While its focus on non-violence will be offputting for some, players looking for an in-depth medieval life sandbox need look no further than Medieval Dynasty.
Singleplayer.
The Dynasty Franchise by Toplitz Productions is rather unique in that while all of the games are very similar to one another and provide a “low violence” alternative to a traditional survival game or empire builder, for the most part, they are developed by separate developers, which can result in “newer” titles in the franchise lacking quality of life fixes available in previous titles due to both titles having been worked on simultaneously by different development teams each with their own priorities and vision for their respective titles.
While there are many similarities shared between Dynasty titles, the following are some of the most prominent shared mechanics and are a huge part of why Dynasty titles appeal to such a wide demographic of gamers, with fans of survival, city building, roleplaying, simulation and management games finding Dynasty titles appealing.
Player characters can win the hearts of a local NPC girl to start a family, with the wives having varying degrees of interactivity, with Medival Dynasty wife NPC currently having the most advanced AI in the franchise.
Players who play long enough to die can take over as their son, who will continue to improve the family holdings while finding love and fathering children of his own.
While weapons are in most dynasty games, combat is optional in the most dangerous settings (Medieval, Wild West, Sengoku), allowing players who prefer non-violent games to enjoy the game.
The blueprint building system utilised by the Dynasty games results in much prettier and more realistic-looking buildings than the freeform systems found in most survival games, often resulting in inexperienced players building box-shaped buildings.
However, it is rather tedious, with players being required to repeatedly hit the build button anywhere on the blueprint, while parts appear as if by magic after the correct amount of clicks; sure, it looks nice. Still, as someone who loves free-form building, I must admit I found it rather limiting and honestly tedious, considering the excessive amount of gathering required to build even the most basic of buildings.
Dynasty games allow players to assign NPCs to various tasks, such as using machinery, gathering resources, or preparing food.
While the type of quests found in most Dynasty titles are usually rather simple, fans of roleplaying games appreciate the ability to complete quests, and they do help make the world feel more alive and give players a sense of progression.
Being part of the Dynasty franchise is both a blessing and a curse, with new entries suffering not only from high expectations and player interest due to games such as Medieval Dynasty but also a healthy dose of scepticism due to titles such as Wild West Dynasty, which resulted in many gamers at least temporarily losing faith in the franchise, and to a much lesser degree its publisher.
In June 2023, Render Cube announced that Medieval Dynasty would receive a major gameplay addition in the form of a new map, cooperative mode, and a playable female character, a first for the Dynasty franchise.
While it is unlikely that players will be able to play the singleplayer mode as a female character due to the story being built around a male protagonist, being able to play as a female character on the new map in cooperative mode is a very welcome addition, and could indicate that the developers are at least open to adapting Medieval Dynasty’s singleplayer narrative to be gender natural.
Medieval Dynasty performs well on all platforms, but performance will vary by platform, as expected.
Medieval Dynasty does a good job of keeping framerates steady. While there will be occasional dips when entering a highly populated area or one with a lot of buildings, these performance drops rarely last more than a few seconds before returning to the platforms target framerate, indicating that these drops are the result of a caching mechanism and not an underlying fault with the game or its optimisation.
Medieval Dynasty is a very attractive game visually. While it is no longer the best-looking Dynasty game (Sengoku has claimed that title), its combination of visuals, content, and performance make it overall the better title of the two, and its stunning visuals, combined with a comprehensive photo mode is sure to please screenshot enthusiasts.
Life in Medieval Dynasty is rarely boring thanks to a wide variety of events that have a direct effect on your villagers and often coin purpose, with rumours of war, the promise of a bountiful harvest or even the threat of wolves having a varying degree of influence on how happy your villagers are, and how productive they are.
While Medieval Dynasty offers little in the way of enemies, that is not to say life in a Medieval villiage is without danger, and players will find themselves struggling through harsh and hungry winters if they do not prepare accordingly during the warm summer months and cool fall days, where food and game are in abundance.
While Medieval Dynasty is more of a simulation game than a roleplaying game, it does offer a robust progression system that allows players to level up multiple skill trees and, more importantly, unlock a wide variety of functional and decorative buildings from simple household furnishings to production building that allows players to craft and sell a wide variety of high-end gear, despite offering players little opportunity to use said gear in a meaningful way, beyond the occasional wolf or roaming bandit.
When many players think of the Medieval era, they think of long-running wars between European powers and feeding lords abusing the peasants and generally acting like tyrants, and this has caused some gamers to be disappointed that Medieval Dynasty does not play like Mount and Blade, despite the developers never implying that was the direction they were heading, and the Dynasty series as a whole being a low violence alternative to traditional survival games.
Medieval Dynasty is like a model village, and with every building I create and decor I place, my village further takes on the design I have envisioned for it.
Would I personally prefer more action beyond the occasional run-in with roaming bandits? Honestly, yes, I would love NPC sieges and Mount and Blade-style battles; however, I can appreciate Medieval Dynasty is a good game exactly in the way the developers envisioned it, even if it doesn’t necessarily meet all the requirements for me to continue to play it for an extended period of time.
Medieval Dynasty is a role playing game video game developed by Render Cube and published by Toplitz Productions,, it was released on 23 September 2021 and retails for $34.99+.
Medieval Dynasty is available on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
Medieval Dynasty remains in active development, and some pretty large features are currently in development, including a new map, cooperative mode, and at long last, a playable female character model.
On average Medieval Dynasty takes between 25 and 100 hours to complete.
Estimated completion times are derived from various sources and may vary based on the skill level of each player.
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Medieval Dynasty is rated PEGI 16+ and contains:
Medieval Dynasty is unlike any other survival game, and for fans of the survival genre who have had their fill of violence and mayhem, Medieval Dynasty is the best the genre has to offer however for anyone who still enjoys a little mayhem and danger in their game time, Medieval Dynasty has very little to offer, despite initial claims of players being able to defend their village from bandits, something which appears to have been left on the cutting room floor as the developers opted for a more pacifist approach to medieval living, with bandit encounters being reduced to optional, open world affairs.
