An Honest Review of Life is Feudal MMO in 2024
Good day, everyone! Today, we’re taking a plunge into the medieval muck with Life is Feudal MMO. Initially, the creators dangled a shiny sponsorship before my eyes. Tempting, indeed, but after delving deep into their world, I chose the path of the stalwart knight, opting for honesty over gold. So, unsponsored and unbridled, let’s embark on this truthful journey through a land of dirt, toil, and intrigue.
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Life is Feudal MMO Introduction
Imagine a realm where chivalry is dead, but bureaucracy thrives. Welcome to Life is Feudal, a sprawling sandbox MMO that doesn’t just simulate medieval life—it throws you in the stocks and demands you build your own key. From humble beginnings armed with naught but ambition, you’ll chop, craft, and charm your way from a lowly peasant to a lord—or lady—of the manor.
Now, the heart of this game beats within its daunting complexity. Fancy yourself a bit of a mason? Carve out your corner of the world brick by painstaking brick. Or perhaps you’re more of a Machiavellian type, scheming your way through the ranks, using the political system to elbow your way from commoner to noble. You’ll navigate a world rife with economic skirmishes and territorial disputes, where every player’s choice seeds the future of this digital dominion.
Guilds are your bread and butter here. Joining forces in true medieval style, you’ll forge alliances, defend your turf, and occasionally, if diplomacy fails, knock some rival helms together. It’s an evolving tapestry of player-driven narratives where your deeds could either sow peace or kindle wars.
Life is Feudal made its initial debut with early access in January 2018 but was discontinued in 2021. However, with a new publisher at the helm, the game made a comeback in 2023. It has now transitioned to a subscription-based model, costing £11.99 per month but no initial purchase fee. This new pricing strategy is designed to ensure the game’s sustainability, explicitly avoiding any pay-to-win elements or microtransactions, while also infuriating players who previously bought the game.
So, strap on your armor and sharpen your wits—it’s time to delve into Life is Feudal, an MMO that promises a banquet of medieval experiences but might just turn out to be a battlefield.
Character Creation
Our adventure begins with a rather fetching cutscene, complete with a voiceover that sets the stage. Shortly thereafter, it’s onto the task of character creation. Here, you’re invited to pick a race—though you might find the diversity somewhat lacking, as all options bear a striking resemblance to one another. The customization options are, frankly, underwhelming. You could end up with a face that looks like it’s survived a skirmish with a dog or a particularly nasty encounter with a swarm of bees. While the character models themselves boast impressive detail, it’s the personalization options for players that fall regrettably short.
Tutorial Island
Next we venture forth to the Tutorial Island, the land of beginnings where the game teaches you to toddle before you trot. I must confess, a slight mishap occurred when I tampered with the graphics settings—turned the whole world invisible, I did! A quick relog was the only remedy.
Once the world was visible again, with my character’s head hung low (perhaps a touch of medieval melancholy?), I spotted something quite fantastical floating mid-air—a rather anachronistic sight, reminding one of a magician’s misplaced prop. It seems the developers couldn’t resist adding a bit of whimsy, consistency be damned!
Ah, the questing—imagine if Shakespeare decided to hang up his pen and take it easy. The dialogue with NPCs is unvoiced and uninspiring. ‘Hast thou spoken with the Elder?’ they ask. And upon your affirmative, they nod and ask no more, a trust exercise that stretches belief. And what grand task does this Elder bestow? Cleaning chicken droppings and fetching eggs, of course—because nothing says ‘epic adventure’ quite like poultry housekeeping.
But on we trudge through our ‘authentic’ medieval slog, crafting tools from the very essence of the earth. A peculiar aspect of interaction here is the incessant suggestion to ‘left-click’ on everything, only to be rewarded with a riveting inspection of the object. It’s a marvellous way to practice one’s clicking finger, I suppose.
Dare to open the inventory, and you’re met with chaos—a veritable jumble sale of items with no sense of order or decency. Overlapping icons, mismatched sizes, and the glaring absence of a grid system. It’s enough to make a grown knight weep.
The hunting saga concluded not with a triumphant feast, but with a face-off against a surprisingly aggressive deer. After a ballet of misaimed throws and axe swings, it turns out my quarry had more fight in it than previously suspected. Yes, this seemingly docile creature turned, charged, and sent me to my untimely demise. There I lay, struck down not by dragon, nor knight, but by Bambi’s vengeful ancestor. Truly, Life is Feudal is full of surprises, and death by deer is apparently among them.
Thus, armed with a scant tutorial and a fleeting sense of purpose, I boldly set off for the mainland, skipping the remaining quests in favour of a direct voyage on a peculiar arrangement of floating boats. One does begin to question the frequency of these maritime mirages, but on we sail.
Mainland Woes
Upon arrival, the ‘fun’ relentlessly persists. It quickly dawned on me—much like a medieval epiphany—that my stomach was protesting its emptiness. A mysterious green bar had been lurking in the corner of my screen all this while, unexplained and unnoticed, only to reveal itself as my hunger meter. An unfortunate oversight, or perhaps a cruel twist of medieval fate? I was left as clueless as a monk in a brothel.
Stripped of my possessions and donned only in what can generously be described as a medieval nappy, I faced the wilderness with nothing but my wits and an unfathomable hunger. Scrounging the ground, I summoned forth mushrooms as if by arcane wizardry, only to discover that my culinary journey was just beginning. Who knew that the brink of starvation would have me yearning for a dish to make Gordon Ramsay weep with envy?
My quest for a simple meal of mushrooms and potatoes turned into a Homeric odyssey. I needed fire, but not just any fire—I needed a legally sanctioned fire on a plot of unclaimed land. The real estate market here is as brutal as the feudal justice system. After much toil, a fire was birthed on my tiny sliver of the realm.
But alas! The cooking saga continued—water was now needed. My aspirations of tossing a potato into the flames were dashed by the relentless realism of the game. The nearby well, a tempting oasis, turned out to be private property. Thus, in a fit of desperation, I decided to run—run towards the promise of the sea, hoping against hope that the salty expanse wasn’t yet another asset owned by the realm’s elite.
Hello is anyone there?
As I ran through this expansive, laggy map, a sense of desolation set in. No players, no enemies—just an empty, sprawling canvas with the occasional deer making a cameo appearance. My previous sessions echoed this loneliness, with global chat as deserted as the landscapes I traversed.
Finally, spotting a human silhouette on the horizon, I approached, hopeful for interaction but was met instead with my demise. Thus ended my journey, not with a bang, but with a whimper—or rather, a stealthy stab. Life indeed is Feudal.
Reflecting upon my hours spent in this world, I am compelled to confess: Life is Feudal and I are not destined to be companions on the path of virtual escapism. Despite my usual enthusiasm for MMORPGs, from the retro charms to the slickest modern iterations, this game left me cold. With scant direction post-tutorial, a glaring absence of community, and a gameplay loop that revolves largely around just surviving rather than any form of enjoyment, it felt more like a medieval simulation of existential dread than a game.
Perhaps if I had persevered, I might have forged a life of material gathering and homestead building. Yet, in some ways, my untimely death felt like a merciful release from a world where living felt more burdensome than dying. In the stark landscape of Life is Feudal, it seems there was little indeed worth living for.
