Crusader Kings 3: Legends of the Dead review - Death and Taxes

Another year means another Crusader Kings 3 chapter, but this time things are a little different due to a new type of expansion that Paradox has introduced. Positioned between the major expansions and the flavour packs, Legends of the Dead is a core expansion that builds on many existing systems, with the addition of some new content. 

This means a lower price and less overall stuff than Royal Court or Tours & Tournaments, but there's still a lot to engage with here that just helps build on the already amazing CK3 experience.

Myth and legend

Legends of the Dead is primarily concerned with gameplay systems and their expansion beyond how they're presented in the vanilla experience. Legends, legitimacy, and illness are the main thrust of features here, generally providing CK3 with just more stuff to think about and act on when playing. 

The Legends system is a completely new addition built around promoting a character's actions and expanding the glory of a dynasty with legendary characters within the family tree. 

If you meet the requirements for a Legend, you can pay Prestige and Gold to begin promoting it. As it spreads, you have the chance to upgrade the Legend further, allowing you to get stronger benefits if you successfully complete it.

These then become permanent additions to your dynasty, offering benefits to your future family through special decisions, actions, and even buildings. It goes a long way to help connect you to the rest of your dynasty during a playthrough and provides a more direct way to see the influence of your previous characters on your game.

Somewhat connected to this is Legitimacy, another new mechanic that measures your right to reign as a ruler. It builds nicely on from the systems introduced in Tours & Tournaments, such as vassal stances, and creates new challenges when it comes to being a ruler and the dreaded switch to your heir whenever your current character dies.

All of these systems are a welcome addition, giving the game added depth in the right places, though it does make me wish some current systems were expanded further instead of being put to the side. It's also worth noting that the Legends system can just devolve into constant events that I ended up skipping through after a while.

Bubonic fun

Illnesses and plagues are perhaps the most obvious changes in the Legends of the Dead core expansion, as they also have some of the biggest effects on gameplay. Plagues were a thing in the game previously, but they felt more abstract and random, whereas now there's a full system built around plagues, adding more threats to your rule to think about and manage.

During my time with the expansion, I played as rulers in both Italy and Hungary and found the experience with plagues very different in each. Italy has tonnes of coastal trading hubs and is surrounded by the Mediterranean, meaning I encountered tonnes of plagues and had to spend more energy dealing with them. 

However, Hungary is a land-locked area in the middle of Eastern Europe, so my exposure to plagues was far more limited, and I had to worry less about building up a defence or dealing with the potential economic fallout. A big problem CK3 has had is that many places feel the same, even if they're half a world away, so small changes regarding how plagues spread that make areas feel unique from each other are welcomed.

With plagues also comes the most famous one in world history - the Black Death. Its implementation makes it feel like a big deal, and that shows in the gameplay with tonnes of rulers dying, and it forces you to make some hard choices for how to respond. It also leaves behind a very different political landscape that you can take advantage of or suffer in the aftermath of.

It's a nice way to throw a spanner in the works much later in the game too. By the 14th century, CK3 became pretty easy, but the Black Death is a perfect way to provide an actual threat to your rule that you can't just win with more money and levies. You can prepare for it and make good choices once it comes sure, but it's guaranteed to have big consequences for you and the surrounding realms in some unpredictable ways.

The Verdict

Legends of the Dead is a solid expansion in terms of the content on offer and the added difficulty that freshens up late-game playthroughs. Ultimately, it just gives you more stuff to play with in the political playground that is Crusader Kings 3, and as the game grows I find myself enjoying it even more.

However, I'm still not convinced of the pricing of DLC in this game, and while Legends of the Dead is cheaper than both the major expansions, you're still spending the better part of £20 for what amounts to three new screens to look at when playing.

4/5

Reviewed on PC. Code provided by the publisher.