Overly high ale consumption has been addressed.
Manor Lords has received its first major patch in version 0.7.972, with developer Slavic Magic making even more changes than were present in the beta version of the update.
Revealed on Steam, the patch includes the myriad features available to those testing the new version such as …
Collecting resources is one of the most important steps to building up your kingdom in Manor Lords. Without money, you stand no chance of becoming a settlement with any power or influence over those who surround you. Despite this, developer Slavic Magic has noticed that a few too many leaders have been hoarding wealth, which has made running a kingdom a little too easy, so a new king's tax is being implemented.
A number of "experimental" changes have been made to Manor Lords to tweak the balance, including reduced ale consumption.
Ahead of the weekend, the game's solo developer Greg Styczeń released a Steam blog post detailing a tonne of changes, which are available now for open testing.
The update fixes a number of commonly reported issues, including "None" people spawning and not working; the game being stuck at the summary screen after a victory; weak archer damage; and overly high ale consumption.
Navzdory vydání v předplatném PC Game Pass se středověké simulaci Manor Lords daří. Polské studio Slavic Magic se pochlubilo prodeji, které převyšují některé hry, na nichž pracuje mnohem větší počet vývojářů.
Do stavby středověkého města se v Manor Lords pustilo velké množství hráčů. Dva miliony z nich si hru koupili napříč platformami Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store a Microsoftu Store.
Vydavatelství Hooded Horse ke skvělým číslům dodává, že během úvodního víkendu bylo na Steamu zaznamenáno 173 000 souběžně hrajících hráčů. Žádná jiná budovatelská strategie takového zájmu nedosáhla.
Insane! Thank you for playing https://t.co/Q4PNIS42BK
— MANOR LORDS (@LordsManor) May 16, 2024
Slavic Magic nezastavuje. Navzdory malému týmu přinášejí vývojáři velký patch, který vylepšuje jejich středověkou simulaci Manor Lords. Ta nedávno dorazila do předběžného přístupu a je velkým hitem.
Aktualizace je v současné době v experimentální fázi a řeší jedny z nejzásadnějších problémů, na které si hráči během krátké doby stěžovali. Tvůrci přinášejí nový daňový systém, řeší potíže s obchodováním, omezují nadměrnou konzumaci alkoholu vašimi občany a zvyšují poškození lučištníků.
Zásadní novinkou je nová daň. Jako správce usedlosti a následně měst budete muset odvádět roční královskou daň. Ta se vybírá z pokladny jednou ročně a závisí na počtu vašich občanů. Podle slov autora by daň měla teoreticky mírně trestat špatnou optimalizaci ekonomiky a ztížit hromadění obrovského množství peněz.
Druhou důležitou novinkou je snadnější obchodování mezi vlastními regiony. Už nebude nutné používat barterové/balíčkové stanice. Místo nich můžete používat obchodní stanoviště. Každý typ zboží má nyní přepínač, který zakáže obchodování s ním u vybraných obchodních míst. To je pro případ, že byste chtěli obchodovat jen s určitými regiony. Také se bude dynamicky přizpůsobovat cena.
The story of Manor Lords’ soundtrack begins, as all inspiring tales do, with hunched-over late-night doom scrolling. It was pre-covid, and Pressure Cooker Studios’ composer Daniel Caleb was flicking through reddit posts when a trailer cut through the glare. He’d never heard of Manor Lords before. It looked like a new IP, but already had a huge Reddit following. Caleb loved what he saw. At that point, Pressure Cooker mainly worked on film scores, but both Caleb and fellow composer Elben Schutte had always wanted to eventually move on to bringing their storytelling from cinema to games. Even more so than film, games were the passion. Manor Lords would be perfect for them.
Solid strategy.
Medieval city builder Manor Lords is a smash hit, selling two million copies in just three weeks.
Slavic Magic’s debut game launched on Steam priced $39.99 and straight into PC Game Pass in Early Access form on April 26. On Steam, the game is particularly well-received, with a ‘very positive’ …
Medieval city-building strategy Manor Lords released in early access last month, and already its community has modded in DreamWorks Animation's great green ogre as a playable character. After all, what really is a new PC release without the swift implementation of a Shrek mod?
The mod in question comes from NorskPL, who states: "Shrek is lord, Shrek is life."
As you can see in the image above, this mod replaces the playable character in Manor Lords' third-person mode with that of the ogre.
Medieval city-building strategy Manor Lords released in early access last month, and already its community has modded in DreamWorks Animation's great green ogre as a playable character. After all, what really is a new PC release without the swift implementation of a Shrek mod?
