Manor Lords

Well, I really like the game and its design, but it's been out for over a year now and still hasn't seen any major updates. Most of the features are currently unavailable, and there just isn't much to do after about 25-30 hours of play. Updates are coming out painfully slow and unfortunately, I'm worried people might forget about this game soon. I really wish I could give it a thumbs up, but right now, I wouldn't recommend it. Maybe I'll change that later.

Too early to say. Organic house/marketplace plot building, overall mood, fantastic graphics, and it running okay. Huge pluses, but you know what? Last time I checked, we don't even have stone walls and the selection of buildings is pitiful, same with passive policies (only 2 now) that should not take long to code in... so content-wise inferior to anything and everything else.

As cool as this game is i set it down for more than a year in its "early access" state, came back and literally nothing is different. It still has all its bugs, and absoulutely no new content has been added from what i can tell. The majority of the development tree and things on screen say "disabled (early access)" and im beginning to wonder if that will ever change.

Great game for the first 10 hours. Then you start to run into really annoying bugs that have been there for at least a year now and devs haven't done anything. Not playing anymore. after 4 hours of playing a session I randomly get "You have been deafeted for absolutely no reason everything was going great. Looked it up and there are many posts of that dating back to 2023... this bug has led me to create this review. Many other buts in this game too. It was a great game the first few hours of play time... I really wanted to like it but this bug has done it.

MANOR LORDS IS DEAD I see a clear pattern here that tells me Manor Lords is now dead: an enthusiast and his team are working on it, led by a perfectionist who both gets lost in the details and reaches for the stars. Manor Lords launched in Early Access, and instead of focusing on finishing the game, they had to upgrade to UE5 first – the best games aren’t beautiful, they work! The game was a huge financial success, but development has barely moved forward. The last update was a hotfix in January 2025 – six months ago. Since then, all we've seen are discounts. No matter how much money gets poured into the game now, the bulk of the revenue has already been made. The developers know this too. And so, just like with KSP2, the game will slowly be put to sleep – and we’re right in the middle of it. Everywhere in the game, you can see glimpses of ambitious ideas, the broad scope it once promised. That was surely part of the Early Access strategy: to boost sales. But when I look at what’s happened over more than a year, it feels like the game might be finished by 2038. And before they waste that much money, they’d rather pull the plug and leave it as-is – just like they did with KSP2. I’m sad and disappointed, because as always, it’s money that ruined it.

The Game is not bad but needs more updates and boring fast .It needs more content and we are rarely getting any

It was overpriced at 30$ and now its 40. Such an over-hyped game that most people play for 10 hours max.

17 months since the release and 7 months since last update. This is not good for a game that sold very well on early access. Extremely promising at first but the lack of recent update is worrying me. Might change review afterward.

Manor lords is not really a game at this point. It is more like... a concept of a game. Why I didn't like it: - Not much to do, build a city, maybe train an army to fight, not really fleshed out. - Confusing systems. How does farming actually work? What is a good way to spread out towns? What does anything really do? There are little to no tutorials in the game. (And no, I refuse to look to outside sources to learn how to play the game I payed for.) - Not finished... very unfinished at all levels. This is more of a got what I paid for, but, beware, it is very undercooked at the moment. - Lack of identity. When playing this game I could never really figure out what it was trying to be. If its trying to be a city builder, there are other, more polished ones that are far better. If its a colony/city management game, Anno is a much more enjoyable experience. And if its trying to be a total war++ type of game, well..... maybe it will get there? What it feels like, atleast to me in the moment, is that Manor Lords is trying to find a niche in the center, bridging all three of those genres. Which, in my opinion is a great idea! It gives importance to the cities we make -- the hours spent pouring over, designing a beautiful, and maybe efficient city -- when we have to defend them from invading enemies. However, at the moment the game falls short on all three fronts. I think Manor Lords could be an amazing game. Just not yet, and I will happily change my review, if, or when it becomes the game I hope it will be.

