Medieval Engineers Preview

From the creators who brought us the ability to simulate that boring Sandra Bullock movie, Gravity, comes Medieval Engineers. Keen Software House have moved on from their space sim filled with the dark reaches of outer space and opened up to the green fields and vast mountains of the medieval age.

Instead of following quests and missions you are tasked with building, destroying and exploring the open world that is your playground. While this may seem very similar in idea as its predecessor, this game launched with a decent amount of content that allows you to build some fairly complex castles and even some pretty amazing catapults that can help destroy a castle that you have gotten tired of looking at.

 You have a myriad of options when it comes to creating your first building or whatever else you may decide to create. From the beginning you have the option of starting out in a grassy field with a castle already built in it, or you can even choose to start off being surrounded by mountains. The building system is truly well designed as you can switch between auto-snap, which snaps the bricks together as you place them, or free build, which can result in some truly funny physics. The auto-snap tool is near perfect however there are some problems with the terraforming tool that are not quite as well designed.

While I am fairly accustomed to games that allow the player to reform the surrounding land, the terraforming tools in Medieval Engineers requires quite a bit of practice before you can master it. If you don’t have a steady mouse hand you will find the terraform tool (a tool that allows you to change the terrain and curvature of the land) very difficult to use as it is very finicky at the moment, however it is a tool worth learning, as you can create some very unique terrain for your castle to stand on.

Perhaps one of the best things about this game is that it has so much opportunity for shenanigans with your friends! The variety of blocks and ease with which you can build things will make it so that you and your friends can have a castle or catapult built in no time at all.

While building stuff can be a lot of fun, it’s far more fun to destroy it and start over again. Medieval Engineers has some awesome mechanics behind it that allow players to equip either small or large cannonballs and launch them at the castles they’ve worked so hard to create and watch them crumble into little pieces.

The game even rewards those who are really creative by making it so the trebuchets and catapults can be created to destroy walls, castles, and whatever else you choose to build. The great thing about this game is that you are only limited by your own imagination, as the possibilities are endless. While browsing the Steam Workshop I stumbled across someone who had managed to create a Gatling catapult that launched projectiles in rapid succession. Having this game open immediately to Steam Workshop is a brilliant idea as it allows people to share their brilliant creations and help people learn the game’s mechanics with a greater understanding.

Medieval Engineers has so much potential and I look forward to what it holds in for the future, as those with creative minds will find this title to be a fascinating way to explore their ideas. The direction that Keen Software has taken so far with the game is fantastic and updates have been coming in regularly. I have high hopes for the game and the awesome community that has already uploaded some truly innovative creations.