Sadly the game does run for me. Apparently there is some ingame DRM that tries to connect to an address that does not work.

Edit per 2026: It works again, so I am putting it to positive.

I need help. I cannot stop playing it

EU5 so far is very mixed for me. I can see all the ingredients it has, and it has the potential to be delicious. Sadly, right now, I would still advise to wait a few weeks until a few things are fixed or got changed.

Mainly, these are 2 things:

1. Diplomacy, specifically events and international organizations. Basically no international organization functions properly, not the HRE, not the Tartar Yoke, not the Red Turban Rebellion, not the Hungarian/Polish PU. Not one of them - and that is just sub standard for any game
2. The UI. In not one overview do you find all the information you need. You always need to go to another and maybe a 3rd or even 4th to piece together all the information you need.
Text is often too small, maps got the same issue as the overviews - want to know which goods your lands produce? There you go, just without borders - so you need to disable the goods map and take a look at the political map again, compare that, re-open the goods map because you forgot what good was in exactly in which spot...

These UI issues are especially egregious since at its heart EU was always an Excel game in which you paint maps - and I love it for that. And for such a game having an UI that makes it difficult to get the information you need every single time, is a big problem.

Edit: The IO and situation issues seem to be mostly fixed now. While the AI seems to be a bit too aggressive now (using no CBs all the time, Blobhemia IN the HRE very early), the patch was very good. It is still SLIGHTLY negative because the more I play the more I see useless tooltips that filter down in other useless tooltips, and the UI still needs 3 or 4 clicks to get the info you want at minimum. if the tooltips make more sense, I call it a day and name it positive.
Ideally of course the UI itself would be fixed, so that you can see all related info on 1 screen immediately, but I assume that will have to be a bigger rework.

It is a good VtM game, but it is not a Bloodlines game. Paradox could have saved them a ton of outrage by marketing it differently.

If you only want a Bloodlines game: Do not get this.
If you want a VtM game: DO get this.


Note: I had received this game pseudo-free; via attending the PDX con a few years ago.

Dark. VERY dark. Certainly shocked me a few times with the depiction of the cruelties of a civil war. Might not be for everyone due to this.

Game play wise it is fantastic so far. There are apparently not that many enemies, but they got quite a few variations. A blast so far. Only the difficulty could be higher, I am already playing on merciless+ and I still rarely die.
I am an experienced souslike player though.

The "soulslike" with the best combat system by far.

Great game, much replayability.

It is more Wuxia than Xianxia, and goes hard on the various tropes - but in a good way.

This is like another Metaphor for me. Amazing landscapes, crazy monsters and fantastic music.

It is a nice xianxia game when playing it at no chaos.

If you play chaos, you are probably a mad autist just like I and Sseth.

A very fun, very wild, and very weird ride.

Go play it