There's no game on Steam with more wishlists than Manor Lords. The upcoming city-building strategy title will soon debut in Early Access, where it is expected to remain for quite some time. To avoid disappointing his future fans, the one-man developer is already giving them plenty of warning.
Manor Lords looks fantastic, is very true to the actual Middle Ages, and offers not only city-building strategy without restrictive grids, but also battles and much more. Because all of this sounds so promising, developer Greg Styczen is already engaged in significant expectation management.
What Manor Lords Isn't And What To Expect in Early Access
In a post on Steam ahead of the Early Access launch on April 26th, Greg Styczen writes that he wants to clarify a few things in advance. Mainly what Manor Lords won't be.What this game is not:
- Manor Lords is not a Total War competitor. It's a city builder with battles. Yes, there are battles, but not as big or as frequent as some of you might expect. Most of the gameplay is focused on city building and management.
- It is also not an Empire Management style grand strategy game. The map has regions, but you won't be able to conquer all of Europe, or have marriages or anything like that. The game is designed to be played on a much smaller scale.
- It's also not an RPG. If you played Kingdom Come: Deliverance or Mount & Blade, Manor Lords is a different kind of game. There is a visit mode in Manor Lords that allows you to walk around your town, but it's an experimental, cosmetic bonus feature. The game is really meant to be played from a bird's eye view, like a strategy game (almost always) should be. There will be no first-person gameplay.
- It's not a competitive, fast-paced RTS like Age of Empires or Starcraft. Much of the game mechanics focus on the aesthetics of your city, and resources take time to move around the map. This tends to make for a more relaxed experience, with high intensity moments spicing up the atmospheric city building, rather than the game being at high intensity all the time.
It's also only in Early Access for now: Manor Lords will launch today on April 26th in an unfinished version for PC. This means that the title is still in development and will be further improved. You can already play it and help improve Manor Lords, but you'll probably encounter problems and bugs. So don't expect a polished release just yet.There's also no roadmap: The Manor Lord's developer doesn't want to make promises he might not be able to keep. Accordingly, we can't say when the title will reach the full 1.0 release.
You can read the entire statement here.