Vibrant strategy Be the Ruler: Britannia is probably not the next Manor Lords, but it looks great nonetheless

How to best describe strategy game Be the Ruler: Britannia when its alchemic reduction of traditionally full-on genres is what drew me to its free Steam prologue in the first place? A less demanding Manor Lords? A more casual Crusader Kings III? Total War with training wheels? It’s got shades of all these games, but thrown together with a wonderfully vibrant wood craft art style. It ends up as something I feel is going to be a lot more approachable for players who like the idea of massive medieval simulations but don’t care to spend time reading a Magna Carta-fat wiki to learn exactly what pop growth percentage is. I know what it is, and most days I wish I’d saved that brain space to e.g learn how to keep house plants alive instead.

That I’m still very interested in Be the Ruler: Britannia after playing what’s honestly quite a rough demo speaks to just how neatly all these elements look to slot together in a hypothetical final package. In it, you’re given glimpses of your ruler’s individual family members, their territory as part of a larger kingdom, and how resource and management play into making your own slice of it thrive. Dialogue itself is pretty perfunctory, but there’s a slew of choices to make even this early. On the way to a neighboring province, you’ll encounter some bandits in the roads. I chose to allow them pledge service to me. Later, I held some medieval job interviews (sure there’s a word for that) for my new military marshall, and the ex-bandit turned up as a candidate. A battle followed, which played like a very stripped-down Total War, with formation positioning key. Here’s a trailer:

Again, I’m veritably smitten by the art style. It’s as if each element has been hand-whittled from wood then painted by a loving bandit with too much time on their hands. You can find the full game on Steam here, release date TBA.