Manor Lords made its entrance into 2024’s gaming scene just when the industry may have thought that it had seen the maximum heights that indie developers could reach this year. Every month seems to have a title that comes out of nowhere and blows the competition out of the water, starting with Pocketpair’s Palworld in January.

Fast forward to today, and there are multiple indie devs who are leaving a significant mark on the industry, with Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 still going strong, but right now, all eyes are on Slavic Magic’s medieval strategy game.

Manor Lords Has Already Reached a Massive Milestone

Before discussing the milestone that Manor Lords has reached, it’s important to know what it even is and why its success matters. The title was launched in Early Access on April 26, but there’s one aspect that makes it stand out from Arrowhead and Pocketpair. Where the studios behind Helldivers 2 and Palworld have around 100 and 50 employees, respectively, Slavic Magic comprises just one developer, Greg Styczen, which is why his achievement is extraordinary.

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The publishing of Manor Lords was handled by Hooded Horse, who announced that it has already sold more than 1 million copies on Steam.

Accompanied by a screenshot showcasing the numbers that Slavic Magic’s title is reaching on Valve’s platform, the game has an all-time peak of over 170,000 concurrent players, which is an impressive feat considering how it hasn’t even been a week since its launch. It took Styczen seven years to release his project, and witnessing its triumph on this scale is amazing.

Move Aside AAA Studios; Indie Developers Are Taking Over 2024

Hooded Horse also noted that these numbers are the “highest ever for a city builder (or for other different genres like GSG/4x/colony sim),” but the interesting thing is that the game is faring even better than some AAA titles that were launched this year. An example of this is Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad, which got off to a rocky release, but all hopes were on the arrival of the Joker with the first DLC.

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Unfortunately, that didn’t work either, as currently, the game doesn’t even have 200 concurrent players on Steam.

On the other hand, indie developers are taking over 2024 by putting a lot of heart and soul into their games while showing that they care about what their player base wants and does not.

From Palworld and the Helldivers sequel to Manor Lords and even Content Warning, these titles may not have the biggest budgets that most AAA games have the luxury of, but they are turning out to be much greater gaming experiences than their more expensive counterparts.