Highly anticipated: Ever since George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels gained wide popularity from HBO's TV adaptation, pretty much every popular medieval-themed PC strategy game has received a mod transforming its mechanics to Martin's world. Modders probably started work on one for Crusader Kings 3 as soon as Paradox Interactive launched the game in 2020, and everyone who owns the game will be able to try it this week.

A Westeros mod for Crusader Kings 3 has been a slowly-approaching inevitability since the game's 2020 launch. On Friday, the team that brought that setting to CK2 will start an open beta for Crusader Kings 3: A Game of Thrones (CK3AGOT) with version 0.1.

Compared to CK2's Thrones mod, CK3AGOT features a larger and more detailed map, increasing the number of unique Westerosi cultures from 28 to 40. The Westeros map in the new conversion is about 87 percent the size of CK3's default map of Europe, containing 6,100 baronies and over 1,000 playable counties. Western Essos will come to the mod in a later update.

Initially, CK3AGOT won't include dragons or White Walkers. As such, the first release will focus on Robert's Rebellion (spoiler: Robert players won't survive). Events like Crowned Stag, Defiance at Duskendale, Greyjoy's Rebellion, and others are on the way.

The mod retains the CK2 version's Mega Wars mechanic while incorporating Thrones hallmarks like the Kingsguard, Small Council, the Night's Watch, conflicts behind the wall, and more. The court system utilizes aspects of CK3's Royal Court DLC but will also accommodate players who only have the base game.

Crusader Kings 3: A Game of Thrones will be available on Steam Workshop and other distribution channels (likely Nexus mods and Moddb). The compressed Steam download is about 2.1 gigabytes. The mod will initially only support English, but the developers plan to support community translations.

Martin's fantasy world involves dense politics and warfare, lending itself perfectly to strategy games and RPGs. Thus, it's no surprise that HBO's Game of Thrones inspired total conversions for games like Crusader Kings 2, Civilization V and VI, Mount & Blade Warband, Medieval II: Total War, Total War: Attila, and Age of Empires 2: HD Edition with CK3 now taking its place among them. At least two in-development Westeros mods for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord are also available.