What you need to know
- Manor Lords, the ambitious medieval city-building game being developed by solo dev Greg Styczeń, launched in Early Access on PC via Steam, GOG, and the Microsoft Store last month to critical acclaim.
- Now, just three weeks after release, the game has sold two million copies according to publisher Hooded Horse.
- The amount of people who have played the game is likely considerably higher, as it’s available on PC Game Pass (and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, by extension).
- This news comes a few days after the game’s first major patch entered beta testing. It aims to make archers more effective in battle, resolve some issues with Trading Post and Marketplace logistics, slow down the rate at which the Baron (your opponent) claims land on the map, and more.
Manor Lords — the ambitious medieval city-builder created entirely by Slavic Magic solo developer Greg Styczeń over the course of seven years — finally launched on PC in Early Access last month, and seeing as the game was the most wishlisted title on Steam for some time, I wasn’t shocked to see it catapult to the top of the platform with 170,000 concurrent players at release. What does surprise me, though, is that the game has officially sold over two million copies across Steam, GOG, and the Microsoft Store just three weeks post-launch, which is an amazing milestone for an indie game made by one person.
Publisher Hooded Horse revealed the news in a press release, celebrating the game’s impressive success and sharing a statement from CEO Tim Bender: “It’s been wonderful to see so many players give Manor Lords a try,” he said. “We had some pretty optimistic expectations and even some wild hopes, but reaching two million copies on Manor Lords so quickly has exceeded even those.”
Something to keep in mind is that this statistic specifically refers to sales of the game, not the total number of players that have tried it out since it launched. That amount is likely much higher, as Manor Lords is playable on Microsoft’s buffet-style PC Game Pass service (and also Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, by extension).
Notably, this announcement also comes a few days after beta testing for Manor Lords’ first patch went live on Steam. The update aims to fix a large number of issues players have had with the launch build of the game, including the Baron claiming regions of the map too quickly, “clogged” Trading Posts, underwhelming archer damage, problems affecting Marketplace supply, overly punishing over/undersupply trading mechanics, and more.
These were some of the only major problems I had with the game when I reviewed it in the weeks leading up to its release date, so I’m glad to see that they’re being addressed quickly. The issues with Marketplace supply in particular can get pretty frustrating in large cities where you need lots of food and clothing variety to upgrade homes and keep your serfs happy, so I’m looking forward to fixes for those the most.
I didn’t have to deal with weak archers since the nerf to them was a last-minute decision at launch, but from what I’ve seen, they do seem pretty useless compared to other units you can build an army with. Hopefully they’ll be far more effective in battle once the update is pushed to the live game.
Overall, it’s awesome to see Manor Lords do so well thus far, and its future looks bright, too. According to the game’s release date trailer as well as an Xbox Wire blog post from Microsoft, the planned Xbox release isn’t too far off, with Microsoft stating that it’ll come to its consoles “shortly after” its PC launch in April. Additionally, the game is expected to remain in Early Access for the next year or so, during which time Greg Styczeń will continue to polish the game and add new features like a full diplomacy system.
Sadly, the game’s launch sale that knocked its price down 25% to $29.99 (from $39.99) ended on May 10, but CDKeys actually has an even better deal you can take advantage of to get a Steam key for the game for just $21.39. Of course, you can also play Manor Lords without buying it permanently if you’re a PC Game Pass or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriber.