The mod in question comes from NorskPL, who states: "Shrek is lord, Shrek is life."
As you can see in the image above, this mod replaces the playable character in Manor Lords' third-person mode with that of the ogre.
As a lover of medieval history and swords, I was attracted to Manor Lords from the very first time I heard about it. Manor Lords is a city builder strategy game that has you fostering a thriving medieval village and ushering it into a new dawn filled with trade, farming, and - of course - at least one Manor. After picking it up for myself and getting fully into the medieval ambience thanks to some tavern ambience YouTube videos, I was surprised to find that on peaceful difficulty it could actually be considered a cosy game, just like Stardew Valley and similar farming simulators. Manor Lords also has surprising similarities to Cult of the Lamb, so if you're up for something less cult-like but still with lambs involved in one way or another, look no further.
Describing Manor Lords as a city builder is an oversimplification. It's much more than just putting buildings down and making the good numbers go up - over the seasons you can transform a bundle of tents to a thriving village in a thoroughly organic manner, from putting winding roads through the houses and workshops to planning out which of your fields are going to be fallow from year to year. At peaceful difficulty, Manor Lords really is a slow living cosy medieval game, with some valuable additions that make it novel amongst the typical city builder video game genre.
Don't believe me? Watch our video to see all the reasons Manor Lords should be your next go-to cosy game, or at the very least be in consideration - with a couple of caveats.
We’ve been talking a lot about video game mods recently, typically not for happy reasons. There is a spectrum out there when it comes to how developers and publishers react to organic modding communities that spring up around their games. On one end of the spectrum, typically inhabited by larger companies, are those that somehow see mods as a threat to the game to be combatted and tamped down by any means possible. On the other end are the more reasonable folks, those who realize that modding communities represent some of the most passionate fans of their games, and that mods often times make games more attractive for purchase, or extend their gameplay lifecycle.
We’ve recently seen companies like Bandai Namco, The Pokémon Company, and Rockstar go to war with their own modding communities. It’s that larger climate that makes it so refreshing to see the developer behind the latest hit PC game, Manor Lords, go so far as to praise at least one mod for their game.
Manor Lords is a city building game with a third-person camera view. One modding community, Flat2VR, dedicates itself to making non-VR games playable in a VR format. And they did so with Manor Lords.
The community’s Twitter account announced the achievement, saying: “Seven years in development, Manor Lords was the most wish-listed Steam game & released in EA this past week. It has the highest concurrent user counts ever on a city builder. Thankfully, it works perfectly in 6DOF VR with Praydog’s UEVR!” They also confirm that the mod uses M&K, but with Demeo or Little Cities-like motion controls to help players navigate their budding villages and towns.
The short video attached alongside the announcement also shows how this VR mod allows you to do pretty much everything you’d normally do in Manor Lords, including building roads, managing resources, and walking around the streets as the Lord you’ve chosen to embody.
Imagine how the companies I mentioned before might react to something like this. Bandai Namco might just issue takedowns for the mods without explanation. The Pokémon Company would probably just scream “INFRINGEMENT!!!” while doing likewise. Rockstar could issue takedowns over some potential paid expansion pack including VR or some such nonsense.
But if you’re the developer of Manor Lords, your reaction is pretty much, “No shit? That works? Cool!”
To quote some of us from ten years ago: that’s it, that’s the tweet. Or X. Or whatever.
In any case, you will notice that the developer didn’t then follow up with a threat of a takedown, discussions of intellectual property laws, or really any hand-wringing whatsoever. Nope, just an acknowledgement of an awesome mod on the game’s official ExTwitter account.
It sure would be nice if more developers, and the larger companies, realized why this is the perfect reaction to someone making your game better and more attractive to a wider audience. That such enlightenment remains so elusive is a puzzle I have been unable to solve.
Medieval city-building strategy Manor Lords released in early access last month, and already its community has modded in DreamWorks Animation's great green ogre as a playable character. After all, what really is a new PC release without the swift implementation of a Shrek mod?
The mod in question comes from NorskPL, who states: "Shrek is lord, Shrek is life."
As you can see in the image above, this mod replaces the playable character in Manor Lords' third-person mode with that of the ogre.
