"Europa Universalis V" was released seven years ago, but the amount of post-launch content has been frankly frightening, which is a fairly common predicament when it comes to Paradox strategy games. It grows over time, making it difficult for new players to know what to buy and what to ignore. But Paradox plans to make that process a little easier.

The company announced today on its forums that it is testing a subscription service for Europa Universalis V. The studio assures that the new patch 1.29.4 is intended to accommodate the testing and will not affect the game in any other way.

The studio writes: "For years we have heard from existing and potential new players that the cost of getting the game and all expansions at once is quite high (and may be discouraging for brand new EU4 fans). Since a subscription model has been suggested to us many times, we thought we would run a test to see how popular such a service would be.

Participation in the test would be offered to a "limited group" and aspects such as cost would be determined by the results of the test. Whether or not a subscription service would be realized would depend on the results of the test.

Presumably to address similar issues with "Crusader Kings 2," Paradox made the film free last year. Meanwhile, if you want to play "Europa Universalis 4" for cheap, it is currently on sale for $1 at Humble Bundle.