Manor Lords’ huge Steam wishlists have translated into a bumper launch that saw over one million copies sold in just a day.
Manor Lords launched on April 26 in Early Access form and soon rose through the player concurrents ranks on Valve’s platform. It hit a peak Steam concurrent player count of 173,178 — according to publisher Hooded Horse, that’s the highest ever for a city builder, and even other similar genres, such as GSG/4x/colony sims. That means Manor Lords has enjoyed a bigger Steam launch than the likes of Civilization and Cities: Skylines.
Manor Lords is a medieval strategy game featuring in-depth city building, large-scale tactical battles, and complex economic and social simulations. It was developed by Slavic Magic, a one-person studio founded by Greg Styczeń. IGN’s Manor Lords Early Access review returned a 7/10. We said: “Manor Lords is a gorgeous medieval city-builder that kept me occupied for hours building my perfect, cozy hamlets, but it definitely feels very early in its Early Access development.”
In a tweet, Styczeń outlined the main points for the planned next patch:
- Fix all the weird homeless bugs.
- Tune the archer damage.
- Tune the trade oversupply mechanics (it’s too harsh and punishes regional specialization).
- Slow down the rate of the AI claiming territories.
- Improve the sawpit efficiency / storage.
Manor Lords is the latest mid-priced game to see enormous success in early 2024 following the release of Pocket Pair’s Palworld and Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2. The trend comes at a time when some triple-A $70 games, such as Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones, have struggled.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.