Medieval Dynasty | PC Review

Everyone has that one genre of game that just feels right. Whether it’s side scrolling, puzzle games, or bullet hells, everyone has one. Mine just happens to be open worlds with either survival or crafting involved. You can blame Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind for that. There is just something about stumbling through the world until you find your way that really gets to me. Speaking of finding your way, Publisher Toplitz Productions along with developer Render Cube Games has moved one of their games to console. Medieval Dynasty was originally released in 2020 for PC, but after being well received, it appears they are reaching out to new groups of players. As of October 6th, Playstation and Xbox fans can download their copies. Now let us take a look as to why you would want to start a dynasty of your own.

Into the Woods

Almost literally. After barely escaping the destruction of his home with a sacrifice from his father, Racimir sets out to find his uncle, who lives in a place his mother had told him about in stories as a child. After some time of travel, Racimir finds the valley his mother spoke of, and he hopes to find his uncle somewhere among the villages. 

As far as stories go, Medieval has one; it isn’t amazing, but it is there. Not really the driving force of the game, but more of something to give the characters some kind of life other than just farmers farming in a valley of farming farmers. Certain missions push your story forward, while side quests move random villagers’ stories. The speed of the game really depends on you. Do you want to do only what is necessary for your story or do you want to build the perfect town? Even when you complete the main story, you are still allowed to continue building and exploring the wilds at your own pace. The stories do expire after some time so you will have to keep that in mind as you’re playing.

Medieval Monopoly

In the beginning, a character basically tells you that as long as you pay your taxes you can do as you please. Well this is great, because that is what I was going to do anyway. You start with little more than the clothes on your back, and unless you plan on living off of rocks and sticks, you better get to work. Hunting, fishing, farming, and foraging are common ways to get food. Chasing rabbits with a knife is all well and good, but try that during winter and you might freeze. Getting better tools is a must if you want to spend time doing anything other than food collecting.

The progression of wanting better things pushes you farther and farther into the game’s crafting and building aspects. In most games when you want to build something more advanced, you get a new crafting table. In Medieval Dynasty, you make a completely different building. This isn’t terrible, but there goes your dream of living off the grid in a shack. You now have a small complex just to make a bow. You can still live in a single shack; you will just have to go to a village and buy more advanced things.

Living in the woods is great, but I find myself spending all my time cooking the food I spent all day collecting, and now I don’t have enough time to collect stones to make an axe to collect wood to make firewood to keep my bonfire lit so I can cook. There has got to be an easier way. 

The main focus of the game is to make things easier on yourself as you make a living off the land. Most games have ways of making jobs easier or altogether automatic. We have those same ideas here, but automation is harder to achieve. As you progress, you will find yourself replacing your mundane tasks with different levels of upkeep around your village. You found someone to get wood for you, they need food, water, housing, and supplies to work. You’ve got help, but now you need even more food so you get someone to do that too. So on and so forth until all jobs are accounted for.

As you build more and more, another way the game changes is that it starts taxing you for the amount of buildings you have. Different buildings are taxed differently, but overall doesn’t add a strategic hurdle to overcome. This does, however, require you to pay somehow. With the addition of another building and person you can slowly start making items that can be sold to keep you moving in the right direction. 

Taming the Wilderness

Medieval Dynasty is really easy to get into. A few tutorial missions in the beginning help you get started with the basics. As you progress, there is a tab in the menu for explanations on almost everything in the game. Even the people are more useful than normal NPCs with dialog options that let you ask where things are, and everyone knows where everything is.

Most of the game’s settings can be changed in game, which I really like. At some point I thought the game was just flying by with everything I needed to do getting in the way of what I wanted to do. So, I changed the settings and made the game longer. It lets you be in control of the experience you’re having. Most sandbox games don’t let you change things once you’re in the actual game and that can be frustrating when trying to find the setting you like.

I found Medieval Dynasty while looking for survival games that didn’t have zombies or other creatures and was pleasantly surprised by it. If you enjoy city building, management, or survival games, you might want to give this gem a try.

 

This review is based on a purchased copy of Medieval Dynasty for PC. It is also available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.