Manor Lords Publisher Drops October Launch for Retro Roguelite City Builder With Vampire Survivors-Style Bullet Hell

If you bounced off Manor Lords because you wished the quiet city-building had more nightly panic attacks, here comes a curveball from the same publisher. Super Fantasy Kingdom takes the comfy resource sim vibe and then turns out the lights so monsters can tear your hard work apart. It sounds chaotic, because it is, in a good way.

So what is this thing?

Super Fantasy Kingdom is a city builder mashed up with a roguelite and a very Vampire Survivors-flavored bullet hell. By day, you lay out your town, juggle resources, and try to be a responsible medieval-ish planner. By night, the hordes arrive and do their best to dismantle everything you just placed. Your job: do not let that happen. Or at least, not for a while.

Because it is a roguelite, failure is baked into the loop. When your city finally collapses under the swarm, the run ends, you wake up the next morning, and you start again stronger than before. Progress carries over: you keep the goodies you earned and unlock more defensive options for the next go. The whole loop is about gradually building toward a run where the nightly onslaught stops being a disaster and starts being your playground.

Who is making it, and why Manor Lords fans should care

This one is developed by Super Fantasy Games (yes, truth in labeling) and published by Hooded Horse, the same label behind Manor Lords. If you liked Slavic Magic's medieval city builder for its strategic planning and resource balancing, you will recognize that DNA here. The twist is the nightly bullet hell layer that actively stress-tests every decision you made in the daylight.

Heroes, guardians, and... dinosaurs?

You can recruit more than 100 heroes to defend your budding kingdom. The roster is intentionally weird: vampires, halflings, mages, and, sure, dinosaurs. At the start of each run, you also pick one of several "guardians" to lead the charge — could be an ice priestess, could be a classic knight — which sets the tone for your whole attempt to break the loop of live-build-die-repeat.

Between battles: yes, there is a tavern

After each victory, your squad retreats to the local tavern for a proper feast made from whatever your fishing huts, farms, and mills produced (assuming you kept them standing). It is part victory lap, part prep session for the next day, which ramps right back into another large-scale clash when the sun goes down again.

• Launch date: October 24
• Where to get it: Steam, GOG, the Epic Games Store, and the Microsoft Store
• Also on: PC Game Pass via Game Preview
• Developer: Super Fantasy Games
• Publisher: Hooded Horse (of Manor Lords fame)

It is a strange blend on paper — cozy builder by day, panic-dodge-bullet-hell by night — but that contrast is the whole hook. If you are itching for something similar while you wait, the roguelike shelf is packed enough to keep you busy until those monsters clock in.