Medieval Dynasty: New Settlement is a dazzling pioneer of what's possible for in-depth simulations and role-playing adventures on virtual reality
As virtual reality gaming continues to expand, more immersive simulation and role-playing games are being developed to take full advantage of VR technology. Medieval Dynasty New Settlement is one such title that transports you back in time to the challenging but rewarding life of a medieval settler. I absolutely love this game.
Developed by Polish studio Spectral Games, Medieval Dynasty puts you in control of a solitary protagonist who washes ashore with nothing but the clothes on their back. From these humble beginnings, it's up to you to establish a thriving settlement as the title of the game suggests, build relationships with other villagers, and carve out a life for yourself in this fascinating medieval world.
The core gameplay revolves around survival, crafting, and community building. You must hunt and gather resources like wood, stone, food and materials to construct shelter, tools, and other necessities. Crafting is a crucial element, with an intuitive and easy to navigate crafting menu that allows combining gathered items into usable gear.
Tools like axes, shovels, pickaxes and whatnot are essential for expanding resource gathering. Weapons like bows and spears become necessary for hunting deer, boar, and defending against wolves, bears and bandits. Yes, you can and will fight against other humans and although the combat is basic, hitting someone with an axe still feels impactful and satisfying. Cooking provides sustenance and improves it over time. Farming allows growing crops, and raising livestock provides materials and food sources.
All of these survival mechanics feel very immersive and tactile in virtual reality. Wielding an axe to chop down trees, using a torch on one hand to illuminate a dark cave while you use a pickaxe with the other to mine metal ores or drawing a bow to hunt never get old thanks to the intuitive and lifelike VR interactions. You feel like you are indeed there, hunting and gathering materials that in turn you can use to expand your settlement.
Crafting tools and gear feels immersive too. Once you select an item to craft, like a stone axe, the blueprint appears in front of you. You then take out your backpack, find the materials, and drop them onto the blueprint, and voila, you get a new stone axe. However, as you progress through the story, you learn new recipes that become even more involved and immersive. Once you learn to craft metal tools like copper axes or iron pickaxes, you need to have access to a smithy before you are able to craft these tools. Once you build that in your settlement, by again placing down a blueprint and hitting the different walls of the building with your building hammer, you are able to continue with crafting these metal tools.
You take the metal ore and drop it inside the smelter. You light the smelter by placing a log inside of it that lights it up for a couple of minutes. Then you use the bellows to pump air so you can melt the ore into ingots. Once you create the ingots, you need to heat them up, so you place them over an open fire. You then use a pair of tongs to grab the red-hot ingot and place it on the anvil. Next, you hit it with the hammer a couple of times, and finally, you drop a medium stick from your backpack, and voila, you've got a new copper or iron axe.
This is what makes VR games truly unique and so much better than flat-screen games. When done right, they have the ability to transport you, the player, to another time and another place, making you experience things you probably never would in real life, and Medieval Dynasty: New Settlement absolutely excels in this.
The game also does a great job at explaining all of the mechanics and features via simple popup tutorials. What's even cooler, though, is that if you somehow miss one of these popup tutorials, if you try to do a thing in a way that feels real and makes sense, the devs have probably accounted for that, and it'll actually work. Let me give you an example. Early on, I got a quest so that I could learn how to hunt. First, I needed to craft a wooden spear, which was as simple as placing a long stick inside a blueprint.
The next step on the quest, though, had me absolutely fuming. I just needed to throw the spear and hit an archery target 3 times from a distance. Easy, right? But, we all know that throwing stuff in VR games to try and hit other things without any assists or targeting systems is a pain in the ass. I started throwing spears at this stupid target, completely missing it with spears disappearing, so I had to run around collecting long sticks to craft more and so on. I must have spent more than 30 minutes trying, and I was absolutely angry. I remember thinking like, "Why the f*ck have they included this utterly broken mechanic?" Then I was like, "Why haven't they made it so that I can use my left index finger to point where the spear should hit?" And as I was thinking that, I did that, and to my utmost surprise, it worked! That was the moment where I went from "I adore this game" to "I absolutely love this game".
In terms of community building, you can recruit villagers who will populate the growing settlement and take on roles like farming, crafting, or protection. Building relationships and keeping villagers happy through quests and favors improves the overall settlement morale. Another cool thing that this game offers is the passing of time. Every 3 in-game days, the season changes, so it goes from spring, summer, fall, and winter. The map also changes with each season. So after 12 in-game days, a year has passed. Your character indeed grows older. Now, while I haven't seen this for myself yet, as I haven't really finished my first playthrough, if you don't get married and have a child, aka create your dynasty, once you reach the age of 68, you die, and that's it, you cannot continue with your playthrough. But if you do have a child, you can continue playing as them. How cool is that?!
As for the presentation, Medieval Dynasty looks quite good on the Quest 3, even though it has not received an official Quest 3 patch yet. Environments like forests, fields, and villages are detailed and provide a sense of being transported to a medieval era. Character and creature models could be more polished, but are serviceable considering the scope of the game. Weather effects like rain and transitional day/night cycles enhance immersion. The overall performance held up quite well during long play sessions.
I can go on and on about how fantastic this game is and how many other cool and immersive mechanics it offers. I won't do that, as I want you to play and experience this yourself. Just know that Medieval Dynasty: New Settlement is a dazzling pioneer of what's possible for in-depth simulations and role-playing adventures in virtual reality. Its immersive crafting, community building, and survival mechanics feel incredibly tactile and rewarding thanks to full VR integration. This is undeniably one of the most impressive open-world experiences currently available in VR and is an absolutely essential experience I recommend to everyone. Thanks for reading!
The game was reviewed on a Quest 3 via a promo code provided by the developer. Medieval Dynasty New Settlement is available on Meta Quest.
