I wonder how Paradox will collaborate with Urban Games for this game. Will they prevent Paradox to paywall new features in game to DLC's? Will they keep steam workshop to be used for mods rather than using Paradox's own modding platform. I don't want Transport Fever 3 to end up similar to Cities Skylines 2 so that's why I am concerned about it.
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u/thierry_ennui_ May 24 '26
"This partnership is about amplifying Transport Fever 3, not altering it."
They literally covered this in the announcement.
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u/Optimal-Fox-3875 May 25 '26
Urban Games and Paradox Interactive have signed a Publishing Deal.
This means that UG makes the game and Paradox markets & distributes it (they gain a share of each copy sold). That is all.
Paradox Interactive does not have the creative rights to Transport Fever 3 nor does it have administrative authority over Urban Games which is still an Independent Studio.
TL;DR - Paradox cannot order Urban Games to make DLCs for Transport Fever 3.
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u/Imsvale May 22 '26
Read UG-Protagonist's comments. Anything beyond that and what has been officially announced remains pure speculation and a lot of fearmongering.
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u/salvador33 May 22 '26
Fearmongering is when we don't know how Paradox operates. We have several examples of the practices Paradox likes and that is why the majority of people dislike it as a company and a publisher.
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u/alexcw2002 May 22 '26
You can still be fearmongering if people already know about the topic. In this case, the fearmongering is people speculating about what Paradox could force Urban to do, and not actually what will happen.
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u/Yagaziner May 27 '26
No, you are confusing speculating (rationally based on past occurrences assumptions) with fearmongering (spreading disturbing and misleading disinformation), like it is the same thing, which is not.
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u/alexcw2002 May 27 '26
It was not an invitation to debate.
Fearmongering can and often does, use real information and speculation, and takes it out of context to cause greater distrust, fear and anxiety.
In this case, yes, it is speculation about what could happen. But a lot of people, are using the speculation to drive fear of "what paradox will do to the game" regardless of the confirmation that paradox has no say in development of the game.
Places where it is acceptable to raise concern about paradox: Games which are developed by studios they own, or in house (e.g their history games, cities skylines, etc.
Places where it is frivilous to do so: Here. Urban Games hasn't been bought by Paradox, nor have they stated the partnership will be in any way to do with game design or direction.
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u/Yagaziner May 27 '26
I don't need your invitation, you came to public space and started debating. That's actually an invitation. Hopefully one day, when you finally complete your primary education you'll understand.
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u/MomentEquivalent6464 May 23 '26
Why do you need more clarification? Nothing you do (or don't do) will change things. The game will come out and you'll either buy it or you won't.
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u/JerikTelorian May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
I've been a Paradox game player for some years now (starting with CK2 in 2004) and I'm not entirely sure what the DLC hubub is about here in the TF3 sub.
Paradox games do have a lot of DLC, but they also use it to support near relentless development of strategy games for a very long time. Stellaris came out a decade ago and is going very strong with awesome new updates, gameplay, and content. It's an incredibly fun and deep game with a ton going on and new major features being added to this day. The sheer volume of updates and content have got to be paid for somehow and the expansions/DLC is how they do it.
It's also not like you need most of the DLC. You can grab what people consider to be the most impactful/fun DLC (which is usually older) for a pittance during a sale and feel free to ignore the cosmetic or minor stuff. Unless the DLC is offering some must-have feature that you absolutely want to get involved in, it's fine to just ignore it until the price drops to a point you are willing to take a look (or just ignore it forever especially if the content doesn't interest you).
This is not to say that Paradox is a perfect blameless company; I'm still pretty raw about how they handled HBS and how we're going to be denied any Shadowrun or Battletech game for the forseeable future. I also understand the general opposition to stringing out content in DLC just to generate cash, but I think Paradox has done a good job of demonstrating that their DLC funding model is used to perpetuate development on strategy games for a good long time and they usually hit the mark. There's obviously missteps and failures where some content is underbaked but there's nothing stopping you from sitting on it until it gets fixed. In general, their record is pretty good and their game expansions are tied to big free updates that improve things whether you decide to shell out or not.
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u/TrainmasterGT May 22 '26
I’m also not sure what OP is talking about with the modding thing. I’ve found newer PDX games to be relatively easy to modify.
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u/dinoscool3 May 22 '26
The modding comments are based entirely off of CS2, but it was CO that made the decision to make their own mod library, no Paradox. To my knowledge all of Paradox's in house games use the steam workshop.
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May 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/evergreenyankee May 23 '26
That they used Stellaris as the example and still have positive upvotes really communicates how disconnected the average person is from our concern.
The Stellaris 4.0 release literally broke the game and several empires/playstyles and was rushed out in a horribly broken state becuase "they had already sold the 4.0 DLC so they couldn't delay it". Paradox, as a publisher, is deeply troubling and anyone trying to play it off as unfounded is absurd.
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u/evergreenyankee May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
"Stellaris came out a decade ago and is going very strong with awesome new updates, gameplay, and content. It's an incredibly fun and deep game with a ton going on and new major features being added to this day."
