Bellwright has a fantastic central premise. Your medieval home country is being pillaged and ruined by a despotic king. By traveling between boroughs and settlements, you gradually raise a small militia, using them to capture patches of territory. Gather resources. Build houses. Forge an upstart economy. Over time, you unite your fledgling townships under a single banner and march on the evil empire – it’s an RPG, survival game, and medieval strategy saga all in one. Manor Lords might have stolen the spotlight. Age of Empires has the historic RTS crown. But Bellwright remains one of Steam’s best hidden gems, and now it’s bigger and better thanks to a whirlwind anniversary update.
Part survival game and part RPG, as well as improving your towns and villages, in Bellwright, you can also hone your own, personal abilities. Combat is directional – you have to place your strikes, and try to move away from any incoming blows. You can also craft, hunt, and build. The key is to place at your own pace. If you want to mount an army and go straight after the king, that’s an option. But if you want to slow it down and just explore the wilderness, you’re also free to amble.
Originally released on April 23, 2024, Bellwright arrived just three days before Manor Lords – at the time, Hooded Horse’s medieval city builder was the most wishlisted game on Steam, and so Bellwright, naturally, was a little overshadowed. But despite the competition, Bellwright has held its own. Of the more than 10,000 Steam user reviews posted so far, 80% are positive, and the medieval game still pulls in thousands of PC players each day. If you haven’t tried Bellwright yet, now is definitely the time. The new anniversary update adds a lot of vital features, incorporating player feedback from the past 12 months.
First up, animal husbandry is now an option – you can buy animals from merchants, house them together, and reap the benefits with products like eggs, feathers, and milk. If you decide to butcher an animal, Bellwright’s skinning system has been revised, giving you different processing options which in turn yield variable types and qualities of meat.
The interface has been similarly overhauled and there are now traveling merchants who move around the map and visit your settlements offering new, different wares. There are extra locations to explore, including caves, swamps, and mountain trails, and a gigantic 25 new quests, expanding Bellwright’s central story. Perhaps the biggest addition of all however, crucial to any RPG or survival game, is fishing. There are multiple mini-games, dozens of fish types, and your villages will also fish, introducing to your settlements a whole-new source of food.
Free for all players, the Bellwright anniversary update is live from today, Wednesday April 23. If you want to try the game out, it’s also on sale for $26.99 / £22.49. Just go here.
Otherwise, get the best medieval games, or maybe the best city-building games available today.
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