Norland: Manor Lords Publisher's Other Game Gets Half a Million Wishlists on Steam!

Manor Lords' publisher, Hooded Horse, has another upcoming game that has surpassed more than half a million wishlists on Steam and takes a more mature setting in the strategy genre.

Norland is another medieval strategy game with a big city-building element and will soon be available for early access on Valve's gaming platform. In the "medieval colony sim," players will build a kingdom from the ground up.

Norland Surpasses 500K Wishlists on Steam!

Norland: Manor Lords Publisher's Other Game Gets Half a Million Wishlists on Steam! — The publisher of Manor Lords, Hooded Horse, is on its way with another highly anticipated game, Norland, which has surpassed half a million wishlists on Steam ahead of its early access release.
(Photo : Long Jaunt, Hooded Horse / Screenshot taken from official website)

However, the game significantly emphasizes showing the needs and emotions of both the ruling family and the peasants that they rule. These include everything from hunger to sex drive that are all simulated in-game.

How can a game be a city-builder if there aren't any other kingdoms to compete against? And that's exactly what Norland brings to the table. In Hooded Horse's upcoming title, you will have a lot of hands to shake and backs to stab throughout your journey, according to GamesRadar.

Norland has been in development for several years at developer Long Jaunt and has had regular community playtests along the way. These have helped the game's developer deepen the title's mechanics based on community feedback.

The game was previously scheduled to enter Steam early access on May 16, 2024, but was delayed to July 18, 2024.

Having more time will allow for an extensive range of simulation and quality-of-life improvements that were detailed in a Steam blog to hit the game before it becomes available to a wider audience.

In a press release, Hooded Horse revealed that Norland just passed half a million wishlists on Steam. If you look over the rankings at SteamDB, the game has become the #41 most wishlisted upcoming game on Valve's gaming platform. It comes in behind titles such as Deltarune, Slay the Spire 2, and Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater.

Long Jaunt studio head Dmitri Glaznev said that they will not be able to make the scheduled deadline, referring to the early access release. He noted that Norland needs more testing and debugging before it can be played properly, said PCGamesN.

A More Mature City Building Strategy Game

Glaznev noted that they will be keeping the demo version open and also conduct regular playtests to see how Norland evolves over time. The new features that will be added include enhanced world map trading. This lets players negotiate contracts with the rulers of neighboring lands.

You will also have to engage with this on a deeper level because of various factors, including soil erosion, supply of raw materials, and market saturation. All of these will force you to more and more look beyond your borders to ensure that your kingdom flourishes.

The game features class conflict, religious struggle, political treachery, and vagabond speculators. Norland also includes nobles getting upset when they are made to drink booze that they consider unworthy of their status.

One of the key features that will be included in the game is natural disasters and a Steam post explained that starting from mid-game, these could strike players' provinces.

This could be an infestation of weevils, a migration of fanatics, an epidemic, and many others that could result in crop failure, according to Rock Paper Shotgun.