As a lover of medieval history and swords, I was attracted to Manor Lords from the very first time I heard about it. Manor Lords is a city builder strategy game that has you fostering a thriving medieval village and ushering it into a new dawn filled with trade, farming, and - of course - at least one Manor. After picking it up for myself and getting fully into the medieval ambience thanks to some tavern ambience YouTube videos, I was surprised to find that on peaceful difficulty it could actually be considered a cosy game, just like Stardew Valley and similar farming simulators. Manor Lords also has surprising similarities to Cult of the Lamb, so if you're up for something less cult-like but still with lambs involved in one way or another, look no further.
Describing Manor Lords as a city builder is an oversimplification. It's much more than just putting buildings down and making the good numbers go up - over the seasons you can transform a bundle of tents to a thriving village in a thoroughly organic manner, from putting winding roads through the houses and workshops to planning out which of your fields are going to be fallow from year to year. At peaceful difficulty, Manor Lords really is a slow living cosy medieval game, with some valuable additions that make it novel amongst the typical city builder video game genre.
Don't believe me? Watch our video to see all the reasons Manor Lords should be your next go-to cosy game, or at the very least be in consideration - with a couple of caveats.
We’ve been talking a lot about video game mods recently, typically not for happy reasons. There is a spectrum out there when it comes to how developers and publishers react to organic modding communities that spring up around their games. On one end of the spectrum, typically inhabited by larger companies, are those that somehow see mods as a threat to the game to be combatted and tamped down by any means possible. On the other end are the more reasonable folks, those who realize that modding communities represent some of the most passionate fans of their games, and that mods often times make games more attractive for purchase, or extend their gameplay lifecycle.
We’ve recently seen companies like Bandai Namco, The Pokémon Company, and Rockstar go to war with their own modding communities. It’s that larger climate that makes it so refreshing to see the developer behind the latest hit PC game, Manor Lords, go so far as to praise at least one mod for their game.
Manor Lords is a city building game with a third-person camera view. One modding community, Flat2VR, dedicates itself to making non-VR games playable in a VR format. And they did so with Manor Lords.
The community’s Twitter account announced the achievement, saying: “Seven years in development, Manor Lords was the most wish-listed Steam game & released in EA this past week. It has the highest concurrent user counts ever on a city builder. Thankfully, it works perfectly in 6DOF VR with Praydog’s UEVR!” They also confirm that the mod uses M&K, but with Demeo or Little Cities-like motion controls to help players navigate their budding villages and towns.
The short video attached alongside the announcement also shows how this VR mod allows you to do pretty much everything you’d normally do in Manor Lords, including building roads, managing resources, and walking around the streets as the Lord you’ve chosen to embody.
Imagine how the companies I mentioned before might react to something like this. Bandai Namco might just issue takedowns for the mods without explanation. The Pokémon Company would probably just scream “INFRINGEMENT!!!” while doing likewise. Rockstar could issue takedowns over some potential paid expansion pack including VR or some such nonsense.
But if you’re the developer of Manor Lords, your reaction is pretty much, “No shit? That works? Cool!”
To quote some of us from ten years ago: that’s it, that’s the tweet. Or X. Or whatever.
In any case, you will notice that the developer didn’t then follow up with a threat of a takedown, discussions of intellectual property laws, or really any hand-wringing whatsoever. Nope, just an acknowledgement of an awesome mod on the game’s official ExTwitter account.
It sure would be nice if more developers, and the larger companies, realized why this is the perfect reaction to someone making your game better and more attractive to a wider audience. That such enlightenment remains so elusive is a puzzle I have been unable to solve.
Bullseye.
The first major patch for hit city builder Manor Lords, version 0.7.960, has been revealed by developer Slavic Magic and released for public testing.
While this means the patch isn't officially out yet, those looking to enjoy its wealth of bug fixes and other improvements can now do so at …
Harken to me, serfs! There's a big new patch for Manor Lords now available in beta testing for all players. Developer Greg Styczeń has blogged about it in depth. Yes, this is one of those update changelogs, the ones that keep on scrolling with hypnotic insistence till at last you tear your eyes away and look around and oh hell, it's night and why am I standing over this altar, holding a skewered doll?
Enlarge / This peaceful, pastoral scene actually represents a ton of hard work! (credit: Slavic Magic)
Do you ever look around at modern civilization and boggle at the sheer complexity of it all? Do you ever think about the generations of backbreaking labor needed to turn acres and acres of untamed wilderness into the layers of interconnected systems needed to provide basic necessities—much less luxuries—to both early settlers and their generations of descendants?
All that infrastructure work is much harder to take for granted after playing Manor Lords. The Early Access version of the game—which netted a million Steam sales in its first 24 hours last month—forces you to do a lot of the heavy lifting that many other city builders tend to gloss over. And while there are still a lot of Early Access rough spots, what's already there can make you appreciate just how hard it is to build a functioning society from nothing but raw materials and hard labor.
