Medieval Dynasty (Early Access)
Render Cube
When I’d first heard about developer Render Cube’s medieval simulator, Medieval Dynasty, I had to wonder why this kind of game hasn’t happened yet. After all, we have plenty of games that are set in the Middle Ages, just nothing I can think of that allows you to “hunt, survive,” and “build,” as the game’s Steam description states.
In this single-player first-person experience, you step into the shoes of a simple commoner striving to survive. You see, your family has passed away and you’ve traveled to a northern province in the hopes of meeting up with your uncle so that you can get a good head start in the area. The only problem is that your uncle has also passed away—actually, he was killed by a group of bandits from the region. This sad news is broken to you by the same person that advises you to start a small settlement in the area, using your own hands.
You’ll want to traverse the surrounding foothills and meadows for a decent, wide-open place to start your first homestead. From there, you’ll construct additional buildings, each of which serves your homestead in different ways, such as wood sheds and storage facilities to keep your food and other resources secure. You can also upgrade these buildings to make them more efficient as well. In no time, you’ll begin to feel a real sense of accomplishment as you build up your settlement.
Medieval Dynasty’s menu systems are surprisingly quite intuitive and easy to grasp. I can recount so many times that I’ve jumped into a survival game and found their menus to be hard to navigate and unwieldy. Not so here—want to check up on a settler’s disposition and see what you need to build something? It’s as easy as one-two-three.
One of the things that really impressed me about Medieval Dynasty is its highly impressive graphics. All of the surrounding environs look very natural and detailed, such as rolling hills, windswept meadows, and trickling creeks. Also, resources that you need to collect for your various crafting duties fit naturally into their surroundings and nothing seems out of place. Many survival games contain unrealistic looking resources that stick out like a sore thumb instead of looking like they’re part of the natural landscape.
As you continue to build up your settlement you’ll gain a resource based on the reputation of your dynasty. You’ll also want to socialize with some of the local AI folks in the area. Once you attain both a certain dynasty reputation—as well as gaining the acceptance of the NPCs, you can attempt to recruit them as members of your settlement.
Things don’t go on auto-pilot from there; you’ll have to keep your new settlers fat and happy by providing both food and other resources for them. If you neglect this all-important set of mechanics, your settlers will eventually become disillusioned with you and leave your settlement for greener pastures—namely those of their original homes.
Yes, there are opportunities for romance in Medieval Dynasty. You can court various ladies within your settlement in order to try and woo them. If you’re successful, a relationship will blossom between you and your woman and you can get married. Eventually, you’ll want to have some children with your wife so that they can carry on with your dynasty.
Medieval Dynasty is an incredibly immersive medieval sandbox simulator with a unique setting. You won’t find any mutated post-apocalyptic animals or zombies here, just the natural world for you to make your mark in (or die trying). Although the game has just recently entered into Early Access it is already filled with a good deal of content. I’m very much looking forward to its continued development cycle.
SCORE: 86%
Medieval Dynasty has some pretty good looking graphics that make its sandbox gameplay truly shine. However, you want to have a pretty beefy gaming PC or gaming laptop in order to play it at a decent framerate. So, you may just want to invest in a decent gaming rig:
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