Crossbows are coming to Manor Lords!

The days of Manor Lords developers or publisher claiming that the game is a solo project are long gone.

With that out of the way, it's cool to see that collaborators get to share in the glory that is Manor Lords. 

Crossbow animations

Case and point: @notthatnda over on X recently posted a short video on the new crossbow animations for Manor Lords. 

New crossbow animations for Manor Lords.@LordsManor#UnrealEngine #b3d #blender #rigui #animation #indiedev pic.twitter.com/SOi7vOA0UF

— ᴺᴼᵀ ᵀᴴᴬᵀ NDA (@notthatnda) July 17, 2024

According to the hashtags, it was created for Manor Lords using Blender and RigUI. That makes sense, as Nacho de Andrés, alias notthatnda, is not only an animator and rigger. He's also a Blender addon developer, mostly known for his work on the Rig UI addon for Blender.

The Crossbow animations show a soldier carrying a crossbow, cocking it with their feet, loading an arrow and  finally shooting it. The video shows this animation from different angles. 

The whole animation takes only 11 seconds, but the movement is excellent. I'm no crossbow expert so I'm not sure if this is the way a 13th century crossbow was cocked. But it looks natural to me and can't wait to see the Crossbow soldier added to Manor Lords gameplay. 

Comments

Of course, there are going to be comments on the post, which was shared by Manor Lords X account @LordsManor. 

Archers are still a bit of a sore topic, as @Snap_ShootMedia demonstrates. 

Surely you need to focus on fixing the archers before introducing a new unit?

Slavic Magic's reaction is priceless though, merely answering "No, because they aren't broken". Great confidence showing there! 

It also makes sense, as they've been reworked twice already and are actually pretty decent since the last update. 

Mostly positive reactions though, which is not surprising. Also some other great news. 

@Blitzbuggy14 asks "Are you planning butchers for food production?", to which the answer is "Yes, soon". Now, we don't know how soon soon is... but knowing there will be butchers (presumably to slaughter all those excess sheep) is great news!

@Jan_Mi2 wants to know if Cavalry will be a thing, to which the answer is "Yep, definitely". Now there is something that could shift battle tactics immensely.

Release date

All in all, we have enough to look forward to. 

Unfortunately, there hasn't been an announcement for the release date of the next patch. Both X as well as Discord remain silent on that part. 

In another thread, @LordsManor stated that it would be ready "in a few weeks". Which will give us plenty of time to think of new battle strategies incorporating these fearsome - but slow - weapons.