The medieval city builder Manor Lords has been one of my favorite games since it launched into Steam Early Access. Its developer Slavic Magic has been hard at work with updates, and I wanted to use my column this week to talk about how much more awesome they have made Manor Lords. Some developers tend to let their titles sit in Early Access for a long time without any improvements, or worse yet, never complete their work at all. But developer Slavic Magic is not like that, and they are fully supported by their publisher, Hooded Horse, that knows how to treat developers right.

This is actually the first game I ever played from the start of its Steam Early Access life (I picked up Palworld shortly afterwards). Recently, I rotated away from Football Manager and 7 Days to Die to watch my peasants toil away in Manor Lords.

One of the coolest upgrades I experienced recently is the ability to allow my sheep to multiply. This new update was monumental in providing a scalable solution to farming wool. As you level up your burgage units and increase your population, being able to manufacture clothing is a must. While the sheep multiply pretty slowly, it still helps you to get more strapped in terms of regional wealth. The economics of Manor Lords is incredible. I find myself having to spend a lot of time determining what to sell and what to keep for the good of my community. But those multiplying sheep really help make ends meet.

This led to another upgrade where some of the houses in your fiefdom now can add butcher shops which turn excess livestock into meat. While weaving steady amounts of fabric is a must, maintaining enough food is even more important for the community for obvious reasons. Meat combined with salt from the new salt mines allows you to craft one of the most delicious foods of all time, sausages. That form of salted meat stays good longer and greatly helps when stockpiling to prepare your town for winter.

Speaking of new meats and proteins, Manor Lords also introduced fishing holes. Slavic Magic knows that sometimes food can get extremely scarce, so the extra food source helps out a lot. Fishing, much like hunting, requires you to engage in conservation. If you hunt too much or overfish, then the whole population in that area could go extinct. I made that mistake in an earlier run and found myself desperately short of protein. It’s important in Manor Lords to leave some of those fish and game behind for later.

After playing with all these upgrades, I began to wonder about what makes me love playing Manor Lords so much. Maybe it’s because I enjoy simulation titles in almost every form. But the answer came to me when reading the main menu, where developer Greg asks for patience while he upgrades Manor Lords, as he notes it is a “passion project.” And I think that is the difference between Manor Lords and other games for me. Greg’s passion shines in this and affects me as the player. Sometimes, I feel like many titles don’t have soul anymore. And in contrast to that, Manor Lords is a breath of fresh air.

Watching Manor Lords grow and develop has been an absolute joy. The potential it has is really infinite. In my previous column, I talked a bit about burnout. While I am still dealing with that, Manor Lords is helping out quite a lot. As gamers, we need to do our best to support titles like Manor Lords, developers like Slavic Magic, and publishers like Hooded Horse.