Going Medieval entered early access in 2021 riding a wave of interest in colony management games. Developed by Foxy Voxel, it places settlers in a post-plague medieval landscape and asks you to build a self-sustaining settlement that can withstand raids, harsh weather, and resource scarcity. The hook is three-dimensional building, with underground cellars, multi-story structures, and elevated defenses all playing a role in survival.
Community reception has been positive with clear acknowledgment of early access limitations. Players consistently praise the building system and the medieval setting while noting that content depth and certain systems need more development. It’s a game that generates optimism about its future while being honest about its present state.
Castles That Rise From the Ground Up
The three-dimensional building system is Going Medieval’s strongest contribution to the genre. Most colony management games operate on a flat plane with occasional terrain variation. Going Medieval lets you dig underground for storage and protection, build multiple floors, and construct proper fortifications with walls, towers, and battlements. This vertical dimension transforms base design from a layout exercise into an architectural challenge. Your settlement grows upward and downward as much as it spreads outward.
Defensive building connects directly to gameplay in satisfying ways. Raids are the primary threat, and your ability to withstand them depends heavily on how you’ve constructed your settlement. Arrow slits in walls, elevated positions for archers, chokepoints at entrances, and underground fallback positions all function as intended. Watching a well-designed fortification repel attackers creates a feedback loop between creative building and strategic success.
Resource management has the depth you’d expect from the genre, with farming, crafting, cooking, and stockpiling all requiring attention. Temperature plays a meaningful role, with underground storage keeping food fresh longer and heating being essential during winter. These systems are straightforward individually but create enough interconnection to keep management engaging.
The medieval setting provides a strong thematic framework. Technology progression feels natural as your settlement evolves from desperate survivors to established community. Crafting chains make sense within the historical context, and the gradual improvement of your colonists’ living conditions from dirt floors to proper rooms with furniture is consistently rewarding.
Building Without a Blueprint
Content depth is the most significant early access limitation. Experienced colony sim players can reach the limits of what the game currently offers faster than expected. Technology trees are shorter than genre veterans might expect, social systems are thin, and the variety of events and challenges doesn’t match fully released competitors. The game holds attention well for dozens of hours, but the content ceiling is visible.
Colonist AI needs work. Settlers sometimes make poor prioritization decisions, choosing to haul items across the map instead of addressing urgent tasks nearby. Pathing through multi-story structures can be awkward, and combat AI for defenders doesn’t always utilize the fortifications you’ve carefully designed. Manual intervention compensates for these issues, but it shouldn’t be necessary as often as it is.
Combat, while functional, lacks the tactical depth that the defensive building systems suggest. Raids become somewhat predictable in pattern and difficulty scaling, and the variety of threats doesn’t match the variety of defensive options available to you. More diverse enemies and attack patterns would give the building system more to work against.
Performance with large settlements can be inconsistent. The 3D terrain manipulation and building system are more demanding than flat-map alternatives, and heavily developed settlements with many colonists see frame rate drops that affect the experience.
The Third Dimension of Colony Building
What sets Going Medieval apart from the crowded colony sim market is simple but effective: depth in the literal sense. Building downward and upward creates gameplay possibilities that flat colonies can’t offer. The satisfaction of designing a fortress that functions both as a home and a defensive structure, with careful consideration of every floor and every room’s position, is unique to this game. That single innovation justifies its existence in a genre that has no shortage of options.
Should You Play Going Medieval?
If you enjoy colony management and want a game that emphasizes building design with genuine tactical consequences, Going Medieval offers something its competitors don’t. The 3D building system is engaging enough to carry the experience even while other systems catch up. Players comfortable with early access will find a solid foundation with clear development direction.
Skip it if you need a feature-complete colony sim right now. If the limitations of early access, particularly thin social systems and predictable combat, will undermine your enjoyment, checking back after further development is the better approach.
The Verdict on Going Medieval
Going Medieval’s three-dimensional building system gives the colony management genre a new axis to work with, and that innovation alone makes it worth attention. Constructing multi-story forts with proper architectural consideration adds a dimension of engagement that flat-map competitors can’t match. Early access gaps in content depth, colonist AI, and combat variety are real and visible, but the foundation is strong and development has been steady. For colony sim fans looking for something that does at least one thing differently, Going Medieval delivers where it matters most.