Ah, I remember the glory days of playing Age of Empires. I was terrible at it, mind, but it certainly seems like Manor Lords should scratch that medieval RTS itch. Released at the tail-end of last week, the new strategy game from Slavic Magic has been making a bit of a name for itself over on PC.
Maybe it’s just because it’s a new release and gamers yearn for anything new in this modern gaming era, but Manor Lords is doing quite well for itself so far. According to recent data from SteamDB, it hit a pretty impressive peak concurrent player count over the weekend, registering 173,178 players. At the time of writing, 87,901 are in a game.
Add onto that the fact that it’s come straight in at number two on the Steam Top Seller’s list. That puts it just behind the Steam Deck (as is always the case with these things – Valve’s portable PC is nothing if not tenacious), but above the likes of Counter-Strike 2, Helldivers 2, and the recent re-emergence of the modern Fallout games.
A pattern emerges – how long will Manor Lords’ popularity last?
As I always say in these situations, it’s hard to know what the long-term popularity will look like. We’ve seen the ups of Lethal Company, Content Warning, and Sons of the Forest 2. They typically have a huge boost early on in release, which fades over the course of a few weeks.
But there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s tough to get any sort of attention in today’s gaming climate, especially among some huge titles from the biggest publishers.
But it’s still an early success story. According to a recent post on publisher Hooded Horse’s Twitter/X page, the game sold over a million copies a couple of days ago. Not many of us can make that claim now, can we? Also, for those playing, an update is being planned by the developer, which will fix some issues and fine tune a few mechanics. Hang tight. It’s still in Early Access, after all.
