The solo developer of Manor Lords, Steam’s newest smash hit, named his studio after a Witcher 3 meme

Manor Lords is out right this moment and it is going gangbusters, having now surpassed 150,000 concurrent gamers on Steam. It is also sitting atop a “very optimistic” consumer ranking, with 90% of the greater than 1,600 consumer opinions posted up to now. That is a fairly good first day, and at this level I am left with only one burning query: Why the hell is the developer referred to as “Slavic Magic?”

In all honesty it is not likely one thing I have been pondering for any size of time, but it surely did come up in a current interview with Unreal. Manor Lords is definitely being made by a solo developer, Greg Styczeń (with some outsourced work enabled by his Patreon and an Epic MegaGrant), however a cool studio title seems good in press releases. 

And on this case it isn’t only a good (if considerably odd) title, however there is a good story behind it, too.

“The inspiration was the meme you might need seen about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt labeled the results of ‘Vodka and Slavic Magic’,” Styczeń stated. “It actually resonated with me as an indie dev from Poland with a small price range however big ardour.”

The meme in query is a brutal zinger aimed toward Mass Impact: Andromeda, evaluating the game’s famously not-great facial animations with the flawless, rugged visage of Geralt of Rivia:

GamesRadar tracked the meme way back to a 2017 publish on 9Gag, and whereas I do not know if that is the precise origin, it is not less than temporally near the mark, having gone up roughly 5 months after Andromeda’s March 2017 launch. Folks have famous within the intervening years that it is not likely an correct illustration of the scenario: The Witcher 3 reportedly price $81 million to make, and keep in mind that was nearly 10 years in the past. CD Projekt itself was actually no scrappy upstart on the time both—it was actually one of many greatest firms in Poland.

Nonetheless, it is a meme, not a historical past (or economics) lesson, and the spirit holds true. CD Projekt was at one level a scrappy upstart (sarcastically, beneath the circumstances, its debut game was constructed utilizing BioWare’s Aurora engine) that hit the big-time by doing its personal distinctive, and uniquely Polish, factor.

It is nonetheless early days (actually day one) however Styczeń could also be set to chart an analogous course. After climbing to the highest of Steam’s wishlist chart forward of its launch, it now sits within the number-one spot on Steam’s high sellers chart, whereas the concurrent participant rely slowly however steadily continues to rise. Provided that we’re on the cusp of a weekend, I would not be in any respect shocked to see that quantity shoot an entire lot increased very quickly.