Manor Lords is currently the great hope for fans of building games. On Steam, the medieval simulation has secured the top spot among the most wished-for games, and it is also highly rated on Twitch.
What game are we talking about? Manor Lords is a medieval building game being developed by the solo developer Slavic Magic. The simulation promises detailed city building, massive battles, and complex economic and social systems. The whole thing is to be presented in quite impressive graphics – especially for a solo project.
These factors make Manor Lords currently the most wished-for game on Steam – even ahead of the highly anticipated Hades 2. According to publisher Hooded Horse, a whopping 2.5 million people have the game on their wishlists (via X).
From April 26, 2024, PC players can finally make their own judgment, as Manor Lords will officially launch into Early Access then. An Xbox release is expected to follow at a later date. However, several streamers have been eagerly playing since April 12 – led by two familiar faces.
The verdict from the GameStar colleagues on Manor Lords is: “So far, it lives up to the hype.”
A Success on Twitch Even Before Release
Who are the streamers? Looking at the past 7 days since Manor Lords was made available for content creators, the most viewed streamers of the game are two Germans: Gronkh and Maurice Weber. Manor Lords itself holds the 3rd place in the “Trending Games” (via SullyGnome).
Maurice is a talent in the Webedia network, which includes MeinMMO, GameStar, and GamePro.
For Gronkh, this is quite an achievement, as he has only played the game in one stream for about 8 hours – yet he has gathered so many fans that he is ahead in both average viewers and watch time.
The streaming veteran regularly shows that he can also compete internationally with new releases – most recently with the surprise hit Palworld.
However, looking at the numbers for the past 3 days, the two have been pushed out – neither Maurice nor Gronkh played Manor Lords during this time. Only the streamer JenNyan still represents the German scene in the top-10 (via SullyGnome).
“It’s almost as if the entire civilization depends on oxen”
What does Gronkh say about the game? He seemed to enjoy the medieval simulation, but he discontinued playing rather quickly when he lost two of his oxen in a fire. According to the streamer, they are still much too much of a bottleneck in the game: Without the livestock, you can’t do anything at all.
“It’s almost as if the entire civilization depends on oxen,” Gronkh complains, “but they die left and right.” (via Gronkh.tv)
“An exceptional building game”
What does Maurice say? He is clearly taken by Manor Lords. No other game has he shown more on Twitch in the last month (via SullyGnome). Already in advance, he had raved about the building game. In his detailed test stream on April 14, he summarized: “An exceptional building game.”
He has now played it for 30 hours and had a lot of fun with it, according to Maurice. However, he also warns that one wouldn’t be doing Manor Lords any favors by overestimating it. At this point, it is not the “ultimate building game.”
As a drawback, the colleague points out especially the late game, as there simply isn’t enough content at the moment. Maurice currently feels the long-term motivation is still lacking.
However, he also praises several factors that no other building game would offer. In particular, he was impressed by the construction style: You really cannot emphasize this enough. “In no other game can you build such a beautiful settlement,” raves Maurice.
Now it remains to be seen whether he can fight his way back into the top 3 “Manor Lord” streamers over the weekend. During the week, Maurice apparently got a bit distracted: First, he had to try out Frostpunk 2, and then he was also unexpectedly awarded the Player of the Year at the German Computer Game Awards (via GameStar).
That a simulation like Manor Lords is particularly well received by German-speaking audiences seems to once again confirm an old cliché: Germans simply love to work hard in their video games. The statistics recently published by the space MMO Star Citizen also suggest this:
