Medieval Dynasty is the Hot New Hardcore Survival Sim

Render Cube is a Polish studio that has experienced a very strange artistic arch in its short gamedev career. They went from a Halloween, cartoonish racer called Monster League to Medieval Dynasty – a... naturalistic simulator of medieval peasant life? This rather odd move was probably the idea of Toplitz Productions, the publisher. When we add them into the equation, it all starts to make a lot more sense: the German company has games like Farmer's Dynasty and Lumberjack's Dynasty in their back catalog. Not only is the latter part of their titles indicative, but these games are about the daily life of, get it, farmers and lumberjacks.

Render Cube's game appears to be a complete product (though it’s only the first days of its early access on Steam). We can both cultivate and cut down maples and pines, as well as work in the fields. At the same time, however, you can’t forget about eating, drinking, washing, gathering all kinds of fruits, establishing personal relationships, finding a spouse, having children, and, when the time comes for us and we die by accident after a brutal attack by a boar in the forest nearby (a la Robert Baratheon), leaving them some inheritance – hopefully, a large settlement. Because, my fellow gamers, it looks and it walks like the Middle Ages, and I had the painful pleasure of testing it for a year (which translates to about 10 hours of perilous wandering around the world).

A jumble of genres

As strange as it may seem, comparisons to Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Animal Crossing, or economy strategies aren't out of place. Render Cube set out a very, very ambitious plan and created a game within the framework of Toplitz Productions' previous games, while pushing realism further. The adventure is seasoned with survival elements and a lot depends on the life achievements of the main character. These, in turn, are measured by the number of tasks completed and connections made – an RPG, through and through.

However, this is not The Forest, where you'd survive a plane crash, become stranded in the heart of the jungle and have to cope without any idea how to. Already at the start, you become overwhelmed by the number of activities you can engage in; it sometimes seems like it's too much. Rest assured, however: every interface point or skill tab, as well as the most basic mechanics and issues are explained in detail: from the simplest things such as the health bar, hunger and thirst indicators, to all the buildings and crafting capabilities.

But this might as well be counterproductive: at first, I felt like I had the honor of interacting with a work that transcended my intelligence, where the range of possibilities outweigh the number of my brain cells. The salvation came from disabling the tutorial and firing up the task log. It directed me to a particular point on the map, and the rest was history. Rappers would call it “flow.”

Running errands, like in any RPG

It's a rather subjective issue, but I don't really mind being held by the hand – or at least by the little finger. Therefore, I accepted with a lot of enthusiasm the fact that from the very start, the game told me exactly where to go (truth be told, it rather suggests it – "do what you want"). And so I would head to the indicated settlement, getting acquainted with some European forests on the way. Fans of The Witcher won't be disappointed – the folklore is abundant, and there's even a chance you'll encounter a wisent.

In any case, I cross the boundaries of the wooden palisade and headed to whoever was in charge of that fine settlement, to read a few lines of dialogue (not voiced yet). I think to myself "Darn, I think it really is an RPG." I'm given a side quest to inform the residents on the other side of the river of the impending wolf attack. They take the message with relative composure and ask me to help them build the walls – I am to bring them 40 wooden logs. By then, I was certain it was just as brazen an RPG as all those Gothics and Dragon Ages. Come on, Stranger. Do this, do that, and I promise you, you'll get some hot soup.

I must admit, though, that doing this kind of mission feels much better when you don't collect these logs with a single click, but rather have to make yourself a decent axe from the sticks and stones found along the way. And then cut down those trees by hand. And then carry the logs in a few turns, otherwise you'll break the poor man's back. While in the trance of this paradoxically engaging monotony of slamming an axe into a birch tree, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't just an RPG, but rather a genuine survival.

As the name suggests, "role-playing games" are, in a very simplified sense, about playing roles. Therefore, the relationships we enter into with other characters should carry some emotional charge. The case of Medieval Dynasty proves that a romanticized protagonist is not mandatory for having fun. The conversations with NPCs are governed by pure pragmatism. The degree of the so-called approval or affection (i.e. a character's attitude towards us) is measured in percentage points, and its ultimate purpose isn't taking the hypothetical Unigost or Dobromir towards the setting sun to save the world from a herd of boars. No. In this game, you make friends in order to convince people to live in your settlement and work for you. The same is true of love relationships, which seem to follow the worst medieval standards. You only marry for a potential heir. You're seducing to strengthen your social standing.