A TNO fan personally had brunch with Serge Osmeña III and showed him his father's portrayal in the mod. Osmeña III liked the appearance, complimenting the "youth" for writing fun alternate history and understanding the artistic licenses borrowed by the developers. Even though his father is portrayed as a morally ambiguous Japanese collaborator, Osmeña III still appreciates that he, at least, is trying to help people in the mod's setting.
Artist Disillusionment: The first lead developer, ThePinkPanzer (as she was known as at the time), has a very complicated relationship with TNO. On the one hand, she is proud of the work she has done for the project and remains on amicable terms with the current development team. On the other hand, she has made it clear that she does not have fond memories when interacting with the fanbase, remembering countless instances where her words and actions were misinterpreted to defame her. She claims that she had begun "hating [her] life by the end of it" and hearing about TNO after she left would arouse a literal physical reaction from her. Nowadays, this has become downplayed, with her being less dissatisfied with her role in TNO's history while still working on her new project Godherja: The Dying World.
Ascended Fanon: The South American, Antarctican, British and Balkan content and lore were originally developed as submods titled Cold Southern Springs, Operation Deep Freeze, The Fallen Lion and Sava's Final Blessing. CSS and SFB have been integrated into the game proper due to the lack of conflict between the goals of the main mod and submods and good relations between the teams. TFL, which originated as a British rework submod, was integrated after its co-head developer also became the main mod's head Britain developer (and because the team agreed that TFL was better). ODF remains a separate unintegrated submod, albeit one whose content is considered fully canon to the main mod.
In both betas Old World Blues and Don't Surf, there were numerous complaints about the small, neon text of the UI, which has caused headaches for some players. When the mod released, the UI was fixed to increase the size of the text and get rid of the neon font, making it more legible.
After receiving complaints about creating eccentric Russian warlords by unfairly subjecting Historical Villain Upgrade to completely normal individuals, the dev time retconned many of these warlords to switch them into more appropriate leaders, such as swapping the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood from anti-fascist Alexander Medvedev with neo-Nazi Alexey Alexandrovich Dobrovolsky.
After all the division and drama surrounding the planned canon sequence of events for the alternate 1972 start date, the developers have ultimately chosen to scrap the idea outright.
For those who think that the Atlantropa project is too unrealistic and unnecessary of an addition to the setting, the developers have released a submod "Terra e Libertà" that restores continental Europe to its normal borders. Later, as development for the Penelope's Web expansion focused on the Mediterranian began in earnest, they ultimately removed it altogether in the main mod.
In response to elements of the community expressing concerns that TNO didn't go far enough in its' anti-Nazi themes and some of the narrative portrayals could be read as downplaying, if not whitewashing, the evils of Nazism(mainly regarding earlier portrayals of the Nazis as putting on hold The Holocaust on the basis of Pragmatic Villainy, the portrayal of Heydrich in his route as expressing a degree of remorsenote albeit moreso regarding to the damage of Nazism on Germans themselves rather than to any of his victims in his final moments, the existence of esoteric Nazism potentially downplaying the evil of more mundane variants of Nazism, and even the relatively ease that anti-Nazis have in infiltrating the top and subverting the Nazis in the Gang of Four route), particuarly among the pro-realism crowd and more strident anti-Fascists in the fandom, the developers have responded by changing the lore regarding the Holocaust to have gone far worse than OTL due to the victorious Nazis continuing their genocidal policies unabated as well as setting the stage for a German rework via facelifts removing the aspects found to be problematic(namely be removing esoteric Nazism altogether as an ideology in the Ruin update and setting up lore establishing Heydrich as the face of the Hardliners in preparation for a future rework where he will be given a full campaign offering a more accurate portrayal of just how vile he really was)
The mod has introduced many historical figures that often have no English articles on The Other Wiki or were just plain obscure even in their home country. This is especially evident in the case of the former USSR and Latin America, where the mod is the only reason why English speakers would know of figures such as Mikhail Oktan, Pyotr Siuda, Yuri Evtukhovich, Ivan Melkikh, Mutshuito Villasboa, Carmelo Ortíz Taborga and Máximo Antonio López.
Music used for Super Events have also seen increases in comments related to TNO, especially those used for the Russian reunifiers.
Creator Backlash: With the large number of reworks and facelifts in development, the developers have not looked back fondly on certain aspects of outdated lore and mechanics.
The cut population transfer mechanic in Moskowien is hated by the developers as an unintentional endorsement of segregation and/or ethnic cleansing, to the point that some don't even want to hear it mentioned in Q&A sessions.