As an early access title this game had so much promise. Unfortunately the Dev seems to have lost the plot. The game looks amazing and is fun to play with some great features. Yes, it doesn't have much re-playability but its an early access title so this is sort of expected. Not long after launch it was ported from UE4 to UE5 (seems odd, why wouldn't you do this before releasing it to EA? but OK), followed by a few minor feature updates to keep the community happy - great. After the last minor update in January 2025 there have been no further game updates. There are approx bi-monthly posts from the Dev saying what they are working on but this appears to be some kind of revolving door that constantly changes and grows with no clear direction and no indication of when we could expect to see any further development of the game. When it was released to EA the Dev said: "We love considering and implementing ideas from players, and we will use Early Access to both expand and improve the game. Early Access provides a great way of involving players in the development process, and we are looking forward to working with the community to make a better game together.” - at the start this was true, with the Dev regularly popping up in discussion on the Discord community, or using polls to understand what players wanted (non of which were actually implemented). That all stopped a long time ago and now he seems to be stuck in a perpetual state of changing the fundamental game with no community engagement or direction for what he is doing. Players have lost interest, the once-thriving Discord community is reduced to the same handful of die-hards, and Steam shows that player numbers continue to drop (from 170,000 at launch to 15,000 at the time time of the last update, to 3,000 now). I'm not sure what happened behind the scenes but since launch we've watched the Dev slowly but steadily kill off the very community an EA title needs to succeed. Maybe the next update will be amazing, who knows, but even if it is, the community won't be there to support it as most will have moved on and won't bother coming back. Don't waste your money on an EA title with no direction. If the game ever reaches 1.0 take a look and decide if it is worth it then.

Is absolutely lovely and enjoyable. Just disappointing paying so much for a version that is never completed...

This game is outright addicting. I bought this game on 07/08/2025 and as of about 4 days later, I've already accumulated just shy of 39 hrs into the game. This game gives me the same time-warping feeling that Minecraft used to. The city building and resource management constantly keeps me engaged but not in an exhausting way. In my opinion, City Skylines feels really disconnected between the player and their city, but that is not present in this game. Managing families and their roles makes progression feel kinda personal. The progression from managing one region to managing multiple feels really good. The combat also feels good against bandits and raiders but not so much against Hildebolt, the AI lord in the "Restoring the peace" scenario, mostly due to the overwhelming number of troops he has versus your measly 6 militia units max unmodded. Royal taxes also feels kinda unbalanced from how quickly it snowballs but that can be disabled at the start of a save. Aside from those areas, the rest of the game feels phenomenal. I can't wait to see how this game develops over the years

All in all a fun city builder, unique to other entries. Only problem is lack of updates or at the very least the time between them. Mostly due to a small team size however.

Cant recommend this game at the current price. It's very unfinished, gets boring quickly, and lots of combat bugs. You are alone on a map. No AI camps/settlements, cant see enemies units until the randomly spawn on a plot of land. Everything looks so empty and unfinished.

Updates are coming out pretty slow id wait for full release before buying otherwise what content there is is a great time

Fun game and concept but the "not available in early access" plastered all over the game kinda kills it. Worth keeping an eye on and very excited for the "finished" product. The EA not as much. I'm not sure if there was more of this later on as I didn't make it far but it could use more "intrigue" or events. Something outside of the city building to engage with while you're waiting for pops or buildings to finish up.

Fun game for what little there is. Despite having 200 hours in the game, I cannot recommend it at this time due to the extreme lack of communication from the dev on updates.

don't buy this game while it’s still in early access. the AI are still dumb and they don't want to work (chilling in their house & do nothing)

Brilliant game. Very expensive as an early access game and there have been all most now updates since, only development snap shots. Im not going to be buying early access games again , there just seems no point. i really enjoyed this game at the beginning but the limited development means the game is very short. Ultimately its a bit of a shame as i would like to play more.

DONT BUY THIS GAME UNTIL THE UPDATES ROLL OUT OR ITS COMPLETELY FINISHED. THIS IS AN EARLY ACCESS GAME! So if you play you will see many bugs and unfinished features and if you complain some die hard fans will just criticize you for playing an Early Access Game and probably your complaint will just be taken down, due to the fact that they try to hide some of the game's flaw and only retain positive reviews about this game. Which is unfair as they are pretending their game is of high standards and deserves a very good rating. I'm just preserving our rights here to review what their game is like at the moment, so our comments and posts even negative should be RESPECTED not REMOVED!!!!

allows the player to be very creative with the game, great graphics, well optimized

Was not worth $40 for the lack of features available due to it being an early access game. Finished what I could, but as of now there is no way to grow the town so it's really just a sample of the game. I don't recommend buying until the devs add on more features to make it a true sandbox

This game is half made and hasn't changed in around a year. There is no depth to the game mechanics either. Play banished instead.

its a pretty fun game no tutorial or videos made it hard for me but i felt like learning myself it was worth the experience.

i want to love this game, but its pretty bad. in only 6 hours i have learned- -the game doesn't really explain itself very well. vague instructions and tutorial create a lot of ''i wish i had knew xxx a long time ago''. you can get troops by upgrading a house? then assign the house a job????? what the heck just give me a building this is ridiculous -you randomly get your town burnt down non stop, and they will be just larger than you so you cant win. perfectly frustrating -you will always just not have enough currency to expand- you need 2000? heres 1900, earned in a discrete unexplained way. again perfectly frustrating- not fun -if nothing else fails, you will be disappointing in how many features SAY IN GAME ''under development'' and don't work at all amazing idea, but i hate this execution and current state of the game

Been out a year now and lots of major functions are still missing, its playable-ish, just gets incredibly boring as you will stumble upon alot of bugs and you will be searching for fixes that dont work and so on. I would wait another year and check out the newer reviews before buying it.

