Manor Lords is the latest upcoming medieval game that allows us glimpses of the Middle Ages. This gaming genre is gaining recognition as it capitalises on the human nature of being intrigued and curious about the past. For example, the release of Elden Ring last year took the world by storm with its medieval dark fantasy setting. While the release of medieval fantasy games such as Baldur’s Gate 3 and Final Fantasy XVI this year satisfy a portion of the people’s hunger, people are still hungry for a city-building game in medieval times.
Thus, many people turned to Manor Lords, the most wishlisted game in Steam’s 2022 Next Fest and currently the 5th most wishlisted upcoming game on Steam with 219k followers. Although it has been three years since Manor Lords first came to light, news of its release has been uncertain. However, as of August of writing this article, we finally learnt that it will be released sometime in 2023. Today, we will teach you everything you need to know about Manor Lords.
What Is Manor Lords?
Manor Lords is a medieval city-builder and Real-time strategy (RTS) game that takes inspiration from the art and architecture of late 14th-century Franconia. Its game developer, Slavic Magic, is attempting to portray a historically accurate representation of an iconic period in human history.
Like many other RTS games, the main focus of Manor Lords is for you, the medieval lord, to not only build a city that withstands an entire generation but also thrive in any given scenario and survive all its trials and tribulations.
For example, build in several regions and connect your cities to prevent the attacks of neighbouring territories or survive the wrath of mother nature itself. To do so, here are some things you need to know before launching yourself in the middle of a medieval war.
Related: 5 Games Like Elden Ring to Play
3 Things to Know About Manor Lords
Story and Plot
While Manor Lords may revolutionise medieval city-building games, they have little options but to stay true to the plot of RTS games. For example, you are bound to start the game with only a patch of grass and limited resources. After adapting to the surroundings, you will discover acres on acres of untethered territory to explore and utilise. Then, as the main protagonist, you will take your place as an aspiring medieval lord and lead your pitiful small village into a brighter new era.
However, to achieve this feat, you must develop an infrastructure that not only keeps your citizens happy but also grants them the freedom to help revolutionise the city willingly. As for the progression of the plot, it heavily depends on your actions and decisions.
While not all of your choices may be the correct one at the time, you can look back at them as a step of progress when you successfully build your metropolis.
Gameplay Features
Manor Lords is a game that encapsulates two genres into one. While you are busy building your city, you also need to be on high alert to defend it. We will briefly introduce both features below:
City-Building and Resource Management
In Manor Lords, your primary responsibility as a feudal lord is to micromanage a small population and use the variety of in-game interfaces and directories to set them to work. For example, allocating some people to gather resources, build structures, and upgrade buildings. If you are a fan of slow life, you can even watch your villages build brick by brick or go around their daily lives.
Furthermore, you can expand your influence across the land as Manor Lords has multiple regions to explore, such as the mountainous regions, forested regions and river regions. However, one thing to note is that every region has a development tree you can upgrade to unlock specific buildings or features.
For example, you can unlock buildings such as the Peasant house, Carpenter camp, Logging camp, Forager hut, Weaver workshop, Tax collector and Church. Moreover, you can even set taxes via the Church and interact with fellow Lords and Ladies who control other regions and territories by sending personalised messages.
Real-Time Combat and Recruitment System
Conflicts are bound to happen in medieval times, especially when an unknown region suddenly gains power. When the option of diplomacy fails, the only option left is to fight. Naturally, as a feudal lord, you will not charge into battle yourself but command the troops you recruited. In Manor Lords, you can select three recruitment options from Peasant militia, Mercenaries and Lord’s Retinue.
For the former, you can train your villages to fight for you. However, despite the numbers, they are the easiest to die and will subsequently affect your economy when they are gone. Mercenaries are just as the name implies, as you need to pay to hire them for their prowess in battle due to better weapons and armor.
The Lord’s Retinue is your personal force and is the strongest and rarest force in the game. You can customise them to your liking, but only a few of them are qualified to be your personal knights. Lastly, outside factors such as fatigue, morale, army, terrain and the weather influence the success of your battle.
Platforms and System Requirements
As a highly anticipated game, Manor Lords, to the people’s contrast, will not feature on multiple platforms except on PC. However, when taken into perspective that only a single developer company is managing the entire game, it is reasonable for them to focus on only one platform instead of many.
For example, they have no way of knowing whether or not their game would achieve any measure of success on consoles. Thus, we expect Manor Lords to be PC-Exclusive for the foreseeable future. With the game built around Unreal Engine, we expect the game to be accessible to many. Here are the minimum and recommended PC system requirements for Manor Lords:
Minimum PC System Requirements
- Operating System: Windows 10
- Processor: Intel Core i7-10510U
- RAM: 8 GB
- Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce MX250
- Disk space: 16 GB
Recommended PC System Requirements
- Operating System: Windows 10
- Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K
- RAM: 16 GB
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
- Disk space: 16 GB
Also Read: For the King 2 System Requirements: Can I Run It?
Concluding Remarks
While human technology has not advanced to the extent of time travelling, we can still enjoy the past with medieval games such as Manor Lords. Despite their limited resources, Slavic Magic has gone to great lengths to ensure a game worthy of their passion and our expectations. Thus, it is our job to respond and support them, or else it will feel like a disservice to their commitment.
Frequently Asked Questions
When Is Manor Lord’s Exact Release Date?
While it is still unclear about Manor Lord’s exact release date, we speculate it will be between October and December. However, despite Steam and many others claiming it will released sometime in 2023, we will not be surprised if the game is delayed again and released in early 2024.
How Many Languages Are in Manor Lords?
Despite the demo being solely in English, Manor Lords’ full version will come in 13 different languages for the interface and subtitles. The list of languages includes English, German, Polish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, French, Japanese, Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, Italian, Turkish and Russian. For the record, the full audio will only be available in English.
Will Manor Lords Eclipse Starfield and Stalker 2?
If we are judging by Steam’s popularity, Manor Lords has already eclipsed Stalker 2 by 40k followers. However, Starfield is still far ahead of Manor Lords by 130k followers. While all three are the most followed and anticipated games, it is too early to judge which one is better among the three before they are released.