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

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.

Check out some of the best city builders to play next, from Cities: Skylines to Before We Leave.

Jasmine Gould-Wilson
Staff Writer, GamesRadar+

Jasmine is a staff writer at GamesRadar+. Raised in Hong Kong and having graduated with an English Literature degree from Queen Mary, University of London in 2017, her passion for entertainment writing has taken her from reviewing underground concerts to blogging about the intersection between horror movies and browser games. Having made the career jump from TV broadcast operations to video games journalism during the pandemic, she cut her teeth as a freelance writer with TheGamer, Gamezo, and Tech Radar Gaming before accepting a full-time role here at GamesRadar. Whether Jasmine is researching the latest in gaming litigation for a news piece, writing how-to guides for The Sims 4, or extolling the necessity of a Resident Evil: CODE Veronica remake, you'll probably find her listening to metalcore at the same time.