It's probably 30% done and it will never be finished. There's been one update this year. It's 10 hours of mediocre game play.

Gameplay does not work properly. Resources run out and you are not able to progress your town without following an optimal strategy guide. Even then, if you start a new game without the right resources you are stuck unable to grow. Needs to be changed otherwise it´s a waste of money.

This has been out for a year? I hate to come in hot on this company. I want a game like this, so yay for making it but is it one person doing it all? While the concept was a fun one the game is still very rough if you want any immersion. I'm so tired of play testing games for companies. I think this was my last one.. I do hard work I come home to relax, it's getting clear no one in software development is accustomed to hard work anymore. Even full releases are bad because its a money grab anymore. I imagine it's like construction but in AC. Whole bunch of grunts busting knuckles with bad decisions raining down on them like a hurricane. With the steady release of games in 'alpha'. Yea they're upfront about it and I took that chance. Medieval sim?! heck yea! ya got me... But why release a half built game? Wasting everyone's time and money. There are so many little frustrating bugs. And many "coming soon' features, I can't imagine what this was like on launch, because if this has had updates and its still skeletal? potential? doubt it, feels like a game the devs are not working on. if this a year + after release... yikes. Please! get away from this business model. Do the hard work of producing a final product. So many bugs I'm not even going elaborate or play anymore after just a day of frustration, unless I see a huge patch..? maybe. I played the heck outta battletoads back in the day, to give you a feel. This one I'd rather produce a physical copy to burn. come back to find out what they think a 'patch' is? sounds like I'm just setting myself up for disappointment. Biggest gripe, The Manor foot print obscures any click through to the buildings it is surrounded by? What? How is that even... already a obtuse goal to get to and it does that to the town you've put so much time into? woof, get bent, this game is just fishing for your coin IMHO.

The game mechanics are good and interesting, and it requires strategy. However, a lot of time has passed and most of the features are still incomplete. It feels like an unfinished game and it's been in 'Early Access' for a long time. I get the feeling the developers simply got bored with the project, and seeing that it has been successful without being finished, they've preferred to offer discounts and keep selling it as is. I don't recommend it in its current state—no matter how much the price drops, it gets boring in the long run.

Cozy, beautiful and fun idea but it's not complete and needs a LOT of work to be complete. But sadly it seems like it has made enough profit in its early access phase that they have no more interest in updating it and pushing for a full release. It receives a very minor update every few months. No mid or late game content and incomplete tech tree...

I found the tech progression to be jarring and AGONIZINGLY slow. I was really angry that I am forced to trade to advance, I wanted to take my rich iron mine and equip my lads for war, but no, I have to export planks to get money to establish a trade route..................UGH. I wish I could refund this game, but it took more than 2 hours to be able to figure out this mega time suck isn't worth it.

This game ticks most of the boxes for a game of its category, the music, background noise (residents talking, construction sounds, nature etc) and i would recommend it as a game for someone who enjoys this type of strategy. The combat system in my opinion is a bit off considering i have always tended to play full on battle games and i would like to see something similar to it in the future possibly or something hinted towards that. overall this game is a lot like an older game banished which was hard because food was damn impossible to get and this game really expresses a lot of what banished was without that early game trouble. overall personally with all weather events, seasons, little things (sounds, animations, whatnot), and combat systems in mind i give this game an 8/10

Like many have written, this is an unpolished game with potential to be okay. After several hours playing and several hours researching how to perform better in the game, my conclusion is you can do everything right... and still fail.

I have no idea what I'm doing and to be honest, I was bored. It just feels like another bad spinning plate simulator but to add insult to injury you're looking at the battlefield from like 30,000 ft by default. I just couldn't...

