"Build a castle in three dimensions, then hit the wall"
About
Going Medieval is a colony sim set in a post-plague medieval landscape, where you guide a handful of survivors as they carve a fortified settlement out of reclaimed wilderness. The hook is full 3D building with z-levels: you dig down into the earth, stack walls and floors upward, and shape multi-storey keeps rather than working on a flat grid. Minute to minute you assign settlers to roles, manage crops through their growth cycle, research new tech, trade with passing merchants, and fend off raids. It leans on systems familiar from RimWorld and Dwarf Fortress, with mood and needs to keep your colonists working. After leaving Early Access, the game launches at 29,99€.
Verdict
The vertical building is the real draw here, and it delivers: laying out a layered keep with cellars and battlements feels genuinely yours in a way few colony sims manage. The problem is what happens after the walls go up. Combat is fiddly and the z-level view fights you in a fight, settlers wander off to do anything but the job you assigned, and once the early research and construction goals are met the game runs out of things to throw at you. The absence of family and lineage stings most because a medieval setting practically begs for inheritance and bloodlines, and without them the colonists stay mute workers. Performance trouble and save corruption on long playthroughs undercut a game whose entire point is the long playthrough.
You'll like it if …
- +you want to design castles in true 3D rather than on a flat map
- +you enjoy the early research-and-construction climb of a colony sim
- +you'll tinker happily with mods to fill the gaps
You'll dislike it if …
- −you want colonists with personality, romance, and generations
- −you measure a colony sim by how it holds up past 100 hours
- −stuttering and corrupted saves on long runs would ruin it for you
Breakdown
- +Building and colony management feel solid, with real freedom in how you lay out a settlement
- +Early progression through research and construction gives clear goals to chase
- +Crop lifecycle and resource aging like the wine cellar reward planning
- −Combat is clunky, and steering settlers during a raid is a chore
- −Settlers routinely ignore direct orders and pick random tasks instead
- −Late game empties out as events stop and there is little left to react to
- +Role system, diplomacy, and tech trees give early runs enough to juggle
- +Sandbox is moddable, leaving room for players to patch in missing systems
- −Noticeably shallower than RimWorld or Dwarf Fortress once you dig in
- −No family or lineage system, so colonists never grow beyond labour units
- −Merchant variety is thin and many players hit a wall around 50 hours
- +The medieval Britain setting and atmosphere land for some players
- −Colonists have no personality or arc, leaving the world feeling like an empty shell
- −The medieval theme is hollowed out by the lack of kinship and inheritance it implies
- +Art direction and the voxel castle aesthetic draw consistent praise
- +The 3D layered builds look striking when a settlement comes together
- −Stuttering and frame drops worsen in large late-game colonies
- −High CPU load can push weaker machines to the point of shutting down
- −Z-level occlusion makes it hard to read what is happening during a fight
- +UI and onboarding explain themselves well while leaving room to experiment
- −Pathfinding breaks on building tasks and settlers get stuck or float on terrain
- −Buttons for animal training and prisoner recruitment can fail to work
- −Save files have become unloadable after long sessions, which is fatal for a long-haul builder
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