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Hearts of Iron IV
Anomalous spike of negative reviews Sep 22 – Oct 6
Players on Steam at last update
31,259
Source: Steam Web API, as of 05:21 UTC on November 8, 2026.
Compared with the highest reading97%
05:00 UTC reading on November 8, 2026: 31,259, 97% of the highest recorded by Statcade (32,283 on October 18, 2026, 17 readings since October 17, 2026).
- Rank by players
- #42of 309 Steam games with a player count
- Highest reading
- 32,283on October 18, 2026, 17 readings
- Copies sold
- 1 millionPC
- Metacritic
- 83out of 100
- Release
- Jun 6, 2016
Hearts of Iron IV on Statcade: players online on Steam, copies sold, facts and charts.
At a glance
| Developer | Paradox Development Studio |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Paradox Interactive |
| Release | Jun 6, 2016 |
| Platform | PC (Steam) |
| Genre | Strategy, Simulation |
| Players online on Steam | 31,259 (as of 05:21 UTC on November 8, 2026) |
| Players at the 05:00 UTC reading | 31,259 (November 8, 2026, taken at 05:21 UTC) |
| Copies sold | 1 million (PC) |
| Metacritic | 83 |
About the game
The description from Steam and the story of the game are available in Italian on the Italian page.
Steam price
Price check of November 8, 2026 on Steam Italy (euros). The lowest price is the lowest one Statcade has seen since it started tracking the game (October 17, 2026), not Steam's full price history; free-to-keep periods do not count.
Steam reviews: anomalous spikes
Anomalous spike of negative reviews Sep 22 – Oct 6
From September 22, 2026 to October 6, 2026: 49.547 negative and 2.011 positive reviews in 14 days. On the peak day, September 24, 2026, there were 20.759 negative reviews (98% of that day's total), against a median of 15 per day over the previous 28 days (usual share of negative reviews: 17%).
Steam has already excluded 74,183 negative reviews from its official score, from periods it flagged as “off-topic review activity”: the official score is 90% positive.
How we calculate it
Every day we count how many positive and negative reviews were written on Steam for the game (all languages, both Steam purchases and keys), using Steam's public reviews API. A day counts as an anomalous spike only if, within the last 30 days, all of these conditions hold:
- at least 50 negative reviews on that day, so games with few reviews do not trigger the alarm (once a spike has started, it continues as long as the other conditions hold, even below this figure);
- negative reviews are at least 3 times the median of the previous 28 days and exceed the “median + 5 × MAD” threshold (MAD is the median absolute deviation: it measures how much the counts usually vary, without being dragged by a single odd day);
- the share of negative reviews rises by at least 20 percentage points compared with the previous 28 days and exceeds 50%;
- positive reviews do not grow in the same way: compared with usual, negative reviews increase at least 3 times more than positive ones. Releases, big updates and sales also bring lots of positive reviews, so they do not count as a spike.
The comparison needs at least 21 days with reviews among the previous 28: for games that have just come out we give no verdict. Days already flagged are left out of the comparison for the following days, and flagged days close together form a single spike. The score without the spike removes all reviews, positive and negative, written on the spike days (as Steam does when it excludes a period of “off-topic review activity”). Days are in UTC.
This is not a judgement on the reviews: a spike also contains sincere criticism. We only point out that on those days far more negative reviews than usual came in.
Source: Steam's public reviews API, data up to October 17, 2026 (UTC). Check: most recent negative reviews on Steam; to see only the spike days (September 22, 2026 – October 6, 2026), use the “Date range” filter in the reviews section of the Steam page of the game.
Game signature
Peak at 15:00 · low at 07:00 · the peak is 2.3 times the low
The 24-hour curve as a circle: midnight at the top, the radius is the number of players in each hour (Italian time), the gold dot is the peak hour.
Speedruns
World records and best times in the main categories of Hearts of Iron IV on speedrun.com.
Capitulate (Real Time, Poland) (new tab)
| Pos. | Player | Time | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record | Markus395 | 3:50 (new tab) | |
| 2nd | M1Lai | 3:52,100 (new tab) | |
| 3rd | Sode | 3:59,720 (new tab) |
Form Nation (Real Time, GGR) (new tab)
| Pos. | Player | Time | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record | Markus395 | 11:41,583 (new tab) | |
| 2nd | Faded_GSR | 48:03,150 (new tab) | |
| 3rd | aki3ma | 50:28 (new tab) |
World Conquest (Real Time, True WC) (new tab)
| Pos. | Player | Time | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record | LegitBurger | 1:55:07,370 (new tab) | |
| 2nd | MiklMaar | 4:36:25 (new tab) | |
| 3rd | SuperTerra | 5:41:14,740 (new tab) |
Source: speedrun.com (new tab), license CC BY-NC 4.0 (new tab); data selected and reformatted by Statcade (default category and subcategories, updated on a rotating basis). All records: Speedruns.
Italian sentiment
Share of positive Steam reviews written in Italian, compared with the share across all languages.
- In Italian93.1% positive reviews3,057 positive out of 3,283 reviews
- All languages89.8% positive reviews324,116 positive out of 360,758 reviews
In line with the rest of the world: the difference (+3.3 points) stays below the 10-point threshold.
Source: Steam, user reviews (all purchases), checked on October 18, 2026. What counts is the language the review is written in, not the reviewer's country; “all languages” includes Italian too. All games: Italian sentiment.
When to play to find the most players
Busiest: 15:00–18:00 (on average 45,764 players) Quietest: 03:00–06:00 (23,161 on average)
| Time slot | Average players | Compared with the daily average |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00–03:00 | 25,776 | 77% |
| 03:00–06:00 quietest | 23,161 | 70% |
| 06:00–09:00 | 23,374 | 70% |
| 09:00–12:00 | 28,978 | 87% |
| 12:00–15:00 | 39,933 | 120% |
| 15:00–18:00 busiest | 45,764 | 137% |
| 18:00–21:00 | 42,759 | 128% |
| 21:00–24:00 | 36,576 | 110% |
Source: Statcade hourly readings from the Steam Web API GetNumberOfCurrentPlayers, since October 18; times in Italian time (CET/CEST).
How we calculate it
Every hour we record the players online on Steam. We convert each reading to Italian time (daylight saving time included), average each hour over all days and then average each 3-hour slot (00–03, 03–06, … 21–24). Hours in which the reading is anomalous for the whole catalogue are excluded. Players come from all over the world, not just Italy: the slot shows how many people are online on Steam at that Italian time.
Data: Wikipedia (en), “Hearts of Iron IV”, Wikipedia, Steam.
Rivals
Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI29,973 players at last updatefewer players than Hearts of Iron IV
Total War: WARHAMMER III25,268 players at last updatefewer players than Hearts of Iron IV
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition18,533 players at last updatefewer players than Hearts of Iron IV
Steam games with the same main genre (“Strategy”) and the closest number of players online (as of 05:21 UTC on November 8, 2026). Source: Steam Web API.