While I do like this game, I was expecting a slightly more polished product for what I paid for. The explanations and guides could use quite a bit of work. There's still some unexplained bugs, and I'm not sure what to report to the dev and what bugs I can disregard for now. There's a lot of room for improvement, so either buy this game when it's on sale, or save your money for later

This could be a nice game some day in the future. Features I am missing: A list of assigned families categorized by the types of assignments. Maybe presets of assignments which would allow me to save the current position of all the families and then save it again for all the other seasons and I would just click the preset depending on the seasons so I don't have to manually unassign and assign them all the damn time, it's just micromanagement which is not so much fun. The plowing, damn, the ox should make it faster but it makes it slower becasue when there is ox, nobody else is helping with hands which I find unrealistic for them to just wait and sit around, this made me miss sowing crops few times. When it comes to trades panel it would be nice to have som filters available, like for exampling seeing just my imports/exports. When you upgrade a building you cannot control the families assignment in the building, you also cannot revert your decision to upgrade a building, all you can do is demolish it or up the priority so it is finished asap. When the berries respawn from 0 during its growing period the assigned families won't focus on gathering again and are waiting instead so you have to unassing and assign them again, which leads to another point, It would be really nice to have quick full assign and full unassign buttons like shift+Q for example. I am not recommending the game just because I want this review to get noticed and see these changes, I will update it if I come up with other stuff that need to be changed and I will keep playing the game cause it's chill but I really wanna see it go big like, this type of game deserve to be AAA.

Neat skeleton of a game, but lacks updates, UX is bad, randomly hotkeys won't work, auto layouts are finiky & require too much trial & error. OK simish game if you want something simple, but I don't feel I got value out of it even on sale.

With updates being so slow and nothing really going on in months i cant recommend buying it at this time sorry

The ideas are quite unique, but the execution isn't there. Especially when transiting from a tiny village to something a bit bigger, it's a chore to manage everything for everybody....

Unfortunately a group of 6 bandits are in a constant loop of burning everything down in my settlement, and it doesn't occur to the 160+ residents to skewer them with pitchforks. It's just a nonsense. The game has potential but things like this kill the enjoyment.

Very good game, BUT I cannot recommend it until the next update drops. The devs are taking the The Indie Stone studio approach of "update is ready when its ready" which is perfectly fine and respectable! I applaud the devs for not wanting to rush anything out for the sake of "keeping pace with hype" However! that means that for now the game is in a update drought and, in the way I see it, it’s not developed enough to be the RTS it wants to be, the total war type combat is awesome but it’s obvious that it’s not living to its full potential, the enemy AI literally does not have any cities or towns you can raid to harm their economy, so the 1v1 isn’t even all that engaging, the devs have said that these things will be added in the future, but it’s not here in the time of writing this review so.... The city management part of the game is probably the most complete, the organic building system is awesome, the most engaging part so far has been trying to keep track of the economy and stopping it from spiraling out of control, it’s genuinely fun and challenging! And even though it’s obviously not finished (the specialization tree has "coming soon!" written all over it) it’s still enough to sink a couple dozen hours or more into it. Oh and good lord, this game looks GOOD, even when you zoom in, the cities just look like they came straight out of Skyrim and that you’re meant to be walking around instead of using noclip, I have never seen a city building game just keep up fidelity even when zoomed in this close. Honestly, if you are fine with a large update drought, and is interested in a city building game, this game will definitely tap that need, if you are looking into getting this game for the combat and RTS aspects OR you are not really a fan of spending months without an update, I’d say hold on to that money, and wait for the next update or so to drop.

It's still EA, but the game-breaking bugs stop you cold pretty early on. Since it's being released with a new engine and all new mechanics I would wait and see how that pans out before purchasing. There's no reason to drop money on a version that is being replaced shortly and if they don't work out the killer bugs with the new release then they don't deserve your money then either.

Have potential.. But soo many options are locked in early version. Given that the dev made millions and had a year to work on this you would think it would actually be developed more and more.. Don't bother with this game, I feel farthest frontier is better and more advanced. It's honestly not worth the price at all..

Very fun concept. Needs hella work. VERY unstable. crashes constantly and loads of in-game bugs that render it close to unplayable... I'm pretty sure its given my PC cancer... There is a notice for big updates coming so hopefully things will become more positive. Until then i'd save your cash

Not much to do besides micro villagers between jobs by clicking on buildings, which is more irritating than fun at least banished had a menu for that...it's very easy to make an army and take over the map, maybe wait for the update as there is nothing too fun or unique about this game ATM and it seems to be missing tonnes of content, it's kind of a mashup of banished, foundation and ostriv but they are all better

