Dear friends of The Guild,
Our sincere appreciation goes out to all of you who are trying out our demo and taking the time to write a review. Rest assured that we diligently go through every single comment and consider all feedback, even if we do not respond to everything.
We have released this demo to give you a glimpse of what we are working on right now and to make sure you know what to expect from the game. We’ve realized that those of you who entered the world of The Guild via its 2nd or 3rd installment might have expected Europa 1410 to be another medieval life sim, which is not the case. While we’ve always tried hard to be upfront and transparent about our goals for Europa 1410 and how they came to be, our messaging was overshadowed by the strong nostalgia for The Guild 2 and 3. So we completely understand your frustration at finding that Europa 1410 does not offer direct control of your character and is focusing more on economy and dynasty building, like the original Europa 1400. Therefore, we will try our best to put things in perspective so you can better judge if and when Europa 1410 might become the game for you.
We believe that the spirit of the The Guild lives not in a specific installment but in the perpetual desire to create and experience the The Guild sandbox. Thus, with Europa 1410 we aim to consolidate the franchise starting from its roots, expanding the economy sim core of the first installment with city building elements and, step by step, incorporating life sim aspects from later installments, blending everything together in a single, coherent but multifaceted experience that you as fans of the franchise can identify with regardless of which specific installment originally formed your view of The Guild. Admittedly, this is an ambitious goal and we have a long journey ahead of us, but we hope you can join us and help us shape Europa 1410.
Our game has been in development for 2 years with a small team and will release in Early Access in exactly one month. For the release of the demo and the launch of Early Access, development focused mainly on the core pillars of the game: goods production, politics and family. Now that these pillars stand strong, we are shifting our focus to the things needed to make the game stand out and be truly enjoyable.
In addition to interweaving layers of strategic gameplay between the core pillars, such as nepotism undermining office appointments and your family members helping you manage your business, we will make sure that every profession feels unique and special. For example, as an Innkeeper you will need to make sure your patrons are well supplied with beer and meals when they visit your establishment after work, or else the reputation of your quarter will decrease and visitors will stop coming, which in time will cut your profits; as a Robber Baron, you will need to balance your profit from criminal activities with your earnings from providing nefarious services to others, as they may pay you well but will also compete with you in separating honest citizens from their worldly possessions.
Furthermore, we will be focusing intensely on incorporating and adapting immersive aspects of the previous games, especially ways to interact with the world and its inhabitants, and in general visual representation of what is going on in the game world. You will not only find your character in your house or walking around the city, but, for example, the animations of workers will reflect their assigned tasks; later, iconic events such as trials, office sessions, and duels will include the relevant characters and be more interactive.
We also plan to include an in-world onboarding experience to serve not only players new to The Guild, but all players who need a bit of support getting oriented in a complex sim. The present tutorials will remain accessible from the City Chronicles, so you can always refer back to them.
We will be opening every map for multiplayer, so you can enjoy Europa 1410 together with your friends and family.
AI players will be able to do everything that human players can do, and will have personalities that color their strategic agendas.
Last but not least, we will add support for several languages. Currently we can confirm German, French, Spanish, Czech, Polish, Russian and Simplified Chinese.
Make sure to follow our dev diaries, where we will discuss important features in detail and provide a roadmap for the Early Access period, which starts July 16. It is our firm belief that Europa 1410 will be fun for the vast majority of the The Guild community, and because of that we will keep the demo available and updated until the game's final release and beyond. You can come back at any time to see if the updates we are making are to your liking before you decide to buy Europa 1410.