Ah, the life of a medieval central-European peasant. Untroubled by the taste of Doritos or the mental anguish over whether to buy a Steam Deck or not, their only cares in life were where their pigs had got to and the constant threat of dying in a thousand imaginatively grisly ways.
No wonder they’re such great fodder for videogames. Manor Lords contains many such peasants, doing wholesome things such as ploughing with oxen and planing trees down into timber, but also features spearmen, disease and the leading cause of death among the common people of the time: lords of the manor.
Despite its developer’s inspiration from actual historical events, isn’t set in any particular time period. And in contrast to a certain other game in this magazine’s preview section this month, it doesn’t look like you’ll be able to take modern weapons that brought lasers and nuclear missiles to the party. What this does mean is that the brutality of medieval weapons will be to the fore, as will laying siege to castles.
