isn't content to just be an average, everyday city-builder, and the game's commitment to doing something unique goes beyond its central concept. The obvious thing that makes different from other games in the genre is its blend of tactical battles into the mix, which gives it an extra dose of appeal. This isn't the only feature that's hard to find elsewhere, however, and another fairly unique addition also contributes to making its medieval settlements feel more like real places with real people.
The main satisfaction of playing city-builders lies in seeing a community rise from humble origins to a prosperous metropolis, with the rewards lying in big numbers and a pleasant cityscape to look at. The element of spectating, however, can often be somewhat anemic. The passing of decades has seen the genre progress from the flat overhead view of the original to isometric and eventually 3D perspectives that allow for more depth, but when it comes to seeing what a city might look like from the perspective of an inhabitant, the options usually remain limited.
addresses the desire to truly experience a medieval city creation with the inclusion of a visit mode, which makes it possible to wander around the streets of a town and see how the layout feels on the ground level. The level of detail found in the game helps this feel like more than a facade, as exhibited in a clip available from Wulgarny Gracz on X (formerly Twitter). In it, a lord wanders through streets filled with the bustle of civilians and livestock, with smoke from fires rising into the sky and windmills turning on the horizon.
Visit mode doesn't comprise any robust gameplay elements – there's no interacting with townsfolk NPCs one-on-one, for example – but it doesn't need to in order to serve its purpose well. It's a perfectly lively look at the kind of medieval setting that's often portrayed unfairly in media, showing that there's more than just drab squalor to be found in a rustic setting. Just how beautiful a town is will depend on how it's built and managed, of course, which is what should make the process and payoff so rewarding.
isn't the first game to try something of this nature, but it's definitely a more impressive implementation than what can be found in most city-builder titles. The games, arguably the pre-eminent modern standards for the genre, haven't progressed past basic first-person viewpoint options principally intended for taking photos. has featured driving modes in the past, but games with the feature have lacked the busy populations of the streets in Manor Lords, and the once-popular series has been dormant for nearly a decade now.
The games have robust modding scenes, so despite some fundamental limitations, options like
The website gametalkz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
There's a lot to enjoy in the base version of , but one particular feature that didn't show up until DLC definitely should have been included for free. has always had a somewhat contentious space in the franchise, and a big part of it is a feeling that the game falls into a one step forward, two steps back problem. Enhanced gunplay and settlement building are just a couple of the significant new attractions, but missing roleplaying elements and fewer narrative complexities can be disappointing compared to prior titles.
's long-awaited next-gen update has now refreshed the game on both the Xbox Series X/S and the PlayStation 5, but it's still a better game on the former option thanks to one huge difference between the versions. Ever since first making its way to consoles with, the post-apocalyptic RPG series has had plenty of struggles with bugs and performance issues showing up in every game to varying degrees. The next-gen update does fix some key problems that have persisted in the game since launch, even if it introduces some of its own.
PlayStation Plus is getting some exciting new additions in May, allowing subscribers to pick up a variety of games and keep them as long as a subscription is active. A small selection of rotating monthly titles is available to download across all three tiers of the service, which offer varying degrees of benefits for different price points. On the more costly Extra and Premium tiers, May will also bring new entries to a more permanent catalog that consistently adds more games than it loses.
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.
The new is an interesting addition to , but more than anything, it's a reminder that one older game in franchise deserves to have a proper comeback. Although the release model of has long relied on extensive amounts of expansion packs, the series also spent much of its lifespan spinning things off into proper side games. Although this could sometimes get very far from the original concept (like in ), the franchise also had its fair share of games that fulfilled core concepts in their own interesting ways.
“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.
Based on rumors so far, the Nintendo Switch 2 seems to be mostly focused on keeping what people love about the Switch and improving on it, but a new report indicates that one iconic element of the system could be going away with its successor. The long wait for news on the console has been full of ups and downs, dating back to the time when a Switch Pro was expected before a new system entirely. More recently, a presumed 2024 date seemed to slip out the window in favor of a 2025 release, making the wait even longer.
After its recent release into Early Access, many Manor Lords players are reporting that the game has a glitch involving their villagers choosing to remain homeless. With Manor Lords fresh out the door into Early Access, players are naturally going to find a few bugs here and there, although this particular issue is frustrating gamers at the moment.
In the lead up to its launch, it was pretty clear that medieval city building RTS title Manor Lords was generating a fair bit of excitement, and in the immediate aftermath of its recent early access release, that’s become doubly clear.
Navigating the world of isn't that tricky as a whole, but one element that's easy to get tripped up on is the game's approach to relationships. makes a major departure from both the original and by making relationship progress with party members a central part of the game, with the ultimate payoff lying in a number of potential dates at the Gold Saucer. Although the basic thrust of the system is clear enough, some key aspects aren't actually revealed until after the credits roll.
might not look like a game that would have much of an emphasis on the story at first glance, but by the time it reaches the ending, it proves that its narrative ambitions are greater than might be expected. As an unusual twist on the soulslike genre, packs intense fights and a healthy dose of platforming into a package that's more charming than most of its peers. Although the framing might seem like it wouldn't dwell in the grim, quiet corners that most soulslike games frequent, the story ends up having some serious weight.
Playing through to the credits in can take a while, but anyone particularly enraptured with the game might want to keep the adventure going after the ending. tells the story of a futuristic soldier named Eve working to retake a ruined Earth, a task that requires fighting plenty of hostile creatures with uniquely challenging attacks to parry and overcome. It can be tempting to rush through to keep the focus on the action, but there's also an appeal in ferreting out secrets in its harsh world.