The developers were unsatisfied with the infamous Order 44 scenario and the implications it would have during the Great Asian War, believing that it was an unbelievable caricature of Japan and Nobusuke Kishi (who was more along the lines of a sleazy Opportunistic Bastard than a crazed A Nazi by Any Other Name). The superevent was only left in during the release because the team didn't have enough time to create an alternative for it. They disliked it so much that the Jushin and Mutō coups were created as placeholders (even though a full Japan rework has already been planned, in which the two coups were cut) just so that they can get rid of Order 44.
The former Russian head developer grew increasingly dissatisfied◊ with the portrayal of Shafarevich as a fascist, which is why he was switched to just a far-right reactionary to better fit with his milder, albeit still chauvinistic beliefs. Additionally, she doesn't like the way Alexander Yakovlev was whitewashed into one of the best potential reunifiers of Russia, with the real Yakovlev's corruption being entirely overlooked.
In Reichskommissariat Kaukasia, Lavrentiy Beria is mentioned to be one of the Tiflis Three, a trio of famous resistance fighters who were killed and turned into martyrs for future rebellions against Josias' tyranny. Given that Beria was a real-life mass murderer and serial rapist, the developers have regretted this positive portrayal of him, with one developer commenting "I literally am so happy to work on Kaukasia to change that".
China was criticized at release for being a boring nation that had a fixed linear narrative path with little tensions or stakes because there were few consequences they could face from Japan. The developers of both countries agree.
One developer disdained Mongolia's old starting situation (divided between the collaborationist Mengjiang United Autonomous Government and the free Mongolian People's Front and People's Revolutionary Council) as "conducive to the least possible interesting situation" and generally made little historical sense, specifically criticizing the existence of the People's Revolutionary Council and Mongolian People's Front as unrealistic.
Downplayed: while the developer who suggested Taboritsky as Esoteric Nazi leader of Komi, Magnimik, hasn't said that he regrets the choice, he has said that the character's notoriety had become "an Internet wide cognitohazard" in a Discord chat. He was pissed when he found that overzealous fans were making references to TNO in the comments sections of any article that mentioned anything remotely related to the historical Taboritsky (including about Vladimir Nabokov), and especially pissed when one fan tried to get his name changed to Taboritsky
The dev team regret the original characterization of Abba Kovner as a vengeful, empty man who would extract retribution from the Nazis for the Holocaust by orchestrating his own genocide against Germans or anyone who doesn't agree to his plans. The intended point of his campaign was to illustrate the senselessness of responding to genocide with one's own genocide and highlight how terrible the world would be following an Axis victory in World War II. However, this ended up creating a Misaimed Fandom that praised Kovner, in spite of his actions, and another camp that accused them of anti-Semitism for blackwashing a Jewish partisan. Today, most of the dev team regard the old Kovner content as a heavily blackwashed portrayal of a WW2 partisan.
Downplayed with Göring's characterization as an incompetent warmonger, according to a former lead developer for Germany. On one hand, the lead acknowledges that developing Göring led to some of the first milestones that would inspire the rest of the mod's design and the "Toolbox Theory" update, such as pop-up UIs and economic mechanics. On the other hand, it's been widely agreed that Göring's portrayal is not accurate to his real-life personality or a good fit for the current direction of the mod. Beyond some final wrapping up, Göring's design was left intact on release because there wasn't enough time to overhaul it, but many Germany developers had already drawn up plans to rework him in "The Victor & the Judge" update.
The founder of The Fallen Lion (which originated as a submod to rework Britain before being integrated into the main mod) has been very open about his dislike of the Britain content on release (which has since been scrapped entirely when TFL was integrated), due to a combination of poor research, copious mischaracterisations (including Historical Badass Upgrade, Historical Villain Upgrade and Historical Hero Upgrade), the anachronistic presence of Welsh and Scottish nationalism, and being made in a rush in general.
There are many planned and cut content from early TNO that the current dev team feels embarassed about due to their low quality. Two major cut paths that nearly every dev cringes at are Democratic Speernote The original plans for Speer's reformist route, when the devs fully bought into the real Speer's self-whitewashing and wrote him as a remorseful Nazi aiming to turn Germany into a democratic superpower and a bastion of human rights, and the British Empire Expeditionary Forcesnote A British remnant faction in the Indian Civil War Anarchy phase, led by a deranged Louis Mountbatten, that engaged in genocide and cannibalism.