In many other city builders, you act as something of a detached, bureaucratic god. Lay down some roads, set aside some zoning, and watch as the microscopic masses automatically fill in the details of the housing, commerce, and industry needed to create a functional society.
Steam hit Manor Lords shifted 1m copies in its first 24 hours, publisher Hooded Horse has said.
The medieval city builder/strategy hybrid was always likely to do well, being one of Steam's most-wishlisted games. Last Friday, on the night of its release, the game had more than 156,000 people playing. Last night, it hit a new peak of 173,178.
Writing on social media platform X, Hooded Horse claimed this was the highest ever concurrent player count for any Steam game in the city building genre (or similar). And now, its developer Greg Styczeń has offered a quick rundown of what's next.
Manor Lords developer Greg Styczeń wants your help deciding what he should do about the game's global market supply mechanic.
Addressing the game's considerable fanbase on the official Discord, Styczeń asked for feedback on whether the mechanic – introduced after critics and content creators noted the trade system was "too OP" – should stay or go.
"When press and content creators got the build two weeks ago, they often said that the trade is OP and that it's too cheesy/exploity to just sell one type of good and make your town rich that way," Styczeń said.
This week, everyone's been talking about early access releases again. Why? The headline moment was No Rest for the Wicked developer Moon Studios defending a bumpy early access release by saying, "It's already pretty clear that going with EA is one of the best decisions we could've made." And then unexpectedly it added: Dark Souls 1 could have been better had it had an early access release too - an odd addendum and I'm not sure I agree with it, but OK. The other thing this week was mega-Wishlisted game Manor Lords arriving in early access in, again, an unfinished state. Neither of these things is remarkable. We know how early access releases go by now - we've had them for the past 10 years (god is it really that long?). We know games aren't finished when they arrive, though there's still a part of us that sees a game being sold for full-price-like money and expects a full-price-like experience from it. So around Manor Lords and No Rest for the Wicked, a familiar discussion has resurfaced, of when are - and when aren't - early access releases a good thing?
There are some well-worn arguments here you will have heard before, and undeniably the open development model - which came in at around the same time as the 'take back control from the publishers' crowdfunding movement in 2012-ish - has notable benefits. It's hard to argue against the added income a game makes by launching into early access, with which a developer can finish making a game, without cutting corners. And it's hard to argue against having a huge and readily available QA team to playtest a game and new features, and offer feedback on them. You no longer need to guess what your audience likes: you simply can let them play it and see what they think. A lot of games that go through early access come out better on the other end, and some have been enormous successes, like Baldur's Gate 3 and Hades and Slay the Spire. It's no wonder each of the companies behind those particular games are set on using early access again.
Indeed, when I think about what I played of Manor Lords, early access seems like a great place for it. To my mind, it has some pacing issues and tuning kinks, and bugs - all of which I expected. It's also still without some of the important pieces it needs to be a full experience, and all of that, early access can help with. I actually hope that with the money it earns, a few more developers will join the Manor Lords team. It's been a solo project for several years but some extra people now will help push it down that final stretch. Who knows? Maybe the game will make so much money - there are 3m people with it on their Steam Wishlist after all - Manor Lords will be able to achieve things previously thought out of reach. That's what happened with Baldur's Gate 3, remember - the scope of the game increased because of its early access success.
Tvůrce Manor Lords před vydáním early access fáze upozorňoval, že jde zejména o budovatelskou strategii, kterou doplňují bitvy. Jeho cílem nikdy nebylo vytvořit konkurenci pro sérii Total War. Z toho důvodu si hráči nyní mohou užívat budování středověkých vesniček a měst. Bitvy a dobývání okolních regionů je spíše vedlejším obsahem. To se ale má v budoucnu postupně změnit, protože Slavic Magic má s hrou ambiciózní plány, které přinesou větší zaměření na válku.
Autor mixu Banished, Going Medieval a Mount & Blade má velké plány s implementací prvků, které jsou pro středověk důležité. Jde o hrady, obléhání a obléhací stroje. Na některých věcech už pracoval a testovat je v různých fázích vývoje Manor Lords.
„V tuto chvíli si ještě nejsem jistý, kolik z nich se dostane do hry při oficiálním vydání a kolik jich bude ještě přidáno v rámci předběžného přístupu,“ dodal Greg „Slavic Magic“ Styczeń v rozhovoru pro PC Gamer.