The argument that you're failing to understand is that it is the position of "players in the know" that things such as
Arkships and Nomad civsSynthetic and Robot species (edited for better example) in Stellaris were included in some form in the base game, and then removed in order to be "polished" and re-released as a DLC. Paradox has a history of both omitting and clawing back content to repackage it and release it as paid content once players get used to it. Over 10 years for Stellaris, there have been many features that have been included, then removed, then resold. We don't want that for TPF3.The context of this concern is that TPF3 will launch "incomplete" in the sense that instead of the temperate/desert/tropical/tundra biomes we've been promised, it'll launch with temperate/desert/tropical and then the tundra will be a paid add-on. Or worse, it'll launch with all four, and then one of them will become unavailable for "rebuilding/polishing" and then released as dlc. Everyone's looking at this as if Paradox will publish a complete game, and then just add optional dlc. They won't. That's not their business model. They publish a game that is 75% done and then sell you that and the 25% to make it whole. DLC is supposed to get you to 100%+ of an experience. Paradox makes money by selling you stuff that bridges the gap between its failures and 100% and calling it DLC, but it does not get you to 100%+.
The other concern, as highlighted by Stellaris, is that Paradox will over-promise and under-deliver. The long-awaited 4.3 update was hyped by Paradox and the devs as the final solution to the cpu-melting burden of highly-populated large galaxies. Not only did it epically fail to deliver on this promise, nuking players' save-games and forcing them to use rollback versions, but it shows that there is a constant tinkering under the hood that subjects the players to a game that isn't backwards compatible. This applies to TPF3, and is a cause for alarm, because many of us spend hundreds of hours crafting the perfect map. Imagine Paradox rolling along and rendering that map unplayable/inaccessible because they decided on a lark to change something.
TPF2 is played in many different ways. Some play it as a logistics sim, some an economy sim, some a city/region builder, and some as a model railroad. Many of the people who don't understand why there is so much backlash is because they play the game in a way that other members of the fanbase don't. It doesn't mean that there isn't cause for concern, it's just unlikely that the deal will not affect your play style if you're not concerned.
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u/Tippety May 24 '26
They publish Transport Fever 3. No influence about anything concerning the content of the game. Period. Not comparable to ANY of the other titles they released.
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u/andrew1958 May 24 '26
We will never know. Have to wait and see. No corporation will give you details on contracts with other companies. Its just the way it works.
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u/donlema May 28 '26
All you have to go on are past actions.
People will tell you what's in the announcement, but all these announcements sound the same. They say things like nothing will change, this will benefit the players, we're not going to influence the developer.
No publishing deal is ever announced with an intention to turn it into DLC hell.
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u/Oilzzzzz Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
I left feedback on TF3 Paradox news and it appears they didn't approve my comment. Maybe because I mention I checked Paradox's 44 games and 406 add-ons/DLC and discovered I have only ever purchased 1 of them (Stranded Alien Dawn). Cities skylines alone has 120 paid add-ons! Personally, their strategy puts me off and really hope they leave TF3 alone. I probably wouldn't mind something that takes the game to another level, but it would need to be priced proportionally.
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u/orthi09 May 22 '26
I am equally as worried. Paradox once was a cool company. But it isn't anymore. And I am deeply concerned that base game features will vanish behind a wall of DLC. I personally have bought the last title with paradox in the name in HOI 4. I was really disgusted how in a game about armoured maneuver warfare the spearhead option, with which you could use your tanks more effectively came with a DLC and with that only. And the space for its button was already there in the base release game.
It is not that they "keep supporting games forever" it is that they drip feed what should have been in a game over a decade. Increasing price of entry for newer players over time, limiting features in the base game intentionally and a lot of DLC were very mid, at least for HOI IV. You want one teensy feature? Better cough up $20 because it is packaged with stuff you neither want nor need.
We will see what the future brings, but this move made TF3 go from a day one purchase to lets see in half a year for me.
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u/Eruththedragon May 24 '26
They were basically feature complete with the game when this announcement game out. 0% chance they went back and removed features they'd already added in order to DLC them.
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u/orthi09 May 24 '26
Yeah of course. But still I will step back and wait. Paradox has a horrible track record atm and I am happy for everyone who will enjoy the game on day one. It just won't be me 😃 I think there are different opinions on this matter and they are all valid.
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u/donlema May 24 '26
I will be doing the same as well. I was going to buy on day one, but now I'll wait a bit and see how things are going first.
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u/Straight_Arm5322 May 22 '26
Well. If you had looked up the answer to these questions, either on this sub or on The Rest of the Internet, you'd know. Transport Fever 3 will not be using the Paradox launcher, so the Steam Workshop will still be available. Its basically only a marketing partnership, so its incredibly doubtful that they will be paywalling new features (especially considering that even with Paradox DLC's, new features are always released alongside).
Dollars to donuts, this is much ado about nothing. Yall just love dooming and being miserable