"I remember uploading the build, crossing my fingers that things wouldn't immediately fall apart": A year later, city builder mega-hit Manor Lords has a bigger dev team teasing big updates

Manor Lords has already been out for an entire year, and its lead developer Grzegorz "Greg" Styczeń shares his plans for the city-builder's future in a new Steam blog post.

"Honestly, it doesn't feel that long ago," Styczeń starts. "I remember uploading the build, crossing my fingers that things wouldn't immediately fall apart – and here we are several patches and plenty of additions later."

As of December last year, Manor Lords has sold over 2.5 million copies, which is seriously impressive for an early access city-builder made mostly by just one dev. Styczeń says the team is now up to nine devs, plus QA help from QLOC. More work is being done with the game's AI, 2D and 3D art, maps, and more.

The game's AI opponent can now properly build a small village, and the dev team is changing pathfinding to help soldiers get in and out of castles properly.

Styczeń wants to keep the scale of everything period-accurate rather than using a common game design trick of making paths and doors wider. "It's like the medieval constructors wanted to purposefully make it harder for large groups of soldiers to navigate around the castle. Curious."

There are also changes coming to how you run your settlements, as "many buildings will now require upkeep." Blacksmiths will need 12 tools per year, and deep mines will need planks.

A quarry for mining an endless amount of stones on rich deposits is also coming along with a lime kiln, as lime will be needed for "advanced stone construction."

Finally, new art for a lot of the UI keeps with the medieval aesthetic Manor Lords has. I think it looks delightful. Instead of a hovering icon on the map, you'll now see what looks like a more painted depiction of resources. These changes are also coming to the build menu.

There's a lot to digest, so check out the full post yourself, right here.

In the meantime, check out all the upcoming indie games for 2025 and beyond.