I když bitvy teď nejsou tolik důležité, tak je možné se zúčastnit ohromné bitvy čítající více než 900 lidí, jak můžete vidět ve videu úplně dole. Tak uvidíme, jak bude hra vypadat v nadcházejících měsících.
Manor Lords dorazili 26. 4. 2024 na Steam a jsou dostupné také v PC Game Passu. Titul obsahuje české titulky a koupil si ho více než milion hráčů.
Závěr minulého týdne byl pro uživatele GeForce Now velice zajímavý. Společnost Nvidia mezi podporované hry zařadila hned 16 kousků, včetně nové středověké strategie Manor Lords, Dead Island 2 nebo starších dílů Diabla a StarCraftu.
Díky streamovací službě GeForce Now si můžete zahrát nové i starší hry na slabších počítačích a dalších zařízeních. Stačí, abyste titul vlastnili v podporovaném obchodě. Streamovací je zdarma v základní konfiguraci s omezením na jednu hodinu sezení s reklamami. V nabídce je předplatné Priority za 299 Kč měsíčně s RTX ON a přednostním přístupem na prémiové servery, zatímco členství Ultimate za 599 Kč otevírá hraní v konfiguraci na grafické kartě GeForce RTX 4080, rozlišení až 4K a až 120 snímků za sekundu.
Teď už nové hry, co byly do cloudu přidány:
Greg Styczeń může slavit. Jeho středověká strategie/simulace Manor Lords je velice úspěšná. V předběžném přístupu na Steamu si ji koupil více než milion hráčů. Další se o víkendu pustili do budování své vesnice díky předplatnému Game Pass.
Během víkendu hra na Steamu dosáhla na 173 178 souběžně hrajících hráčů. Očekává se, že v dalších dnech počet prodaných kusů i zájem hráčů poroste. Autor slibuje pravidelné aktualizace ovlivněné zpětnou vazbou od komunity, včetně ladění, vyvážení a opravy chyb.
V early access by Manor Lords měli zůstat asi rok. Verze pro předběžný přístup je plně hratelná a hráčům se velice líbí. Uživatelské recenze jsou velmi kladné (89 % z 17 322 uživatelů hodnotilo hru kladně). Mimochodem, titul obsahuje českou lokalizaci ve formě přeloženého textu od Filipa Ženíška. Ten měl na starost i češtinu pro Cyberpunk 2077.
Později se Manor Lords dostanou na Xbox. Verze pro konzole PlayStation potvrzena nebyla. Pouze vydavatel uvedl, že o tom přemýšlejí.
Since yesterday's launch Manor Lords has already sold over 1 million copies & hit a peak Steam concurrent player count of 170k - highest ever for a city builder (or for other different genres like GSG/4x/colony sim). Congrats @LordsManor, we're honored to serve as your publisher! pic.twitter.com/559uGRp1NO
— Hooded Horse (@HoodedHorseInc) April 27, 2024
Over the past while a few games have had post-launch patches, the exemplars being Starfield and Stardew valley, which have post-launch patches of different kinds and for different reasons. We take some time on the Electronic Wireless Show podcast to talk about this patch of patches, and what it was like in the good ol' days, where a broken game came out and stayed broken, gosh darn it!
Nate isn't here today, which means I can make fun of him for owning fish, or whatever it is he does, but in his stead James steps up with an RGB lighting-themed game where I have to guess what accessories people stuck lights on to turn into gamer accessories. This is because Razer stuck RGB lights on a pandemic mask and are in trouble over it now. Naughty Razer. Plus, we talk about the games we're playing right now, and dish you up some juicy recommendations at the end of the show.
Medieval city builder Manor Lords was Steam's most-wishlisted game prior to release, and has now managed the feat of transmuting that anticipation into broad enthusiasm and very healthy sales. Not too shabby, considering that it's mostly the work of just one person, Grzegorz Styczeń of Slavic Magic, who has hopefully found time to sleep now and then between fielding bug reports and preparing the game's first patches.
Styczeń understandably doesn't have much time for interviews right now - those troublesome archers aren't going to balance themselves - but yesterday I spoke to Tim Bender, CEO of Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse, about how Styczeń is getting on. The answer, apparently, is: pretty good, because Styczeń has a healthy approach to early access development in keeping players close, without quite handing them the wheel.
I don't have a lot of interest in VR these days, but I do have an interest in the beautifully realised miniature doings of your villagers in Manor Lords, the city builder that is currently rather popular on noted purveyor of ye finest interactive entertainments Steam - and which now has unofficial VR support care of Flat2VR and Praydog's UEVR.
