Here's hoping it actually turns out that way.
It's been in the works for years. It's been wishlisted by millions of Steam gamers. It's finally out on April 26th. And now the full system requirements for Manor Lords, everyone's most wanted city-building smorgasbord, have been released. And, huzzah, they're mostly very modest indeed.
For minimum support, publisher Hooded Horse says antediluvian CPUs starting with the Intel Core i5 4670 and AMD FX 4350 will do. Yup, that's an AMD Bulldozer chip in the minimum specs list for a new 2024 PC title.
On the GPU side, it's a mere Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 2GB or AMD Radeon RX 460 4GB. Pretty much, then, if you've got any kind of gaming PC with an actual discrete GPU that doesn't date from the early Mesozoic, you're probably good to go.
Oh, with one possible exception. You'll need 16GB of RAM to hit the minimum spec. That said, RAM upgrades are pretty cheap these days. $30 will buy you 16GB of DDR4, for instance.
Of course, it's not clear exactly what kind of experience that buys you. "Minimum" could turn out to be minimal. However, even the recommended specs are fairly heartening.
You're only looking at Intel Core i5 7600 or AMD Ryzen 3 2200G on the CPU side and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB regarding GPU grunt, plus the same 16GB of system memory.
Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.
That bodes very well for we mere mortals, the likes of us who don't casually spool up our RTX 4090s of a morning as our morning brew gently tinkles through the filter into the jug.
As we've noted previously, Manor Lords will be available on PC Game Pass on day one, so if you've already got a subscription you'll be able to try it without any further investment. In addition to Steam Early Access it'll also be on GOG, and a console launch is also planned further down the line.
We've been very impressed by the brief demos that have previously been released. So, here's hoping Manor Lords turns out to be worth the wait. And that it runs as well as the easy-going system requirements imply.
