A new game project titled Lionhearts appeared on Kickstarter yesterday, seeking a minimum of $100K, of which over half has already been pledged. ROBLOX fans might recognize the name from Lionhearts: Crusade, a conquest experience developed by Credenzio Studios that reached over 6.3 million plays in the popular game since its original release in 2018.
Now, Colorado-based developer Credenzio is turning the concept into a standalone game developed with Unreal Engine 5. It will be a persistent multiplayer feudal simulator inspired by games like Mount and Blade: Bannerlord, Assassin's Creed, Helldivers, and EVE Online.
The game is set in a historically authentic 12th-century medieval world, specifically during the Third Crusade. The developers pledged to respect the bounds of historical plausibility and accuracy. In this context, players will be given nearly complete reign, with NPCs having little to no presence in the game world. They'll start with having to gain favor in their kingdom to ascend the religious, military, or trade hierarchies and acquire wealth, tools, lands, and power. To do so, they'll choose one of the three career paths of the age: military, religious, or trade. With 16 factions, 14 guild types offering 60+ career paths, and 4 religions, players can become a knight, blacksmith, bishop, merchant, or even a king, eventually ruling the Holy Land itself.
In Lionhearts, there will be 12 player-run kingdoms and 4 military orders, in which every position of power, from lord to king, is controlled by real players. Players can command retinues, wage wars, and navigate diplomacy in an ever-changing struggle for land and influence. Monarchs must balance internal politics, trade, and religion while competing for dominance in the Holy Land and beyond. As mentioned earlier, Credenzio is promising a persistent MMO-like world. This is supposed to happen through a server meshing-like technology where servers are stitched together to create a single, seamless shared open world. Each location will exist in a single instance, so there will be no need for server hopping or loading screens.
Needless to say, it's an incredibly ambitious project, especially for an indie studio. There is, however, a 'visual demo' available for download (the link is on the Kickstarter page) for those interested. Otherwise, you could simply add Lionhearts to your Steam wishlist.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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