‘Manor Lords’ Playercount Explodes As Steam’s Newest Surprise Megahit

Manor Lords? Manor Lords. The biggest games on Steam lately seem to come from the most random of places, and that’s certainly the case for Manor Lords, the medieval RTS that’s just hit early access, and has seen its playercount erupt immediately thereafter.

Manor Lords’ claim to fame is being “hand crafted by a solo developer,” Greg Styczeń, and the game was previously funded in part through Patreon. Its players are loving it.

Checking the charts, Manor Lords hit 100,000 concurrent Steam players just hours after launch. It’s all time peak was 170,082 players a day ago, but it’s now 10 AM ET and it’s already at 164,484 at the time of this writing. Probably by the time you’re reading this article it will be heading north toward 200,000.

It’s the #1 top-selling game on the service right now, and like so many other recent hits, it is not a $70 premium game, but a $40 title on sale for $30 at launch here.

Reviews are “Very Positive” on Steam right now, 87% positive in fact, indicating that it’s not just a lot of players playing, it’s a lot of satisfied players playing, as the game delivers what they were hoping, a fun RTS experience in an age when that genre is simply not what it once was. Here’s how Manor Lords is described by the developer:

“Manor Lords aims to provide a gridless, organic city-building experience with full freedom of placement and rotation, but utilizing snapping tools to make the planning more comfortable. The building mechanic is motivated by the growth of real medieval towns and villages, where major trade routes and landscape often influenced how the settlement shaped and developed.”

I was just about to write about how Styczeń made the game in Unreal Engine, and sure enough, two hours ago Epic just posted an interview with him about his use of the engine to make this work as a solo dev. Here’s what he says about that:

“Now that I’ve sat with the engine for about seven years, I can’t imagine writing my own engine. Not only is there so much to think about, but the world constantly changes, and we also worry about the driver compatibility of whatever new card comes out and the implementation of every type of AI upscaling tech, different stores, SDKs, etc. Honestly, I don’t know how people do it!”

Styczeń was also the recipient of a “MegaGrant” from Epic, where the company funds smaller developers to make games in Unreal. He says it let him quit his day job and focus full-time on development, while hiring additional freelance artists to help with things.

The game looks excellent especially for what is nearly a one-man show. I am curious just to see how big it will get, and I will keep an eye on those player charts.

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