Game text to speech
Text to speech for Hearts of Iron IV
Hearts of Iron IV keeps its decisions in focus trees, events and tooltip breakdowns, much of it in small text. Corvo Reader reads any of it aloud in a natural voice, with one hotkey and no mods.
- Free plan, no card
- Windows 10 & 11
- No mods
Text worth hearing in HOI4
- National focus descriptions
- Focus effect tooltips
- Events
- News events
- Decisions
- Advisor and law tooltips
Press CtrlShiftE and draw a box round any of it to hear it read aloud.
Focus trees and event text
The Family Gaming Database's accessibility report describes HOI4's text as extensive, often very small and potentially overwhelming. National focus descriptions and their effect tooltips, events and news events, decisions, and advisor and law tooltips all need reading.
Scaling the interface up has had its own problems: in 2016 a player on the Steam forums reported tooltips not working on the lower half of the screen with the experimental UI scaling at 4K, and others confirmed it the following year.
Read a focus before you commit
Hover a focus, press Ctrl+Shift+E and box its tooltip to hear what it does.
Save the spot where events appear as a region and each new event is one key away.
Built-in text to speech is for chat
The Family Gaming Database lists text to speech that turns other players' messages into speech, a multiplayer chat feature. We haven't found an option that reads focuses, events or tooltips aloud; that's the gap Corvo Reader fills.
Questions
HOI4 and Corvo Reader.
Does HOI4 have text to speech?
For multiplayer chat: the Family Gaming Database lists text to speech for other players' messages. We haven't found one that reads focuses, events or tooltips; Corvo Reader does, without mods.
Do I need mods?
No. Corvo Reader reads what's on your screen, so it doesn't install anything in the game or change its files.
Which display mode does HOI4 need?
Borderless or Windowed. In exclusive fullscreen, Windows keeps the game's picture away from other apps, so Corvo Reader can't see the text. Where to look: the game's video settings: a borderless or windowed display mode. Check your game's display settings, as the exact label can change between versions.
Is it free?
Yes. The free plan needs no card: standard neural voices for 20 minutes of narration a week. Paid plans start at $6.99 a month and add weekly premium voice minutes, unlimited standard voices, Summarize and Translate.
Other games
Same reader, every game.
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Read the guide
Hear HOI4 instead of squinting at it.
Download Corvo Reader free. No card, no mods.
Download free for Windows