Seeing all your villagers starve to death because you did not plan your food well enough will certainly put a pep in your step on your next run. There is a definite learning curve to mastering the complexities of Going Medieval, a survival town-building sandbox game that tasks you with creating a new paradise for displaced villagers hoping to start a new life. But if you can wrap your mind around the game’s bits and bobs, there is a surprisingly robust experience underneath, and a real sense of satisfaction in getting the likes of Hankin Digby through those cold, rain-soaked nights.
Going Medieval is, admittedly, a very slow and methodical game. Do not go in expecting to craft grand castle towns after a few hours, or even 12. Rather, you start with a handful of villagers, a pile of resources and nothing else but determination. New to the full release of Going Medieval, however, are four different starting conditions: A New Life, Pioneer, Peaceful and Lone Wolf.
As each map and scenario is randomly generated, these conditions help mould what kind of experience you will be looking to create. For example, Lone Wolf gives you a single villager hoping to live a hermit lifestyle, while A New Life focuses on teamwork and creating a veritable city. These starting scenarios, combined with good randomization overall, help each playthrough feel distinct, and that is something I truly appreciate, as Going Medieval can be a bit monotonous at first.
“There is a definite learning curve to mastering the complexities of Going Medieval.”
There is a lot to absorb and manage at any one time, from exploring the map to find resources to actually feeding your villagers, making sure they have leisure activities, gathering wood for buildings, conducting research to unlock new objects and perks, fending off bandits and much more. But even past those basic elements, Going Medieval has so many layers of simulation that it can almost be overwhelming.
Every map has different elevation layers, meaning things are buried underground, including waterways, so you need to build wells. You can even terraform the land to make rivers or pools. Then you need to set your villagers’ schedule, deciding when they work and sleep, and you can even manage which tasks they prioritize using a complex number assignment system.
Even with a lengthy tutorial, you will need to learn a lot of Going Medieval’s elements along the way. And admittedly, I can see some people bouncing off the experience in that process. Those early hours of each run can feel like a grind as you scrape and scrounge for every resource you can find. But once you get over the hump, there is a lot of fun to be had in seeing your city come together and getting it to that point where it can basically run itself. Seeing your quaint little hovel turn into a grand town hall where you hold feasts for your dozens of subjects.
“Going Medieval has so many layers of simulation that it can almost be overwhelming.”
And the joy of Going Medieval really lies in two specific areas: the challenge of the game’s surprises and the juggling act of management. On that first point, the game consistently throws interesting tweaks or new wrinkles at you, forcing your hand in your city design in some ways. For example, you might get a wanderer who stumbles upon your settlement and asks to be taken in, but they are actually on the run from a religious organization. Taking them in means you get an extra worker, but you will also need to fend off an attack in a matter of hours.
Those kinds of curveballs add a fascinating layer to your already challenging resource management act. As my city grew more complex and I added more villagers, there was something undeniably compelling about setting up these complex webs of tasks, making sure I had someone assigned to food, a builder and even someone to deal with all my animal poop. I could hyperfixate on all that for an hour, fine-tune every little aspect, then sit back and watch the machine I built run. New systems added with the full version, including Renown and Grand Objectives, also mean your progression feels a touch more satisfying and complex, with the game tangibly rewarding you for reaching milestones.
But I think the real crux of Going Medieval is that it is one of those games where you get out what you put in. There is no narrative to drive you forward and very little direction in general. It is more about crafting your own experience, creating your own little head-canon stories with your blocky villagers and building the whole thing out how you want. If you can buy into all that and wrangle the game’s dozens of systems, there is quite an adventure to be had.
