Manor Lords is already Steam's ‘biggest ever’ city-building game

Manor Lords, an intricate strategy game set in the Middle Ages, is making good on its would-be blockbuster status after smashing records on its launch weekend.

Having arrived on PC on Friday, April 26, Manor Lords is already the biggest city-building game on Steam. At its peak, 170,000 players were simultaneously playing the game within 24 hours of its release, per Steamdb, a site that tracks the cavernous PC gaming store.

Not only is it the most popular Steam game that lets you manage a town, but it is also the biggest in other adjacent genres like grand strategy wargames (or GSG) and colony simulations, according to Manor Lords’ publisher Hooded Horse.

At the time of writing, it’s the ninth most-played game on Steam, with over 73,000 simultaneous players, ahead of long-running hits like Stardew Valley and Fallout 4.

The game sold 1 million copies in a single day - a staggering feat for an indie made by a solo developer. And, that doesn’t take into account the amount of players that downloaded it through Xbox Game Pass for PC - which Microsoft doesn’t typically release usership figures for.

By comparison, viral hit Palworld sold 2 million copies on its first day thanks to its crowd-pleasing Pokémon-meets-survival-games style. 

In Manor Lords, players look down from the heavens on a fertile, medieval land that’s theirs for the taking. You’ll put your citizens to work building thatch-roofed houses and mining resources, while you use their taxes to curry favour with the church and earn the King’s ear. Large-scale battles will ensue as other landowners try to halt your power grab.

While it may seem to some like Manor Lords came out of nowhere, PC players have been anticipating its release since it was announced back in 2020. 

Although developer Greg Styczeń, who goes by the moniker Slavic Magic, initially had a much smaller goal of 14,000 wishlists on Steam, the game gained significant traction thanks to its deep resource-management system and focus on historical accuracy. 

Prior to its release, it became the most wishlisted game on Steam, with 3 million players signaling their intent to purchase it.

The game recently dropped in early access, which is a bit like a preview version of the product offered at a discount price. In the case of Manor Lords, it arrived for £26.24 courtesy of a 35 percent launch discount that’s available until May 10.

To capitalise on its early momentum, Styczeń is trying to foster community engagement by asking players what changes they want to see made to its divisive trading system. Hooded Horse has also promised to offer discounts throughout the game’s early access period for those worried about missing out on the initial price cut.