After seven years of working on his own game, the father of Manor Lords wants to make sure the expectations match the reality…
The release of Manor Lords is just around the corner. The title comes with a level of hype that a solo developer rarely faces. Greg Styczeń was shocked to learn that Manor Lords is the most requested game on Steam based on the number of wishlists. That’s why he wanted to remind the community what to expect from the title. You don’t want users to have wrong expectations and be disappointed with the game. Whoever buys it should buy it for what it is and with the knowledge of what it can become in the future.
Manor Lords creator reminds us this game is “not that”
Greg says he wants to clear things up before Early Access starts on April 26th. He posted the following message on Steam: “Manor Lords is not a Total War competitor. It’s a city builder with battles. Yes, battles are there, but not as huge or as frequent as some of you might expect. The majority of gameplay is focused on city building and management. […] The map has regions, but you won’t be able to conquer the whole [of] Europe, nor have marriages or anything like that. The game is designed to play at a lot smaller scale.” – he reminded the fans.
The developer also reminded us that its game bears no resemblance to RPGs or competitive RTSs, genres it has also been associated with.
“This results mostly in a more of a relaxed experience, with high intensity moments spicing up atmospheric city building rather than the game being at high intensity all the time.” – he explained. Greg also commented on the Early Access launch situation: “Yes, it must be disappointing, but I think it’s the right choice. It’s my first serious game and not only some stuff is still unfinished, but I bet you guys will ask me to change some things you don’t necessarily like.”
It is commendable that a developer who has worked on his own title for seven years is not blinded by the idea of increasing the number of copies sold. Manor Lords doesn’t try to heighten fan expectations. It looks great as a city-building game with some strategy or combat aspects. However, it can only disappoint if we expect something else from it.
The big difference in this case is that, since it is an independent title, there may be more uncertain users compared to before.
Before the early access launch, the developer put the game in the hands of content creators, for example. Not only did this give us first-hand knowledge of whether the title lived up to expectations. But also that some errors have already been discovered and corrected. Manor Lords will be available on both Steam and Game Pass. Although it will be ported to Xbox consoles, the PC version is exclusive for now.
Source: PC Gamer
