The medieval building title Manor Lords is probably one of the most anticipated titles of its genre for the year 2023. One of the outstanding features apart from the convincing gameplay and the fantastic graphics is the historical accuracy.
The latter goes back to the conviction of the developer Greg Styczen and has now led to a decision on his part, which he announced on Twitter. According to him, many players had wanted a city guard system after the playtest some time ago. He promptly implemented it – and deleted it again.
link to Twitter content
After several days of work, he sat before the job was done, but research literally brought the structure down: Although painful, the feature is not historically verifiable. That’s why I’m removing it.
Mixed reactions
Under the developer’s post, there is a mixed picture of opinion. Most can understand the decision, but some feel that such a system could well be included – at least as an optional component.
link to Twitter content
But he refuses this because it would make balancing very difficult. Greg Styczen addresses many other points. In the course of the thread, true shop talk between history fans unfolds, because apparently there were city guards in some places in medieval Europe. But not across the board Holy Roman Empire of the German Nationwithin whose borders we build cities in Manor Lords.
Finally, Styczen summarizes his route for further development as follows:
I like gamification and simplifying ideas. However, if something is definitely wrong, I will remove it. There are so many accurate, historically proven ideas that can be turned into fun gameplay.
where are you standing Do you think the move is overkill or do you agree with the Manor Lords developer’s thinking? Should games be so strict about historical accuracy? Or is a more generous approach more effective for titles like Manor Lords, which want to be as precise as possible – especially when the content has already been built? Tell us what you think about it in the comments!
