Medieval Dynasty Review: Modern life is rubbish!

With the current global tomfoolery taking place, petrol issues in Blighty at the time of writing, don’t you wish you could simplify everything and have a better way of life? Hello, Medieval Dynasty. You’re back on the scene.

Sure, penicillin IS a good thing, but the joy of gaming means you can alter the settings (if needed) and come out unscathed in a time where a 30-something would be considered an elder. There are sooooo many more options now in the game since I last visited.

For starters, there’s booze. This is as good as gold ‘back in them days’, and you won’t have the hangover to deal with either. But more importantly, with the last update, the game has got more thoughtful in its approach, like beekeeping, potteries, and the easy-to-set-up orchards. Who’d have thought these times could be so welcoming?

Medieval Dynasty Review

Something that surprised me about Medieval Dynasty is how polished it has become, featuring visuals so good if I could smell the cow pats, I’d think I was there. My last visit was the Early Access, but started afresh, and the opening felt as new as all those months ago when first viewing it.

The basic gist of the game, from Render Cube and Toplitz Productions, is looking up an uncle. He’s made a name for himself but is no longer on the scene. Rather than wandering the lands unnecessarily, you decide to set up shop, building your own settlement and, ideally, running a nice little medieval utopia, eh, guv’nor?

In some ways, you feel like a hardcore re-enactment enthusiast – living off the land and giving up the city life to make a humble abode to live in and enjoy nature. While there’s that to look forward to, Medieval Dynasty is a management game in that you have to keep your community together, ensure they’re watered and fed, and fend off bandits and wildlife that want to do hurty things to you. And it’s about survival, too.

The Peasants Are Revolting (Again)

But you can tone down all those settings and have a bit of a breeze. That’s cheating, right? Not really. This is one of those games that you can live in if you’re aren’t too careful, spending countless hours learning a skill, micromanaging the peasants, or just going for a wander.

Eventually, reality will reel you back in – whether that be those pesky bandits again or your growling stomach. Foraging is an excellent place to start, but as with the food side of things and crafting, you’ll want to level up, learning new skills as soon as possible. Well, not really at a fast pace, but the sooner you acquire ‘new tech’, the world will open up more.

Levelling up in Medieval Dynasty is great. To do so, you simply need to do the action you want to improve. This takes me back to Morrowind, where, rather than fast travel, I’d repeatedly jump to build my acrobatics or sneak to improve my stealth. Secrets revealed, I find it rewarding to be able to level up in the area that interests you. It’s like working out and being able to target your beer belly rather than an overall workout that knackers you.

Skilled Folk

While skills are easy peasy, navigating the menus and knowing what to do next is a bit trickier. Considering the options on display, you have to go through a few tiers to get to what you want. Simply crafting an item follows a set procedure, and if you don’t remember anything, you can look up the knowledge codex to get some direction.

Due to the pace of Medieval Dynasty, there isn’t the urgency to remember all the keybinds and breadcrumbs on how to get there, but it can be overwhelming and mildly frustrating. Naturally, when you spend countless hours in the game, it might come second nature, but not when you have the memory of a sieve.

Additionally, you can’t always build everything you want, and that’s not just down to whether you have the resources or not, but also the capacity. You can expand your community by luring in workers, pending you have a place to stay, and even finding yourself a wife. Bear in mind that you play a male character, Racimir, and he’ll only settle for a lady in this game.

Woo Is That

You can upgrade your skill levels in survival, crafting and more, but it’s worth mentioning that you can improve your chances with the ladies by improving your flirtation skills. Don’t have enough invested? Simply buy them some jewellery. Please take no offence, this is how the game works.

Keeping your better half, as well as the community happy is essential, so you can build the appropriate buildings and then assign the right worker to it, every once in a while (depending on your settings), make sure you check in on their needs and morale.

Rating Medieval Dynasty is as hard as an RPG due to the sheer depth of it. It was already a big game in the Early Access stage, but with all these major updates, the booze – yay! the game is the ultimate in medieval sandbox. Not that there’s much comparison.

If you’re willing to invest your time in building your dynasty from scratch, the rewards are well worth it. If you’re not interested in the laid back approach, there’s more than enough elements to tweak to make this an absolute nightmare of a game; temperature, dysentery, wildlife and combat are just some of the issues you may face; but there aren’t any petrol shortages…