Manor Lords developer aims to never release a patch without real substance and to “polish as much as possible”

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As far as indie successes go, medieval city builder Manor Lords is top of the pile for the RTS genre. Releasing in early access to critical acclaim last year, developer Grzegorz “Greg” Styczeń has worked hard to keep the game going with frequent updates that bring it closer to his full vision.

In an interview for an upcoming episode of the VideoGamer Podcast, Hooded Horse communications director Joe Robinson explained that the game’s lead developer isn’t interested in releasing minor hotfixes and small additions to the game. Instead, every patch has to be substantial, has to have purpose, and has to have as much “polish as possible”.

Manor Lords dev won’t release minor patches

Speaking on the podcast, Robinson explained that Styczeń’s philosophy is to make sure that every Manor Lords patch contains something of real substance for fans. While not everything will release in a completely finished state, the developer has a very high bar of quality for new patches.

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“It’s not like Greg is not one for hotfixes,” the communications director explained. “Sometimes you see people release kind of rapid fire hot fixes, but Greg tends to like to collect everything and then kind of fix everything all at once. That’s why all his patches are quite meaty and they come with very large changelogs. But everything does get logged and noted and fixes do come eventually if it’s fixable.”

“Greg’s philosophy was always just to kind of polish as much as possible.”

HOODED HORSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR JOE ROBINSON

This bar of quality resulted in a three-month delay fairly close to launch, before the game eventually released in April 2024. There’s a hesitation to release unfinished features until there’s a semblance of substance to them. While early access is often a period of trial and error experimentation, big new features are kept secret until they’re nearly ready.


🎮 Must-Listen: Publishing Manor Lords w/ Joe Robinson 🎙️


“Greg’s philosophy was always just to kind of polish as much as possible,” Robinson explained. “He was very hesitant to introduce big new features before early access launched. He had some ideas: you can see in terms of the policy screen and region specializations. And then there’s the castle planner, which is a very work-in-progress feature. It’s very obviously a work-in-progress feature. But those are the kind of seeds of areas that he wants to push into when he’s confident that the base is as polished and as secure as it can be.”

As it stands, Manor Lords already feels like an incredibly polished game for something that is technically unfinished. For the most part, it doesn’t feel like an early access title, it feels mostly complete, and each major update only continues to build on its strengths.

For more Manor Lords, stay tuned to VideoGamer and subscribe to the VideoGamer Podcast on Spotify.

About the Author

Lewis White

Lewis White is a veteran games journalist with a decade of experience writing news, reviews, features and investigative pieces about game development with a focus on Halo and Xbox.