Manor Lords' success: one person alone is not enough to produce a hit
Topping wishlists weeks before its launch, Manor Lords racked up over a million sales just two days after its Early Access release on Steam, reaching a peak of 170,000 concurrent players. Also available on PC Game Pass, this medieval strategy and building game published by Hooded Horse is now able to compete with several current AAA titles!
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Why is Manor Lords so successful?
What explains such success for a tactical city-builder developed by Slavic Magic, headed by Greg Styczeń, the sole developer at the helm of the Polish studio? Let's not forget that the narrative surrounding a game developed by a single person is more than exaggerated: contractors obviously lent a hand, even if the feat of a (very) small team is undeniably impressive. Perpetuating the idea that a game of this scale could be developed without any help is an intentionally false narrative: as Rafael Brown points out, solo development died out along with the development of games themselves, starting in the 1980s.
Chronicle of a production
First noticed in late 2022 with the release of a demo at Next Fest, Manor Lords has since continued to attract the attention of millions of players who love immersive experiences. To bring his vision to life, which remains unfinished, Greg Styczeń chose to rely on his publisher so he could focus on developing his game. He has therefore clearly received much more help than he lets on. In fact, Styczeń started working on it over six years ago as a part-time hobby, and it was only after launching a Patreon in 2020 and receiving an Epic MegaGrant in 2021 that he began outsourcing some work to contractors. Something marketing tends to forget!
The success of Manor Lords is not based on one person alone.
Easy to pick up, with attractive graphics, offering players great freedom and the possibility of exploring their village in the third person, Manor Lords seems to surprise most of all with its level of polish superior to what one can generally expect from an early access game.
Today, Styczeń can count on the many feedbacks from early access players, who have supported it for several years now, in order to develop (with its service providers) additional content over the next twelve months.