Manor Lords developer Slavic Magic, aka Greg Styczeń, has laid out the broad strokes of the game's first proper patch in early access. This follows a boisterous opening weekend that has seen the new city builder top purchase charts on Steam, causing Valve's mighty servers to crumble under the strain like overloaded oxen.
“Given the opportunity, players will become a merciless egg baron and sit chuckling on a throne of shells while medieval Europe cowers beneath their imperious yolk,” is what I assume Soren Jonson once said, and it looks like Manor Lords is proving this timeless adage right once more. Despite shifting over a million units and hitting the highest concurrent player count of any ‘city builder’ on Steam, creator Greg ‘Slavic Magic’ Styczeń is already looking to the future of how the building game handles trade.
Historical strategy sim Manor Lords - which budding feudal despot Nic Reuben has deemed "a sturdy and immersive builder that feels incomplete yet alive with promise" - is now available on Steam, the Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store and GOG. It was Steam's most wishlisted game before launch, and it's so popular right now that Steam's servers are struggling to keep up: there's an official developer post on the game's Steam forum warning that "the store is overwhelmed from all the people buying, it may take a couple tries for a bit while things calm down".
While playing Manor Lords for review, I kept making mental notes to spend time watching the individual routes its villagers and beasts take each day. It’s one of those interestingly granular games that actually becomes more so by remaining a bit mysterious in ways I’m sure will annoy some, so I reasoned some people-watching would be illuminating. And by people, I mean oxen.
Manor Lords has surpassed 3m wishlists on Steam ahead of its release later this week.
The medieval city-building strategy game has been top of the most wishlisted games on Steam for some time, but has continued to build in popularity to pass yet another a major milestone.
After the demo released in 2022, the game received 500k wishlists, which jumped to 2m wishlists after its 26th April release date was announced. Seven days ahead of its launch, it hit 2.5m wishlists - and now it's added another 500k on top of that.
While Manor Lords may at first glance seem similar to the Total War series, its developer has said the upcoming strategy game should not be seen as a competitor.
Writing on Steam, Manor Lords developer Greg laid out a list of things the game is not. Top of this list are the very plain to see words: Manor Lords is not a Total War competitor.
Rather, developer Slavic Magic said its upcoming game is a "city builder with battles".
Welcome to Next Week on Xbox! This weekly feature highlights all the games arriving soon on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows, and Game Pass. Discover more about these forthcoming titles below and explore their profiles for additional information (note that release dates are subject to change). Let’s dive in!
Eiyden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes – April 23
Game Pass
Available on day one with Game Pass! Gather your allies for Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, the grand JRPG adventure. Assemble your 6-party team from a cast of over a hundred heroes and shape your destiny in this lush, hand-crafted 2.5D world brimming with war, intrigue, and magic. Manage your town of vibrant characters, play delightful mini-games, and prepare for an unforgettable narrative of boundless charm.
Hammerwatch II – April 23
Smart Delivery
Gather your heroes and journey beyond the dungeons of Castle Hammerwatch to explore a pixelated world like never before. Adventure alone or gather your party to aid King Roland’s resistance, all while helping villagers along the way. Battle beasts, finish off hordes of the undead, and face the forces of evil in this epic ode to classic ARPGs.
Lunar Lander Beyond – April 23
Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery
As a newly appointed captain of the Pegasus corporation, you must guide a roster of colorful pilots, eclectic advisors, and state-of-the-art landers through a taxing series of missions. Deliver cargo, retrieve resources, and rescue stranded pilots as you navigate a mysterious universe of moons and planets.
Tales of Kenzera: Zau – April 23
Optimized for Xbox Series X|S
Adventure into the beautiful and treacherous lands of Kenzera as Zau, a young shaman who bargains with the God of death to bring his Baba back from darkness. With your cosmic powers and untried courage, advance into unknown mythological lands in this metroidvania title. Will you embrace the dance of the shaman?
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants – April 23
Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery / Xbox Play Anywhere
Re-experience the 2017 arcade classic with three additional stages and six additional boss battles! Take control of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, or Raphael in this classic beat ‘em up inspired by the cult favorite Turtles in Time. Play with your friends through local co-op and dominate the Foot Clan to foil the Shredder’s maniacal plan.
Aery – Cyber City – April 23
Xbox One X Enhanced
Play a little bird on its journey to find a home after losing its dear friend. You will discover unknown, giant, and beautiful environments and you will be able to enjoy the feeling of flying while exploring a whole world filled with beauty and little secrets.