The dev that pitched both Michael Harrington as a presidential candidate and the idea of Yockey and Hall as failstates, who also left very early in development, has expressed regret about pitching Harrington as a leader and feels that he should be replaced by someone else, stating that the choice was purely influenced by the politics said dev had following the 2016 elections over more concrete historical analysis. Said dev has stated a willingness to see Yockey replaced as well, citing that he was indeed too anti-American to be a viable candidate outside of playing a cabinet role in a more plausible far-right administration and that his more interesting and insane ideas (namely his insane red-brown geopolitics) emerged as a result of the defeat of Nazism and that without such context, he would just be a run of the mill Nazi with anti-American politics.
One former developer really likes Jeane Kirkpatrick, specifically in regards to her foreign policy and implementation of the Kirkpatrick Doctrine.
Gerard Wallop is particularly popular among the Britain team, particularly his Social Creditist path in which he could implement a truly esoteric, idiosyncratic strain of fascism.
The British Empire Expeditionary Forces, a faction in the cut Indian Civil War Anarchy, was loathed by the dev team since its inception because the pointlessly horrific atrocities they would commit (ranging from cannibalism to human sacrifice) were deemed too tasteless for the mod.
Bogi Smerti, a warlord state of bandits that was to emerge from RK Moskowien's collapse, was removed after the developers believed that it simply didn't make enough sense and was too reliant on the shock value of their design.
Dear Negative Reader: After the concept of a "canon" storyline was scrapped in response to fan backlash, one of the former lead developers voiced their displeasure with the criticism. She stated that it was always her intention for the game to have "a vague sense of a story" and claiming that people hated the idea because "they can't have their 'BASED!!!!!!!! sablin anarchic communes next to their glenn mars based technocratic peaceful US'".
In the released version, Vyatka destroying the Aryan Brotherhood results in an event featuring a Vyatka former soldier named Alexander Medvedev. Medvedev also appears in Perm if Onega manages to beat the West Russian unifier, leading a stringent anti-Nazi group. Early in development, Medvedev was the Aryan Brotherhood's initial leader, before the devs replaced him by an actual Russian neo-Nazi in this role, because they decided to stop using Historical Villain Upgrade with real life war heroes who were normal or upstanding persons in OTL.
After the "After Midnight" patch was released in March 2021, both Alexander Altunin and Andrey Dikiy become leaders of Russian warlord states at last after their original paths were cut in the base game. Altunin rules the North Russian Liberation Front in the WRRF's old starting position while Dikiy rules over the Regency of Holy Russia in Buryatia.
The Ural Purification Zone led by Yuri Evtukovich, one of the post-Taboritsky warlord states added in "After Midnight" patch, appears to be one to the original "Radio Silence" ending of the Holy Russian Empire path, where Russia collapsed into a nameless wasteland without successor states. The country was described as being overrun by fanatical brainwashed soldiers who were too indoctrinated and broken to recognize the death of Taboritsky, who simply wandered the countryside, slaughtering anyone they came across in a mindless continuation of their final orders. Evtukovich and his Shturmoviki have a "state" to call their own (if it can be even called that), but they share the (lack of) motivation and bloodlust of the soldiers of the Radio Silence scenario.
Development Hell: The "Toolbox Theory" update was supposed to come out in February or March 2021, but wound up released in November due to feature creep. Specifically, its main goal, overhauling the game's economy system, turned out to be so much more complex than the developers thought it would be that it necessitated more or less rebuilding the entire game from the ground up. Even then, only a majority of "Toolbox Theory"'s promised features could've been delivered with the first release, with a second update needing to make the mod compatible with the No Step Back DLC of base Hearts of Iron and a third one to finish the cycle for good. The compatibility update was released in January 2022 and the "Toolbox Theory" series was finally completed on October 2022.
Dueling Works: The New Order is developed at the same time as Thousand-Week Reich, another Hearts of Iron 4Alternate-History Nazi Victory mod from different developers. The two mods have a friendly relationship with each other however, as they focus on different aspects of a Nazi victory scenario.
Dummied Out: Omsk leader Dimitry Karbyshev's bio doesn't elaborate on how he made his near-death escape from a concentration camp in Austria, making it a glossed over Acceptable Break from Reality. It is only explained in the bio of Pyotr Gavrilov, who was meant to lead the removed warlord state of Kazan, who organized the escape of Karbyshev among other prisoners.
Flip-Flop of God: Ever since official release, the developers have constantly gone on record stating that a playthrough where Taboritsky reunifies Russia permanently and effectively eradicates Russia and the idea of a unified nation after his collapse. This is contradicted when the collapse was actually implemented in-game, as fans discovered reunification news events that are specific to certain post-collapse warlords. Some have interpreted these events as simply being made for fun, while others believe it to be a case of Lying Creator.
