Launched Friday April 26 in early access, Manor Lords is already a phenomenon among fans of management and strategy games.
If since the end of SimCity, the “city builder” genre, in other words city construction, has taken a turn for the worse, with studios trying to take over the title of champion over the years. In the fall of 2023, Cities: Skylines II was launched with a certain expectation on the part of the players, but the follow-up of the game has so far not convinced.
We had to wait until April 26, 2024 to see the arrival of a serious contender for the title, but whose objective is not to project us into a realistic universe, but to take us back to the medieval era with the sole aim of to become the best lord of the territory. Manor Lordsthat’s its name, is therefore a management and strategy game using the Unreal Engine graphics engine to bring what it promises as “a refresh” in the landscape of the genre.
Especially since in addition to the medieval management game, Manor Lords stands out for its high-end graphics and its strategic aspect with real inter-kingdom wars to plan.
A hit on Steam
The public took this promise very seriously, and responded overwhelmingly for the early access launch, where Manor Lords exceeded one million sales in a few days on Steam, with a peak of 170,000 players at the same time, without forgetting availability in Game Pass, Microsoft’s subscription game library, from day one.
A surprise success for its publisher, Hooded Horse, but also for its studio, Slavic Magic, which took the opportunity to reveal that it had enough funds to finance the rest of the development towards the final version. Especially since the studio was for a long time only made up of one person, a Polish developer called Greg Styczen.
Behind early access, which should last one year, seven years of development have just passed. Originally, development on RPG Maker 2000, before a move to Flash, then the Unreal Engine: “I always dreamed of making an RTS,” he explained to Epic Games a few weeks ago. He confirms that although most of the development was carried out alone, he called on external service providers for several elements: “Developing games was a hobby for me. I did it part-time, alongside my work as a developer. freelance videographers. I couldn’t afford to hire anyone.”
A developer alone facing criticism
He then has support via Patreon and a fund created by Epic: “It’s difficult to recruit! It doesn’t magically accelerate development, but the production value increases immediately.”
Thanks to the help of Hooded Horse as publisher, Greg Styczen can also focus on his game: “I really enjoyed being able to concentrate exclusively on the development of the game. Perhaps it has to do with the popularity of the game. At the same time, I imagine that for a less anticipated game, having a publisher is even more important, because you have to use all possible tactics to make your game known.”
He adds that he underestimated the amount of work needed to develop a video game, and had to deal with the visions of people not affected by the project: “People tell you to ‘stick to your vision’ but, whenever they don’t like something, they won’t hesitate to let you know.”
Greg Styczen also reveals that he wants to port his game to Unreal Engine 5, the latest version of the engine that runs a number of other games, including Fortnite: “For the moment, stability and the release of the game on time are my priorities,” he specifies, however.
In early access, which costs 30 euros (or is included in Game Pass), Manor Lords already offers several modes, including one allowing you to play infinitely, another difficult, and another closer to the management game/strategy game mix. Additional content will be developed over the next twelve months “influenced by feedback received during Early Access.” So it seems that success is only just beginning.