Farm Tycoon – April 24
Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery
Expand your farm business, produce cheap and sell your products at high prices. Control the land cultivation process, select the best employees, buy the most appropriate farm equipment, raise livestock, and process the harvested crops. Manage your own farm in the game Farm Tycoon!
Hidden Cats in New York – April 24
Come and visit the famous Big Apple for a brand new cat-spotting adventure! Relax and look around the city, and with enough patience, find over 700 feline friends! The city only gets more vibrant the more cats you find!
Insurmountable – April 24
Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery
An adventure roguelike with permadeath where you must overcome huge mountains. Thanks to the procedurally created environment, no two climbs are the same. Keep your climber alive by always making sure that your vital values don’t get into the critical range. This is made more difficult by a dynamic weather system, day/night changes, and a multitude of randomly generated events.
A distinctive game that recreates Moscow Metro and authentic train controls. 24 stations, various tunnels, and items within them. The game uses modern technologies to show the full experience of Russian capital’s subway — stations on this line will reflect the changes of their era.
Ratyrinth – April 24
Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery
Take the role of a nimble rodent separated from his family and lost in a frightening forest filled with fearsome foes! Ratyrinth is a side-scrolling precision platformer with brainteasing level design and retro presentation. Run, jump, cling to walls, swim and climb through mazelike stages presented in minimalistic 2-tone style with fluid pixel art animation.
Another Crab’s Treasure – April 25
Game Pass / Xbox Play Anywhere
Available on day one with Game Pass! A soulslike adventure set in a crumbling underwater world. As Kril the hermit crab, you’ll need to wear the trash around you as shells to withstand attacks from enemies many times your size. Embark on an epic treasure hunt to buy back your repossessed shell and discover the dark secrets behind the polluted ocean.
Assault Suit Leynos 2 S-Tribute – April 25
Developed by Masaya in 1997, this robot action game gained popularity at the time thanks to its customizable features, incredible robots, engaging storyline, and its position as the next installment in the Leynos series. The Saturn Tribute version includes new features like Rewind, Quick Save & Load, and Tips functions for smoother gameplay. You can also get power-ups with your Assault Suit.
Manor Lords (Game Preview) (PC) – April 26
Game Pass
Available on day one with Game Pass! Manor Lords is a medieval strategy game featuring in-depth city building, large-scale tactical battles and complex economic and social simulations. Rule your lands as a medieval lord — the seasons pass, the weather changes and cities rise and fall.
Sand Land – April 26
Optimized for Xbox Series X|S
In this action RPG, players will find a nostalgic and heartwarming world created by Akira Toriyama where you’ll meet the Fiend Prince Beelzebub, his chaperone Thief, and the fearless Sheriff Rao, and follow the team on an extraordinary adventure in search of the Legendary Spring hidden in the desert. The end is only the beginning, as beyond this arid ground lies a new realm to explore.
TopSpin 2K25 – April 26
Optimized for Xbox Series X|S
Travel the world as an up-and-coming pro, go toe-to-toe with the biggest names in tennis, and take Centre Court at Wimbledon, Roland-Garros, the US Open, and the Australian Open as you strive to become a Grand Slam Champion in the MyCareer mode. Or choose from over 24 playable pros and unleash their explosive power and clever finesse against other players locally or online.
Zombies, Aliens, and Guns – April 26
Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery
Aliens have attacked the planet, and they’re turning innocent people into mindless zombies. It won’t be long before the invaders have destroyed the planet unless somebody with guns stands in their way. That’s where you come in! Lead a cadre of soldiers who are ready to take down every last enemy in their path.
The post Next Week on Xbox: New Games for April 22 to 26 appeared first on Xbox Wire.
How do you upgrade your Manor Lords burgage plots? Burgage Plots are the name for houses and their surrounding land in Manor Lords, and you want the most top notch properties available if you’re going to want more families to move into the area. Upgraded burgage plots can also provide additional production areas or farms, as residents can tend to chicken coops or goat sheds in their back yard.
Manor Lords is all about the careful division of resources, the successful management of your residents, and the formation of strong armies - be it for offense or defense, and our Manor Lords beginner’s guide can help you get started. As you progress through the strategy game, one of the most precious resources of all is healthy people, and more people will only move in when you have suitable living quarters, or burgage plots, for them.
Wondering how to gain influence in Manor Lords? If you're just getting started in Manor Lords, there's a lot to take into consideration. You've got to keep your families happy, fed, and watered, as well as maximizing your region's production, and making sure your army is in place should any barons come knocking. That's all without thinking of the much bigger picture.