God Never Said That: Because of The New Order's development inherently keeping certain parts of the lore a mystery to keep fans engaged and intrigued on the timeline's lore, a few fans end up taking someone's Epileptic Trees for granted, and utilize it as an explanation for when someone asks a question that said theory or hypothesis provides an explanation for, after which it's only a matter of time until someone takes it as fact and spreads as such.
The since-scrapped canon for the Second West Russian War in the 70's is that the Soviet Union successfully liberates Moscow, but not all of Russia before the United States mediates a peace agreement between them and Nazi Germany. Due to the wording initially used, however, this was misconstrued by many in the community as both A) the Second West Russian War completely failing in its objective, and B) the US directly intervening on behalf of Nazi Germany, both of which caused cries of creating a totally absurd series of events. The developers eventually clarified what they meant by that statement.note Specifically, the USSR wins and Germany starts to collapse, which the US sees as a chance to puppet Germany.
Similarly, many fans came to believe that, even if the Gang of Four came to power, Russia was destined to come into conflict with Germany over RK Moskowien, regardless of who unified, as the Gang of Four parting with Moskowien voluntarily being seen as a sign of weakness. In actuality, the Gang of Four would be willing to negotiate, provided Russia was unified by a friendly unifier'', and it would not be as damaging to them due to Moskowien being more of a hindrance to Germany, and overall, the RK is seen as something the Gang of Four (and for that matter, the rest of the German population) wants to distance themselves from. They would be willing to part with the RK provided it guaranteed peace with Russia - it would only be if a militaristic unifier such as Dmitry Yazov or Mikhail Tukhachevsky unified Russia that conflict between Russia and Germany would be unavoidable.
During the mod's development, and even some time after the release, many fans believed that Burgundy had successfully Germanized 40% of its population, compounding the horrors of the nation and drawing some criticism for how unrealistic Burgundy can achieve this much progress within a decade at most. The developers clarified that this statistic was never stated in the canon and they later confirmed that Burgundy has only successfully Germanized 7.9% of its populace, which is only a fifth of the previous statistic.
When the lore changes to the United States were announced for Toolbox Theory 3 (which, among others, turned both the R-Ds and the NPP from individual parties to coalitions and reverted the Republican-Democrat party switch), rumour had it that the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 would also be removed, meaning that the second-in-line to the Presidency would not be the Speaker of the House, but the Secretary of State (and thus Dean Rusk would replace John W. McCormack as caretaker President before the 1964 election). The developers themselves later clarified that this was not actually getting changed.
In 2022, as the mod started putting more emphasis on so-called 'realism', the developers had to state that the SS State of Burgundy was, in fact, not going to be entirely replaced by one ruled by French SS collaborators as rumours spread.
In Memoriam: The "Hidden Heroes"◊ world event, telling about the rebellious English artist known by the moniker "Softboy", was written in commemoration of SoftboyAnarchist, a team writer who passed away before the release.
Despite dev statements that Burgundy can't collapse before 1981, it can actually do so, but only if the player is playing as Burgundy or Heydrich.
Despite the fact that devs have stated that Heydrich will not betray Himmler and that his game will end the world, he ended up being able to betray Himmler once his content became available in the Cutting Room Floor update.
Likewise, although it was stated multiple times that the popular fan theory that Degrelle despises Himmler and is leading a covert resistance against him was false and was never a thing, it turns out that this theory was actually completely canon all along, as Degrelle does exactly that in Heydrich's route, and is also able to rise up and do exactly that if Burgundy collapses.
Kaiser Speer's portrait can be found in Germany's portrait folder. It is also used for when the debug mode has Speer go down all possible decisions, which gives a profile◊ that acknowledges more jokes in the community.
One of Dirlewanger's many deaths is an event known as "Sledgehammered," where a young assailant uses a sledgehammer to bash his head in, made to reference the infamous reasoning behind Leon Trotsky's lack of a role and jokes about other figures that do not make appearances.
Recent files contain a focus icon for Burgundy, referencing the infamous "Poopenfärten" posts. It depicts Himmler in front of a toilet and comes with an unused description.
A Victoria 3development diary references "Alexei lives" in a section regarding the Romanovs and the birth of the historical Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich. Interestingly, the aforementioned section was written by the original developer who designed Taboritsky's content, who had gone on to work for Paradox.
The USA GUI submod was integrated into the main mod with the "Unfinished Business" update, albeit without the House of Representatives mechanic.
The Custom Country Paths submod was integrated into the main mod, giving players a list of options to manually pick which routes an A.I. controlled country will go down in their campaign.
