Hearts of Iron IV Expansion Pass 3: Everything Included

Paradox Development Studio put a new price tag on the next stretch of Hearts of Iron IV's roadmap today, launching Expansion Pass 3 alongside a live "Studio GOLD: Battleplans Revealed" stream. The pass bundles three unreleased additions, a Romania-focused country pack, a United States overhaul, and a diplomacy-themed theater pack, with one cosmetic unlock, Songs of Liberty, available the moment you buy in. Two of the three paid additions still don't have release dates, but the first one does, and it's close.

01What's in Hearts of Iron IV's Expansion Pass 3

Steam lists Expansion Pass 3 at $43.99, which the store page frames as roughly 20% cheaper than buying each piece on its own once every part has shipped. Buying in now gets you Songs of Liberty immediately: three new orchestral arrangements of American patriotic songs, the Revolutionary War-era "Yankee Doodle," George M. Cohan's World War I-era "Over There," and John Philip Sousa's 1888 "Semper Fidelis." The remaining three releases unlock as Paradox ships them: the Country Pack To the Bitter End, the Country Pack The Giant Wakes, and the Theater Pack The Price of Peace.

02To the Bitter End Lands November 19 and Centers on Romania

To the Bitter End, the pass's Romania-focused Country Pack, has a confirmed release date of November 19, 2026, and will also sell separately for $5.99 for anyone skipping the full pass. Paradox's own dev diaries describe a 1936 Kingdom of Romania squeezed between a revanchist Hungary and Bulgaria and a Soviet Union still angry about the loss of Bessarabia, held together by the Little Entente and Balkan Pact alliances. The focus tree splits early between funding the "Old Kingdom" and the newly annexed "New Kingdom," then branches into a fascist path built around the historical Iron Guard, a communist path that triggers Romania's only scripted civil war, and a military branch modeled on the real Ten-Year Modernization Program pushed by figures like Ion Antonescu. A new cooperation mechanic lets Romania spend political power on relations with neighboring states, and the pack adds a Romanian river fleet bonus, naval investment in the Galati shipyards, and an alt-history option to keep flying obsolete Polish-designed fighters instead of developing the historical IAR 80. Paradox credits community modders marijn211, Vlad Alexandru Catalin, and Norrman as collaborators on the pack alongside its own designers.

03The Giant Wakes Turns Attention to the United States

Where To the Bitter End has a date, The Giant Wakes does not yet. Paradox's own Steam listing says the Country Pack reworks how the United States claws out of the Great Depression and ramps up its industrial base, with spillover changes for Canada, the Caribbean, and Central America. Earlier dev diaries tied to the pack discussed reworked factory and division mechanics and changes to how airborne operations function, but Paradox hasn't published a final feature list or ship date, so treat anything beyond "US-focused, Depression-era, Canada and Central America included" as unconfirmed until a dedicated patch note goes up.

04The Price of Peace Closes the Pass With the League of Nations

The pass's Theater Pack, The Price of Peace, is described as adding diplomatic tools built around the League of Nations alongside dedicated national content for Yugoslavia, Burma, the Union of South Africa, and Venezuela. Like The Giant Wakes, Paradox hasn't set a release date for it, making it the last confirmed piece of Expansion Pass 3 still to actually arrive.

05How the Pass Lines Up With Hearts of Iron IV's 1.19.4 Update

Expansion Pass 3 isn't launching into a vacuum. It follows directly behind the free 1.19.4 "War Effort" update, a quality-of-life patch that added automated resource trading, queueable Intelligence Agency upgrades, savable fleet compositions, and a wave of combat-doctrine balance changes carried over from an open beta test. Paradox hotfixed that patch twice, most recently on November 5, fixing a multiplayer crash tied to co-op career-profile tracking. The timing means anyone picking up the new pass is also running the heaviest UI and balance refresh Hearts of Iron IV has had in some time, on top of whatever the Romania pack adds on November 19.

Paradox's video rundown of the free 1.19.4 "War Effort" update, uploaded in late October 2026 ahead of today's Expansion Pass 3 launch.

Paradox announced Expansion Pass 3 the same way it handled its last two passes, through a short Steam post and a tweet rather than a standalone trailer, and pointed players toward the live Battleplans Revealed stream for a closer look at what's left to show. For a decade-old strategy game whose official wiki already runs thousands of pages deep, that keeps the pass's bigger reveals, the full United States rework especially, tied to its livestream schedule rather than a written roadmap post.

Generals! 🎖️ Expansion Pass 3 has arrived. Save up to 20% and secure To the Bitter End, The Giant Wakes and The Price of Peace. Plus: Songs of Liberty unlocks instantly. Your orders await 👉 https://t.co/J7sIz00NIc

— Hearts of Iron (@HOI_Game) on X

06What to Watch Next

With To the Bitter End dated and priced at $5.99 standalone, the near-term question is whether Paradox confirms release windows for The Giant Wakes and The Price of Peace before the Romania pack ships on November 19, or waits until closer to each pack's own launch. Anyone buying the full $43.99 pass today is paying up front for two packs Paradox hasn't fully detailed yet; the instant Songs of Liberty unlock and the discount against buying everything piecemeal are the only parts of that bet that are fully locked in right now.