The release of Hearts of Iron 4 DLC By Blood Alone — and developer Paradox Interactive's decision to temporarily make it a free-to-play PC game — combined to see the historic World War II game reach the highest level of simultaneous player count in the world. Steam. Already one of the best strategy games on PC, Hearts of Iron 4 has seen a lot of updates since its release in 2016 and By Blood Alone is a continuation of that process with a huge aircraft overhaul and new focus trees for Switzerland, Ethiopia and Italy .
With the release of By Blood Alone, developer Paradox Interactive — the team behind some of the best strategy games on PC, including Stellaris, Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings, as well as Cities: Skylines and Pillars of Eternity — has made a decision. to offer the core Hearts of Iron 4 temporarily free game from September 26 to October 3, helping to attract players interested in the game after its new update.
It looks like the move was successful - Reports SteamDB that the game's player count continued to rise during the free week, reaching an all-time peak of 70 concurrent players over the weekend. While it's easy to dismiss this as the effect of a free week, the promotion appears to be successful financially as well. New official charts Steam, which shows the top-selling games by total revenue, shows Hearts of Iron climbed 56 spots to 12th on the week's top-grossing list, surpassing the likes of Modern Warfare 2 and Slime Rancher 2.
