How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun? Did you watch any good movies? Did your videogame sell over a million copies and break the Steam record for a city builder with over 170,000 concurrent players within a single day of launching into early access?
Not a lot of people can answer yes to that last one, but developer Slavic Magic can. According to Hooded Horse, publisher of Manor Lords, the early access city builder had a record-breaking launch:
“Since yesterday’s launch Manor Lords has already sold over 1 million copies & hit a peak Steam concurrent player count of 170k—highest ever for a city builder (or for other different genres like GSG/4x/colony sim),” the publisher said on Twitter.
Not only does the medieval city builder boast a player count that puts it in the company of multiplayer shooters like Helldivers 2 and Apex Legends, but there’s surely even more people playing since Manor Lords is also on PC Game Pass. Heck, there might even be one or two people playing it on the Epic Store. Crazy, but true!
How do those concurrent player counts stack up against other city builder and strategy games? According to SteamDB, Manor Lords tops Sid Meier’s Civilization 6 (162,657 CCU peak) and Cities: Skylines 2 (104,697 CCU peak). Impressive! Historically, no other games in that category have a peak CCU above 100,000.
But just because a game is a certified hit doesn’t mean the work is done. With all those players, there were so many bug reports and feedback threads that the official Discord “ran into an issue overnight where the number of active threads exceeded capacity.”
Among some of the issues: players aren’t thrilled that archers might as well be throwing marshmallows at their enemies, which Manor Lords’ developer said will most likely be addressed in a future patch. (Turns out, archers were OP in an earlier build so they were nerfed for launch, but perhaps a bit too much.)
There are other problems, such as the low productivity of Manor Lords’ sawpits, that could also use some attention, and plenty of features that aren’t yet available in early access. That includes odors, apparently: there’s an overlay for “smell” in Manor Lords, indicating that buildings like butchers and tanneries might bother villagers living too close to them.
One thing that won’t change, at least: there’s a villager with a name that feels like a joke but is historically accurate.
By the way, we’ve been playing Manor Lords right along with you. If you’re just getting started, check out our Manor Lords’ beginner’s guide.
