Life Is Feudal

Life is Feudal: Your Own & MMO
Developer(s)	Bitbox Ltd.
Designer(s)	Vladimir Piskunov, Artur Borodin
Engine	Modified Torque 3D
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	17 November 2015 (LiF:YO)[1][2]
Genre(s)	MMORPG, Online role-playing video game, Sandbox

Life is Feudal is video game franchise set in a fictional Medieval world, developed by Bitbox Ltd. On top of their two flagship titles - Life is Feudal: Your Own and Life is Feudal: MMO, Bitbox Ltd have expanded the franchise by publishing other titles, such as MindIllusion's title, Forest Village.

Life is Feudal: Forest Village[3]
Developer(s)	Mindillusion
Publisher(s)	Bitbox Ltd.
Engine	Modified Torque 3D
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	26 Aug, 2016 (Early Access)
Genre(s)	Indie, Simulation, Strategy, Early Access

Development History 2011 - 2013

During the Summer of 2011, the indie team - which later became Bitbox Ltd - had created a working tech demo for the concept of Life is Feudal: MMO, showcasing many of the main gameplay features, such as real time multiplayer, terraforming, and objects construction.

After finding an investor, development continued for two years, with a team of originally five that grew to fifteen during this period of time.

Development History 2014 - Present

Both Life is Feudal: Your Own (LiF:YO) and Life is Feudal: MMO (LiF:MMO) shared many of the core mechanics and gameplay, leading to a largely shared codebase for both games being developed simultaneously. Life is Feudal: Your Own was first launched by Bitbox Ltd. on the gaming platform Steam in September 2014 under the Early Access program, reaching Steam's ‘Top Ten’ within two weeks.^[4] Within a month, Life is Feudal: Your Own sold over 100,000 copies and continued to rise in popularity.

Life is Feudal: Your Own was released out of Early Access on 17 November 2015, including a trailer and launch cutscene narrated by Sean Bean^[5] While the game had originally used DIrectX 9 for it's rendering API, the release introduced a new graphical overhaul using DirectX11,^[6] along with many new mechanics, balancing tweaks and bug fixes. The game is, as of November 2016, still being actively supported by the development team, with numerous patches introducing further features and improvements on the existing game.

After the release of Life is Feudal: Your Own, Bitbox Ltd. began the transition into a larger team focusing on Life is Feudal: MMO. Closed beta tests for the game began during the second half of 2016.^[7] Bitbox Ltd. also announced a partnership with Xsolla in support of Life is Feudal: MMO.

In 2016, Bitbox Ltd. also published another game as part of the Life is Feudal franchise; Life is Feudal: Forest Village, currently being developed by the studio MindIllusion and available on Steam Early Access. Life is Feudal: Forest Village is an alternative take on a similar scenario to the one facing players in previous titles - in this game, the player assumes control of a settlement of villagers, leading them through a survival simulation, with aspects such as seasonal changes, vegetation and illness presenting problems that threaten the village's stability.

The Life is Feudal World

The Life is Feudal franchise is set in a fictional world based on medieval-era European geography, with a variety of terrain and real world seasons. Although the Life is Feudal games take place within the same world and landscape, the size difference and more noticeable diversity within the seasonal changes in the world are two of the biggest distinctions^[8] between Life is Feudal:Your Own and Life is Feudal: MMO. Life is Feudal: Your Own introduced several races of humans who inhabit the world, each with distinct traits and physical appearances:

• Gottlung
• Slavard
• Khoor

Life is Feudal: Your Own

Gameplay

In Life is Feudal: Your Own, the player is given an open ended starting point on a 3km2 map, from which they must gather necessary resources to survive. Mechanics such as hunger, wild animals and player vs. player combat are the most immediate threats to players, encouraging co-operation with other nearby players in order to gain an advantage. Players can also build structures, weapons and armour, as well as breeding a variety of animals.

Servers

Life is Feudal: Your Own allows up to 64 players to join a private or public hosted server, with a variety of configurable options, many of which can be fine-tuned in the game's hosting interface. An executable to run a dedicated server is also offered.

Life is Feudal: MMO

Gameplay

Life is Feudal: MMO presents many of the mechanics introduced in Life is Feudal: Your Own, along with a wide range of additional mechanics, better suited to a massively multiplayer scale. Set on a much larger 441 km map, players have a much larger area to build upon, as well as a greater community to take part in. Life is Feudal: MMO features a rich, tiered and more complex co-operation system than the guilds introduced in Life is Feudal: Your Own, as well as larger scale battle mechanics to accompany the larger player organisations.

References