Manor Lords Reveals What’s Coming in Future Updates

Summary

April 26 marked the first anniversary of Manor Lords launching in early access.
Commemorating the occasion, Slavic Magic revealed a bunch of features and changes currently in the works, including AI and UI improvements, a better camera, and new building types, among other novelties.

Manor Lords developer Slavic Magic shared an overview of the game’s upcoming updates, detailing a fairly comprehensive agenda covering everything from AI to UI, including both features and improvements. The newly confirmed additions are expected to arrive before Manor Lords leaves early access.

With over 1 million copies sold on day one, Slavic Magic’s medieval city builder has the bragging rights to being one of the most successful new indie games of 2024. By February 2025, the game’s lifetime sales exceeded 3 million units. Apart from captivating fans with a unique blend of city-building and RTS mechanics with a massive focus on realism, Manor Lords also managed to maintain commercial momentum with meaningful updates.

Manor Lords Promises Frequent Discounts

In an exceedingly rare move, Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse tells fans not to feel pressured to buy its latest game at launch.

This consistent influx of content will continue for the foreseeable future, Slavic Magic has confirmed. Reflecting on the first anniversary of Manor Lords early access release, Polish developer Grzegorz Styczeń shared a detailed status update on the features currently in active development. These include a new “Records” view for tracking information on regional consumption and production, as well as an overhaul of the approval system meant to make the player’s public rating less prone to fluctuations, while simultaneously lowering the impact of past events relative to more recent ones.

Manor Lords Building Management Is Becoming More Realistic

Another upcoming change confirmed to be in the works is an upkeep system, which will introduce a direct monetary cost to running “many buildings.” While it remains to be seen what “many” means exactly, what’s clear already is that this addition will make Manor Lords even more realistic. Speaking of buildings, two new types are in development: quarries and lime kilns. The former will serve as an endless source of stone on suitably rich deposits, while the latter will produce lime, which will be introduced as a requirement for advanced stone construction projects.

All Upcoming Manor Lords Changes Coming in Future Updates

AI Progress: AI can now build villages; work ongoing on trading and farming.
Records View: New screen showing detailed regional production/consumption data.
Approval Reworks: Approval balance now fluctuates less; recent events matter more.
Upkeep System: Buildings require ongoing resource inputs for maintenance.
Stone Updates: New Quarry and Lime Kiln buildings introduced.
Pathfinding Updates: Investigating multi-floor pathfinding; current 2D system still best.
Camera System Updates: Smoother camera movement around cliffs.
Progression Rework: Major changes to progression system in design phase.
UI Work: Replacing temporary UI graphics with manuscript-inspired art.
River Fishing: Rivers can now host fishing spots instead of random ponds.
Castle Pieces Rework: Level 1 castle parts reworked.
Map Resource Nodes: New art for resource nodes to match updated UI style.

Pathfinding improvements are also in the pipeline, along with a minor camera rework aimed at making movement over high cliff peaks less janky. Additionally, the game’s AI will soon be improved enough to build and run its own small village. An overhaul of level 1 castle pieces, map resource nodes, and UI elements is also planned, with all of these changes aiming to make the game more visually consistent. Styczeń also confirmed that a rework of Manor Lords’ progression system is planned, though it’s still in the design phase.

Many of these changes wouldn’t have been possible to tackle all at once—or at all—if Slavic Magic was still a one-person studio. However, thanks to the game’s success, Styczeń is now running an operation with at least eight permanent employees, as well as some outside help with QA.