When I first saw footage of the medieval city builder "Manor Lords" a few years ago, I added it to my Steam wish list before the trailer played. Because it looked that good.

I wasn't alone: Manor Lords has occupied the #2 spot on Steam's wishlist of top games for at least a year, rivaling big names such as Hades 2, Starfield, and Hollow Knight: Silksong. This is especially impressive considering that Manor Lords is being developed by one man, Greg Styczeń of Slavic Magic.

If you were wondering how many people would need to add the game to their Steam wish list in order to (almost) reach the Steam pinnacle, that number turns out to be: 2 million. According to publisher Hooded Horse, that's how many people have Manor Lords on their Steam wish list. And this number turned out to be a big surprise for Styczeń.

"When we first released the announcement trailer in 2020, my girlfriend said she expected 7,000 wishlists. I was more optimistic and said it would be over 14,000, which would be great. I was more optimistic and said it would be around 14,000, which is great," Styczeń said.

Why is there so much interest in Manor Lords? Aside from the fact that city builders are one of the biggest genres these days (for a while last year, three of the top five most wish-listed games on Steam were city builder games), Manor Lords looks particularly ambitious. It combines medieval-inspired city building with huge RTS battles in which you try to conquer other areas while defending your settlement.

It's also packed with great detail, as we discovered when we played an impressive demo in 2022. You can walk around the city from a third-person perspective and check it out from street level.

So it's no wonder that millions of people are dying to play it. As for other developers who are working hard on their games and hoping to climb the wish list ladder, it shows how far one developer can go.

"I hope this is encouraging for other developers who are struggling to get their games out there," says Styczeń.

"I had no idea how this game would be received or how bad I would be at marketing it, but fortunately I kept going without being discouraged."

Manor Lords was originally scheduled for release in 2023, but will now be released on April 26 of this year.