The development team for the submod Cold Southern Springs were integrated into the main development team shortly after the release of their demo "Ordem e Progreso". The team now focuses on making more content centered in the Iberian Union and Latin American countries.
Impressed with a German Civil War loading screen that they created, the developers invited the artist to draw even more screens, in which their fan art was later implemented into the mod.
After the developers of the submod Operation Deep Freeze have released several TNO-related songs, they were invited to compose more music to develop the mod's OST. Eventually, the submod was integrated, first into the lore, then into the main mod itself.
Shrug of God: The developers originally had a timeline of canon events for the lore, but eventually scrapped it in favor of players staying with their take on events.
In a similar vein, the "North Awakens" cell in the dev-made meme about Russian unification uses the same symbol that was featured in a fanmade poster called "The Apocalypse of Hyperborea", which led people to speculate that Hyperborea is an actual path in Russia, either enacted by the Father or representing the aforementioned BurgSys Komi. The dev team answered to speculation with a variety of responses, that the Father has nothing to do with anything called "Hyperborea", that the symbol isn't actually used in the game and that the team writer used the word for the poster because it sounded cool. The point is, Hyperborea was never outright disproved, but the team made an impression that Hyperborea is a little more than a cranky fan theory and it was parodied to the point it was impossible to take the theory seriously. At release, it turned out that Hyperborea is real and exists as an Ultranationalist path for the Aryan Brotherhood.
When the mod was beginning development, the original member working on South African lore was fired for going on a racist diatribe against Nelson Mandela. With no one else really motivated to work on the region, development for it came to a crawl, until one of the lead developers came up the South African War. But even so, development for it was pretty bumpy and the team didn't have enough time to properly communicate their intended themes about the OFN not being so noble and that a total victory by them was a bad ending because it would mean cracking down on native insurgencies and spawning anti-American sentiments. Since the game couldn't properly show off these effects, this created a Misaimed Fandom who sympathized with the OFN more than what was intended and spawned false rumors that the developer in question was racist for supporting the Afrika-Schild over the OFN.
A developer revealed that China had a bumpy development because it was passed over between three different team leaders who had conflicting visions for how it should be played, yet couldn't radically change their plot structure without derailing the overall narrative. As a result, China ended up becoming "3 stories tacked on top of each other" and criticized as one of the more underdeveloped nations of the mod, which the developers plan to resolve by completely reworking them in a future update.
As revealed in a Q&A with the former Germany lead developer, Göring's buggy state at release can be attributed to a change in the mod's direction mid-development. By the time the Germany team agreed that his characterization as a suicidal warmonger was unfitting for him, his path's design had been largely complete and the old Göring developers left the mod. Without anyone to focus on revamping his path, the team settled on finishing it up rather than restart from scratch, which was apparently a difficult and hasty process.
Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things: One developer left the team for a while due to harassment, ultimately leading the dev team to reorganize without a lead developer to avoid making anyone else a target.
Word of Gay: Ben and Adolf from the United Kingdom are confirmed to be gay and in love with each other.
There was an old dev claim that Himmler believes that he doesn't have a place in the Aryan post-apocalyptic "utopia" he seeks to create and doesn't try to save himself if nuclear war actually happens. This plot point is not explored in-game in the final game.
A former developer on Kirkpatrick explained that she would be the favored presidential candidate for the Jewish demographic, who are generally members of the Democratic Party.
While it is not stated directly in-game, if the IJA takeover Guangdong, a developer for Guangdong has stated that the fate of Yokoi Hideki is him getting off scot-free in contrasts to most of the other characters.
It is not explicitly mentioned who the Ghost of Rodzaevsky is, but a writer confirmed that it's Alexander Bolotov.
In case Germany tries to reconquer Ukraine and gets too badly beaten, a special event plays where Kyiv gets nuked. However, the developers have confirmed that several other cities get nuked too, even though they aren't shown in-game.
In Guangdong, the vote of no confidence against Suzuki Teiichi goes through because a mysterious patron bribes Matsuzawa Takuji's loyalty and turns him against the Chief Executive. The patron's identity is not revealed, but a developer confirmed that it was Ibuka Masaru.
Write What You Know: Guangdong's setting and narrative is partially based on the writers' own experiences living in urban East Asia.
him his father's portrayal in the mod. Osmeña III liked the appearance, complimenting the "youth" for writing fun alternate history and understanding the artistic licenses borrowed by the developers. Even though his father is portrayed as a morally ambiguous Japanese collaborator, Osmeña III still appreciates that he, at least, is trying to help people in the mod's setting.