Speaking of, if you've spent any time on the 'map' tab then you'll see you occupy one of several regions in the area of this city-builder game. If you hover over any of the other regions in Manor Lords, you'll need high standing influence or King's Favor to move into other territories. So, how do you gain influence in Manor Lords?
How do you increase your settlement level in Manor Lords? The strategy game throws a lot at you at the beginning, so it's not always clear or easy to know where to start. It's good to get to grips with the basics, and that includes the smooth running of your settlement, and how to increase settlement levels to attract more families and earn development points.
Increasing your settlement level doesn't only lead to better and bigger upgrades for you and your villagers, it also provides much needed influence. This is by far the easiest way to go about raising your influence in Manor Lords in the early stages of the strategy game. So, here's how to increase your settlement level in Manor Lords.
Imagine having the most wishlisted game on all of Steam. Everyone's waiting to get a hold of what you've been buildng - there must be a mix of anticipation, pressure, and nerves rolling around your brain. Now imagine being in that situation if you're a solo developer. This is what's going on with Manor Lords, as the medieval strategy sim just hit another big milestone with mere days until it launches.
While Manor Lords may at first glance seem similar to the Total War series, its developer has said the upcoming strategy game should not be seen as a competitor.
Writing on Steam, Manor Lords developer Greg laid out a list of things the game is not. Top of this list are the very plain to see words: Manor Lords is not a Total War competitor.
Rather, developer Slavic Magic said its upcoming game is a "city builder with battles".
Xbox has announced the next wave of games coming to Game Pass in late April.
It begins today with the release of Harold Halibut across cloud, PC and Xbox Series X/S. "A visually arresting, warm-hearted tale of a gofer searching for his purpose, Harold Halibut flounders amongst endless fetch-quests and waffle," reads our Eurogamer Harold Halibut review.
Then later in the month the subscription service will receive the likes of Manor Lords on PC (26th April), and the day one releases Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes (23rd April) and Another Crab's Treasure (25th April).
Manor Lords is one of the most popular city-builders we’ve had in a long time, and that’s for good reason. It gives you liberty and tools to live out your medieval landlord fantasy. However, it’s still a rough gem, and there are other fiefs you can manage while this one’s being polished. Here is our list of the top ten best games like Manor Lords.
Farthest Frontier is, in a way, Manor Lord’s older brother. It has almost the same features, and it’s been in early access for a while now, making its way from being a buggy mess to a very playable medieval city-builder you can sink hundreds of hours into. It’s also one of the rare entries on this list with actual combat, but the UI makes it less immersive.
Slavic Magic, the sole creator behind anticipated (sub genres forthcoming) strategy game Manor Lords, has written a transparent and refreshingly to-the-point blog post on Steam addressing both expectations and future updates. Specifically, Slavic Magic aka Greg Manor Lords has taken time to outline exactly what his game - currently the most wishlisted on Steam, ahead of Hades 2 - isn’t.
I remain the least qualified person alive to appraise Manor Lords an actual strategy game – my village stewardship is proving inept, even by medieval posho standards – but I have delayed economic and social ruin long enough to know it runs well on the Steam Deck. Just as it’s smooth low-end performer on desktops, Manor Lords can easily keep its head above 30fps in handheld mode, and that’s usually more like 40-45fps with the right visual settings.
Still, there’s scope for it to become a much more Deck-friendly game, if not by its April 26th release date then hopefully at least during its early access phase. Faster performance would be nice, sure, but what this citybuilder-meets-RTS-battler really needs for optimal portability is a more refined set of controls.
My most recent experiences with performance-testing strategy games have been defined by miserable sluggishness and dental drama, so it’s been a relief to find that citybuilding/RTS hybrid Manor Lords is set to launch in a relatively fine state. As an early access game, no less.
Having dug into the latest build’s GPU performance and graphics settings, I have found a few loose strands of technical flax that Manor Lords could do with snipping away. Yet it’s generally in good shape, both for early access and a solo developer project, successfully balancing strong visuals with relatively light hardware demands that should help it run on older PCs (or handhelds like the Steam Deck). Several hours in, the ugliest things I’ve seen are my road layouts.
Launch is coming.
As Manor Lords prepares to finally make its way to the public, developer Slavic Magic has stepped in to make sure fans’ expectations are in check.
The one-person studio has been painstakingly crafting the medieval city builder for the last few years, and the PC community has taken notice. The promise …
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