Manor Lords dev confirms "castles and sieges are now in the works" for the city builder, as well as a new map that could get its own game mode in the future

A screenshot of a castle in Manor Lords. — (Image credit: Slavic Magic)

There's loads of exciting stuff on the way to medieval strategy city builder Manor Lords, as developer Greg Styczeń (AKA Slavic Magic) confirms that "castles and sieges are now in the works," along with another new map, a progression overhaul, and more.

Styczeń shared a preview of Manor Lords' next patch on Steam over the weekend, which includes everything from "fortified strongholds with modular upgrades to the introduction of Devil's Hill – a prime battleground and castle site." Devil's Hill is the name of the new map, which features a huge hill surrounded by other regions. "I'm considering a game mode that places very valuable resources on that hill to have the Lords fight over it," Styczeń adds.

The city builder's existing castle planner (used to enhance your town and Manor House) has also "had a ton of work done to it," now boasting the option to upgrade modules and wall pieces individually, as well as "selectively add platforms with battlements to the walls." However, the real star of the show here is the addition of stone castles, which look fantastic, and it's been revealed that going forward, the "size of the castle plan will be limited by the lord's rank."

As for the progression system rework, the sort-of-solo dev hasn't given any exact details beyond the general aim to "balance historicity and gameplay," noting that both creative and immersion-focused ideas have been pushed back for being either "too fantasy" or "too gamey," respectively. "I'm losing count but I think we're on our fourth design document... But things are slowly moving forward," the developer adds, noting that he hopes to share more "in the next update, together with exciting news on the AI-controlled towns."

Right now, it's not clear when this new patch will be released, so we'll just have to watch this space. Clearly, even though it's still in early access, Styczeń's game is threatening to eat up even more of our free time very soon.

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I'm GamesRadar+'s Deputy News Editor, working alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.

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