Summary

• Manor Lords blends city-building, social simulation, and tactical battles in a single indie game, prompting bigger studios to take notice.
• Slavic Magic, the solo developer, lets players vote on gameplay changes via Discord, showing an openness to community for improvement.
• Indie games like Manor Lords succeed due to agility, quick decision-making, and strong player-developer relationships that big studios often lack.

Manor Lords, the indie city-building and brutal medieval strategy game, has been picking up steam as it quickly approaches its Early Access release date of April 26. In addition to melding together aspects of various genres like city-building, social simulation, and RTS-like tactical battles into a single title, the independent developer Slavic Magic is taking another unique approach, this time relating to future updates.

The last few years have been a tumultuous time in the gaming industry. From massive mergers like the Blizzard Microsoft acquisition to several prominent studios cutting back significantly on staff, perhaps one positive note out of the news has been the uncharacteristic effect of smaller and indie development studios becoming wild successes. Games like Dwarf Fortress, Palworld, and Helldivers 2 prove that it doesn't take AAA teams or budgets to achieve great heights in the industry, and bigger studios should be taking notice of what these smaller devs are doing.

Manor Lords Discord Polls To Change The Future Of The Game

Letting Players Vote On Gameplay Changes

Over on the Manor Lords Discord, there is a specific channel dedicated to polling named #votes, which will help the solo developer, Slavic Magic, make decisions on the future of the game as they receive during the Early Access period. In the channel, Slavic Magic states, "Hey everyone, I'm going to use this channel for voting on various gameplay mechanics during the early access."

Currently, Slavic only has one question, posted on April 16, 2024, regarding the mercenary recruitment pool in the game, and thousands of beta testers have responded with their opinions. According to the responses, it seems that the community is currently in agreement that mercenary recruitment limit should be added, but only for the Baron, with over 3,400 people having their voices heard.

That said, it's still the developer's game, and there are certain requests that won't be completed, according to the game's Steam FAQ. Slavic has confirmed certain features, some of which are prevalent in other Medieval titles, will never make their way to Manor Lords. These include things like no dynasty mechanics, no heroes or "leader" units that are more powerful, and no town guards. They also state that this is not a complete list, meaning that other community-requested features that may come up in the future may not ever be implemented — showing that even with the openness to change, it's not all left to the community to make choices.

AAA Studios Should Take Note

Manor Lords Isn't The First Indie To Do This

Though Manor Lords doesn't plan to be a live-service game like the surprisingly successful Helldivers 2, it does share one thing in common with that game. The developers are not only open and receptive to community , they are welcoming it with open arms and using it to alter and improve their games. This is similar to another surprising success of 2024, Palworld, where that small development company, PocketPair, went and continues to go to great lengths to implement QoL and content suggestions for the game based on community .

"As a result, players become more invested in the titles because they not only have quality but also possess longevity."

This has created a stronger bond and relationship between the developers of the game and its player base, and it's all worked out well so far, at least for those games. According to recent analyst reports, Helldivers 2 has sold over 8 million copies, with Palworld selling over 25 million units across platforms (via Statista) since it was originally released at the start of the year.

While not all of this can be attributed to a single thing that these companies are doing correctly, it's undeniable that they have a better finger on the pulse than many other titles that have been released in recent memory. As a result, players become more invested in the titles because they not only have quality but also possess longevity.

Why Are Indie Games Outselling Huge Studios?

There's Agility In A Small Team

Although being a smaller studio also comes with downsides like a limited budget, less staff and resources, and fewer industry connections for distribution and marketing, it does come with one huge benefit — and that's the ability to make changes quickly. Though the time for research, development, implementation, and testing may be slower with a small staff, decisions to make huge changes in the underlying gameplay or story are often less restrictive than they would be in a traditional AAA studio environment.

For those multi-million dollar games, several teams must interface together with different departments and leaders, resulting in what sometimes feels like a disted and disappointing product. People need to look no further than how long it can take to implement much-needed changes at a bigger studio.

While these games both have nuanced and complex reasons for their perceived failures, the endpoint is a simple one. Make a fun, engaging game, and people will want to buy it and play it — don't, and they won't. Only time will tell whether Manor Lords will follow in the footsteps of other independent studios releasing massive hits — but seeing as how it's only one person, if they do manage to pull it off, it will undoubtedly be one of the greatest gaming success stories of 2024.

Source: Manor Lords/Discord, Manor Lords/Steam, Bloomberg, Statista