Developer Greg Styczeń has responded to this, but for some reason we get the feeling that the head of another game development studio just wanted to use the whole thing to get his project talked about…

Arthur Bruno, CEO of Crate Entertainment, is also working on a city-building game called Farthest Frontier (also in Early Access). Manor Lords is in the same genre and is set in the Middle Ages. Bruno told PCGamer that he doesn’t like the fact that people think his studio has 60 people (it’s actually only 7) and they’re all working on Farthest Frontier and it’s very slow, while Manor Lords is supposedly one person and the roster reflects that, while he thinks the team on Manor Lords is bigger than theirs.

Manor Lords has several 3D artists, animators, illustrators, concept artists, historical consultants, writers, and two “extra programmers” in the credits. Tim Bender, the CEO of Hooded Horse (the company that publishes Manor Lords), said the game is being worked on by “one developer and contractors,” with Styczeń as the main man, and has brought in outside help. He started working on the game part-time as a hobby, and after launching a Patreon in 2020 and receiving funding from Epic Megagrant in 2021, he began outsourcing work to others.

"I'm going to start telling people I'm a solo dev that's just being helped out by a number of employees" says FF developer, it's a fair criticism and I get it, but I think he doesn't understand that if I quit, it's game over, no more ML. If he quits his studio, nothing changes.

— MANOR LORDS (@LordsManor) May 4, 2024

Bruno jokingly said that he would call himself a solo developer with a few employees helping him. Styczeń responded on Twitter. He says it’s a fair criticism and he understands it, but I don’t think he understands that if he quits, the game is dead and Manor Lords will cease to exist, whereas if Bruno quits his studio, nothing would change. (He also got a negative review on Steam for not updating Farthest Frontier for two weeks, even though it had a major update at the time…)

I want to address some devs being angry that I call myself a solo dev even though my credits are so long. I agree! Kind of. I face a huge pressure to grow and hire and it's slowly happening. But also, THIS is the "mocap department". My best friends in child photography studio. https://t.co/fOLZtLEJWg

— MANOR LORDS (@LordsManor) May 4, 2024

Styczeń then went on to talk about how he agrees that some developers are angry because they see themselves as solo developers when the roster is long, but there’s a lot of pressure on them to grow, but it’s happening slowly. And his motion digitization class is nothing more than his best friends’ kids’ photography studio. It also shows how small he started…

Source: PCGamer, Epic Games