After 4-hour review, I want to like this game, and I see a lot of potential, but it's currently in a very early stage and has some major issues that hold it back. Core Issues: Ox Plowing System: It's inefficient. The ox plows one row at the top, then awkwardly moves to the bottom to continue. This system replaced manual farmer plowing, which ironically made the whole process slower. In one playthrough, it took me five months just to finish plowing a field due to this inefficiency. When using ox plowing, the farmers no longer participate in plowing... Threshing Problems: There's poor balancing between farming tasks. Farmers don't evenly distribute their work, leading to crops spoiling even though the threshing priority is set high. This creates a frustrating bottleneck when you're trying to survive year to year. A good example of this is you need the wheat to be thresh so it can move into the mill and lastly be baked but without the threshing, the other process doesn't continue its process. Combat: Bandits are way too easy to deal with in the standard mode. There's no real sense of danger, and combat lacks depth, there’s no troop experience, leveling, or long-term consequences. Once you win a fight, that’s usually it and sometimes you don't even have to defend because the other rulers would send their army to defend. What Could Improve the Game: Reconsidering the Regional Wealth System The current regional wealth system in Manor Lords often feels like it unnecessarily slows down progression and undermines the value of earning money. For instance, requiring a large amount of regional wealth just to establish a trade route makes the process feel restrictive—especially when the player already has the money to afford it. In example, you use regional wealth to establish the trade route which is heavily disadvantage to you anyways. I would just prefer to higher import cost or lower income from exports and eliminate this completely. Additionally, many non-building upgrades rely on an uneven and sometimes arbitrary distribution of regional wealth, making the system feel more like a barrier than a meaningful gameplay mechanic. This creates a disconnect between economic success and strategic expansion. It might be worth reworking this system to focus more on actual currency. If a player has the money, they should be able to invest, trade, and expand without being overly limited by regional wealth caps. At one point, I had so much money and couldn't do anything with it but hire mercenaries. A money-first approach would reward good economic planning and create a more fluid, engaging experience. If the developer is trying to slow the game play, that is fine but this needs to be more balance. Bigger Maps: More space in a section would allow for better expansion and strategic placement. Possibly lead into kingdoms, towns, villages and more in the future. Expanded Building and Crafting: Include more artisan and crafting options to diversify gameplay. Deeper Leadership Mechanics: Let us manage the ruler, their family, guards, and advisors. Adding narrative or personality depth here could make the game more immersive. Maybe consider adding a crown system starting with baron then allow the growth to count and etc. Improved Food Systems: More ways to process, cook, or preserve food would add both realism and variety. Combat Rework: Introduce a progressive battle system where enemies (like bandits) recover, regroup, and come back stronger instead of being wiped out after one loss. This would be the same when facing other rulers. However in a balance way, like a ruler has 100 soldiers, they losses half, it should take about three years to recover their losses. Troop Development: Units should gain experience, specialize, or have traits to make the military system more rewarding. Inspiration from RimWorld and Stronghold: A mix of emergent storytelling, deep base management, and real-time tactical combat could elevate this game to a whole new level. I really enjoyed the concept of prioritizing farming in the spring into fall and focusing on other tasks in the winter months. In example, I would sent all of the families to do farming work from Spring to Fall. Then in Winter, I would restart all other tasks like tannery, mining, building, logging and timbering. Final Thoughts: The game has strong potential, and I enjoyed it for a few hours. But right now, the experience becomes too repetitive and frustrating because of basic mechanical issues and lack of depth. I’d love to come back when it’s more fleshed out—especially if it embraces some of the deeper management and narrative systems seen in games like RimWorld or Stronghold.

The game looks like it has alot of aspirations but it leaves alot to be desired. Updates seem to be comping super slow and it feels like a pump and dump by the devs.

Enjoyable, but not enough development work, not enough dlc and added content. Gets really boring really quickly.

It's a very engaging and immersive game. I like a lot of things about it, but it's also not intuitive; things happen where you have no idea how to do almost everything. I like the game, but I don't recommend it to new players because it can be very frustrating. Even doing simple things like harvesting crops and trying to feed the bread-making oven is very complex. You don't know where the crops go or how to get them to the flour-making site, and then that flour isn't sold but used in breadmaking. And even though I really enjoyed the sheer number of mechanics and steps to do things at first, I think adding unnecessary complexity to simple tasks isn't the best way to recruit new players. In my opinion, they should simplify and unify storage structures, create ways to automate the distribution of resources for specific tasks, and, for GOD'S sake, enable options for different time frames for the consumption of villagers' resources. It's easier to cover those needs in the early stages of the game so you can focus on growing in other areas. Overall, an excellent game that is diminished by the fact that you have to invest too much time understanding how the designers wanted us to interpret the proper way to do simple processes, and the internal tutorial is sorely lacking. Again, please simplify it or make a simplified alternate game mode and you'll see how much fun you'd have.