Manor Lords publisher had "some wild hopes," but after 2 million sales the city builder has smashed every expectation

Manor Lords
(Image credit: Hooded Horse)

In just under three weeks, Manor Lords has now exceeded two million copies sold, beating its publisher's wildest expectations.

"It’s been wonderful to see so many players give Manor Lords a try," Tim Bender, CEO of publisher Hooded Horse, says in a press release. "We had some pretty optimistic expectations and even some wild hopes, but reaching two million copies on Manor Lords so quickly has exceeded even those."

The news was also posted to social media, prompting an additional response from developer Slavic Magic on Twitter: "Insane! Thank you for playing." That's pretty impressive for the work of a solo - or really, mostly solo - developer. 

Manor Lords had already been off to a flying start, selling over a million copies just one day after launch and smashing Steam's concurrent player records for city-building games and other strategy genres. It spent ages at the top of Steam's wishlist charts, only to immediately hit the platform's top-sellers list the second it was finally out.

The game is currently in Early Access, and it's already starting to get regular patches. The dev is, however, begging modders to stop submitting bug reports after wasting time trying to fix a bug that wasn't even his fault. Even in its early state, players are already pushing the game to its limits by doing everything from building a 3,000-strong 'village' that only has 1 market to raising 2,100 sheep and crying "Send help, I'm drowning in wool."

Ali went to war in Manor Lords all so his city-builder civilians could get a proper drink.

Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.