Manor Lords developer is fishing in a pond - and who could blame them?

Who doesn't love to take a break? Find yourself a nice little pond, unwind, maybe throw out a fishing line every now and then? 

Fishing these days is a favourite pastime for a lot of people. Back in medieval times it was more often than not required to put food on the table. 

In Manor Lords, water is under utilised at the current Early Access state the game is in. There's are underground water veins and a well to provide water for villagers, but that's about it. 

It's no wonder the community asked for water related improvements and additions to the game since the release in April this year. 

Unreal Engine 5 update

It's no secret that the Manor Lords developer, together with some compatriots, are working on a huge update to the game. It focuses on an upgrade to Unreal Engine 5, because you know, reasons. 

Support from Epic, better this, more of that, less of such... You name it. Unreal Engine 5 is better than the previous version 4 in many ways. To quote theknowledgeacademy.com:

UE5's Nanite technology allows for handling up to 10 billion polygons, enabling incredibly detailed and photorealistic environments and characters without compromising performance.

And let's face it: UE4 hasn't received any updates since 2021. So it's about time that UE5 was used.

Gorgeous fishing pond

To showcase some progress on the development of Manor Lords, X (formerly Twitter) account @LordsManor just posted a screenshot of a gorgeous fishing pond.

Screenshot posted by @LordsManor over at X, showcasing beautiful fishing pond.

I mean, look at that... The details in the grass, the reflection of the clouds in the water... Just stunning!

Developer Greg posts just a little information about it:

Working on fishing ponds for the next update since it was requested a lot

Fishing ponds for the next update. It doesn't tell us much. Will they just be visual? Will they be functional? Will you need fishermen in a fishery? Or will free villagers spend their time there? Will you need to make fishing rods in a toolmaker? 

So many questions! So little information!

Information in the comments

Of course, X wouldn't be X if there weren't comments. Most of those are positive. A few are trolls. But Greg does respond to the more constructive ones.

From the comments, we can gather that the next release will include both the fishing ponds as well as the UE5 upgrade.

Other comments include great ideas, like

• a boat builders profession
• a salt house for fish storage
• eels and geese as a dish for wealthier townsfolk
• a smokery
• an illness caused by mosquitoes when living close to a pond

How do gamers come up with this stuff? It's great!

Release date

Neither the X-account, nor publisher Hooded Horse or the moderators in the Discord community have set a specific release date for the next version.

@LordsManor did reply to one of the comments that the plan is to release in "a few weeks".

We'll just have to be patient... Yeah right! 🤣