After seeing his hit Steam city builder get the Shrek treatment, Manor Lords dev admits "you can't deny the potential" of official mods

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A whole new swamp

Manor Lords Early Access
(Image credit: Hooded Horse)

The creator of everyone's favorite medieval city builder-meets-RTS game might have just hinted at the future of modding in Manor Lords.

Manor Lords doesn't have mod support "yet," says developer Slavic Magic on Twitter, but the studio's reaction to a community creation featuring a particular green ogre is making us hopeful for the future. It all started with a clip, shared by Twitter user ProudBavaria, depicting their unofficial mod at work. In it, Dreamworks' resident crotchety ogre Shrek runs rampant through a Manor Lords township. "This is what happens when you don't get out of my swamp," reads the caption.

In a quote reply, the Manor Lords creator shows apparent delight for the ingenuity of ProudBavaria's mod. It makes use of the game's Visitor tool, still a work-in-progress as well as quite a few other Manor Lords systems as it stands now in Early Access. Instead of strolling about the settlement as a visiting noble, though, ProudBavaria's mod shows villagers running screaming from Shrek as he barrels through the burgage plots.

"This made my day today," reads the reply from the official Manor Lords Twitter account. In an addendum, the creator notes that "modding isn't officially supported yet but you can't deny the potential after seeing this". The operative word for me here is yet. For all we know, this could be an indication that full mod support might be on the way in a future update – or at the very least, the idea has now been planted in the creator's mind, much like my dismal 16% fertility yield of wheat. 

Manor Lords is available now in Early Access via Steam and Xbox Game Pass for PC.

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Jasmine Gould-Wilson
Jasmine Gould-Wilson
Senior Staff Writer, GamesRadar+

Jasmine is a Senior Staff Writer at GamesRadar+. Raised in Hong Kong and having graduated with an English Literature degree from Queen Mary, University of London, she began her journalism career as a freelancer with TheGamer and TechRadar Gaming before joining GR+ full-time in 2023. She now focuses predominantly on features content for GamesRadar+, attending game previews, and key international conferences such as Gamescom and Digital Dragons in between regular interviews, opinion pieces, and the occasional stint with the news or guides teams. In her spare time, you'll likely find Jasmine challenging her friends to a Resident Evil 2 speedrun, purchasing another book she's unlikely to read, or complaining about the weather.