Life Is Feudal Matches Ambition With Exclusivity

On paper, Life Is Feudal sounds like the game of my dreams. A multiplayer title that drops a group of players on an untamed fantasy island, leaving it to become their domain to sculpt and eventually feud over as clans rise and fall. Everything, from tree branches and stones to mere blades of grass, can be harvested and used in some meaningful way, whether fashioning primitive tools or putting the finishing touch on a grand fortress.

Although an MMORPG at its very core, the likes of World of Warcraft and EverQuest have never allowed for this raw sense of tangibility or freedom. In that respect, Life Is Feudal can be compared to the emerging “new wave” of multiplayer PC games, championed by popular hits such as Rust and DayZ.

In truth, your only objective here is to survive. There are no set rules to follow, no quests to turn in or dungeons to trawl through. Instead, everything that exists within the game world is player-made, bar a handful of provisions given to you at the very start. Paradoxically, this makes the game much simpler and more complex at the same time.

Although players are free to set their own objectives without conforming to many of the usual genre tropes, getting from point A to B can be an overwhelmingly tiresome ordeal. Something as straightforward as building a campfire and cooking a meal becomes its very own gauntlet, engulfing players in streams of virtual red tape.

In order to make something by hand and place it within the game world, you’ll need to follow a sequence of steps. This often starts with figuring out which tool(s) you need for the job, ranging from simple knives to saws, picks, sickles, and axes. Of course, these need to be built from scratch too, throwing together a rudimentary combo of flint, grass, and twigs.

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The more tools at your disposal, the more ways you can interact with your surrounding environment. For example, instead of plucking branches from a tree, you can take a swing with your axe, hewing it down to a lump of timber. Through these various interactions, you’ll begin piecing together the myriad components needed to build a whole assortment of items.

Taking a step back, the description above could easily be applied to Minecraft and its legion of impersonators. However, Life Is Feudal does enough to distance itself from being branded as a grittier clone to Mojang’s world-beating masterpiece. This stems from the deeper connection players have with the land as well as with each other.

Instead of smashing everything around you into tiny voxels, there’s a greater sense of intimacy. To find metal ore, for instance, you’ll need to prospect stony patches of earth and dig for veins instead of having them colour coded on the surface. Likewise, you’ll need to examine trees to determine whether the quality of lumber will be sufficient in crafting your next item.

Although I’ve yet to become fully immersed, there’s an entire compendium of knowledge out there waiting to be absorbed. The big question here however is whether the game can me enticed long enough to actually care. So far, I’d have to say no.

Anyone can appreciate the sheer scope of Life Is Feudal, but if the fun gameplay hooks aren’t there then what incentive do players have to explore all of this content? The answer is multiplayer, of course. By collaborating with others, working to build a small nation, suddenly the game’s monotonous chores begin to have purpose.

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This was the dream I had envisioned, long before creating the first of many avatars. However, for someone wanting to achieve this level of fulfillment at a casual pace, the odds are heavily stacked against them.

The first nail in the coffin comes from the game’s server situation. Where MMOs like World of Warcraft host persistent online worlds, the majority of Life Is Feudal servers are run by the players. Not only does this limit the maximum number of concurrent users to 64, it also means that any in-game progress will hinge on the availability of that same server when you next come to play.

Logging in over the course of five consecutive days, each morning I’d find that the previous server I had joined was gone without a trace. That’s five times I had to create a new character, tweaking their appearance and attributes before putting myself through the game’s laborious opening stretch.

The only discernible way around this would be playing on the handful of deserted official servers or finding a guild to join. Not wanting to experience Life Is Feudal on my own, I opted for the second option. However, as mentioned before, this is far from being casual-friendly – forcing players down the shady route of joining sparsely populated forums and message boards just to get a dose of multiplayer action.

Not wanting to sit around as if applying for a visa or some form of virtual citizenship, I naively leapt into a new server looking to find a group the old fashioned way. This time I was going to give it a proper go, hastily scraping together the essential tools and provisions needed before making a beeline for a distant settlement.

However, as I strode into this player-made bastion looking to make friends, I was reminded just how hard the game’s complex barriers could come crashing down. After a brief player-to-player chat, I was informed that one dominant guild had effectively claimed this server and one of their members directing me to another forum and another sign-up page. Not wanting to waste another day’s progress, I pleaded, only to be cut down where I stood.

What a frustrating experience. Then, to top it all off, when I eventually respawned, everything had been stripped from my inventory. Everything. Not only that, but a fat portion of the experience I had accrued was also sapped away, taking me all the way back to square one.

With a name like “Life Is Feudal” I should have saw it coming, really. Without an established group of friends to play with and a server to call your own, trying to make a name for yourself in this unstable world is a sisyphean torture and one I’m not likely to suffer.

For some, Life Is Feudal will cater to their fantasies – allowing them to erect their own small empire within a multiplayer environment. However, without a shred of accessibility to offer, it will continue to do just that, catering to the fantasies of the few as others watch on longingly before their envy turns to indifference.