Manor Lords Early Access Impressions - A cozy but harsh life

While strategy games certainly aren’t super hot at the moment, indie studios and dev teams are keeping the spark alive with some pretty impressive releases across several subgenres. Manor Lords is rightfully getting lots of attention ahead of its early access launch on April 26, and I’ve already spent a few hours with it, walking away far more impressed than I was excited going in.

By and large, Manor Lords has been marketed as (and totally is) a city-building simulator filled with micro and macro-management options to grow from a small workcamp into dense towns spread across several regions in a single map. But it’s also an expansionist strategy game in which you’ll be tasked with pushing back invaders and claiming lands for yourself, an up-and-coming medieval lord.

You should look at this overview of the regions often.

Of course, acting as the titular manor lord isn’t a cakewalk despite the privileges of such a position. First of all, as cozy as everything looks and feels in Manor Lords, it’s packed with things to do and scary deadlines. To make things more unpredictable, the starting position – at least in the standard scenario (there’s a peaceful one) – is 100% random, heavily defining early specialisations, such as prioritising trading over farming due to the lack of some much-needed resources in the region.

Even with the limited options (both before and during the game) available at this initial stage of Manor Lords’ early access period, I can see how it’s designed to be replayable and to accommodate the different types of players looking to jump into it. During one of my village’s earliest stages, I thought I’d completely screwed up my start, and restarting the map never seemed like a terrible idea; it’s easy and fast to get through the early bits of building and organizing once you’ve learned the basics.

Winter seasons are unsurprisingly harsh.

I’m also willing to admit I haven’t spent nearly enough time doing some light ‘urban planning’ so that the town that eventually replaces my village isn’t a mess to navigate, and I’m already seeing some signs that maybe I should optimize the flow of resources better. Thankfully, the building options and tools feel far more intuitive and smoother to use than in many other indie management/city sims. ‘Drawing’ plots for houses and the space to be used for market stalls never gets old, and I’m certain there’s an art to making the most out of the space available and the distances between important resource areas and work zones.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed? There’s always the (still-in-development) option of actually walking around the town with a third-person camera view, which mainly allows players to capture otherwise impossible shots of their bustling streets and peaceful farms. This appears to be one of Manor Lords’ main selling points, and I’d say it’s the element that better highlights all the work and care put into the game’s visuals and medieval setting.

Fancy going for a walk?

Some of the early access limitations impact how the game is played though. Past a certain point, I started to wonder how I could unlock certain artisans and buildings needed to satisfy the more advanced needs of the villagers, only to find out they simply weren’t a thing yet, and pushing me to rely more heavily on trading with other regions. Manor Lords is, however, clear about what is and isn’t in the game at this point, and given the amount of polish it exhibits already, I’m excited to see where it goes from here.

The military side of the game is, surprisingly, in pretty good shape too. While we’re still lacking advanced diplomatic options and some of the deeper battle-related mechanics, it does expect you to gear up and prepare for war, because war will come unless you’re on the aforementioned peaceful variant of the one map available. As I dealt with some of my town’s growing pains, I struggled to prep my own militia to combat bandit invaders and other major factions, and instead relied on hiring the services of veteran mercenary companies thanks to the money raised from taxation.

Steel and manpower are readily available if you’ve got the money.

The actual warfare wasn’t as easy, but I was happy to lose some battles and learn from my mistakes, especially when Manor Lords felt so cohesive and easy to control and customise despite all the hurdles it throws at you every chance it gets. If indie games like Going Medieval nailed a mix of traditional colony-building simulation and more creative aspirations, then Manor Lords feels like an evolution of Banished and classics such as Pharaoh, all while having a voice (and tricks) of its own.

It’s too soon to discern whether the game, in its current state, will be able to keep me engaged once I’ve crushed my main enemy, but the satisfying loop is there, and I can see the peaceful option being a player-favorite, especially with how nice it all looks and sounds already (all while running remarkably well). If anything, Hooded Horse has a game with immaculate cozy vibes here, and solo developer Greg Styczeń appears to have nailed the basics. So far, it looks like people have noticed. We’ll be keeping tabs on this one.

Manor Lords is launching on Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store, and PC Game Pass on April 26, 2024. An Xbox release will arrive at a later date.