I bought this game on sale at 7.99, and honestly, that's where the value is for this unfinished game. Regardless of the dev drama behind the scenes, the game that's here really is a buggy mess with surface level gameplay. There's plenty of good ideas mixed in, especially at the games start, but it eventually all falls apart as you make it through the mid game.
Yes, it's fun to rp a lived-in medieval experience, whether that be as a farmer, thief, blacksmith, etc. But the execution, the gameplay, and the UI that facilitates that is very wonky. One limiting factor too is how the economy is handled, which then impacts every level of the gameplay. The cities are divided into specific markets sectioned off and indicated by different colored highlighted roads. Which implies that whatever means of production produced in these areas have a drastic impact on the economy. The truth is, it's negligible.
Often times you’ll find competing dynasties sharing markets with you doing the same production. Like 2-3 markets with multiple blacksmiths. And this doesn’t have a terrible impact on the economy as the game spawns in a high quantity of products each day. And the market has unlimited funds. At that point you’re simply racing to sell without limitation. You can’t strangle the market, you can't financially starve your opponents, you don’t impact the economy. At least not a significant way.
There’s no point in trying to monopolize anything as NPCs, and you, are then pushed to diversify to different business as you progress through the game. There’s very little consequences for over expansion as the market never drys with goods or never sees an overabundance which should then crashes prices. In order to beat other dynasties you tend to just fight them all on the streets as it is the simplest way to knock them out of the game.
Now, you can try to beat them economy-wise but the UI is so unbearable that you worry about damaging your keyboard, and mouse with insistent clicking for even the simplistic of actions. Early game it’s not too bad as you’re managing few workers, and your family. But as the game progresses, and multiple dynasties start to turn everything into a street brawl, you’ll find yourself micromanaging everything through really strange UI design.
For example, there’s no way to select multiple NPCs in real-time, especially during emergent situations. This leads to sifting through menus to pick individual NPCs at a time. What’s worse is that clicking in the world oftentimes, in crowded areas, highlights the wrong NPCs, there must be something wonky about the angle of the camera or the hitbox for NPCs. You can sift through a list on the right side to pick out specific NPCs, but the problem is you’ll be going through a list of ALL NPCs.
And in the mid game that’s a lot of people as it includes your dynasty and your workers on one list. The only filter is selecting a subcategory that shrinks the list. That said, it doesn’t save what you were last on, so you’ll be constantly filtering throughout. And you visit menus like this as your primary way of navigating buildings and NPCs. That’s just one element of jank when it comes to the UI and gameplay. At all levels of this game it is so poorly thought through it really dampens any fun you have as it progresses.
If you’re really interested in knowing more about the Guild 3, please refrain, and watch YouTube videos instead. It’ll save you the time and money. Also, the Guild is getting remade by the dev team that made the Last Train Home! It’s called The Guild Europa 1410, so, honestly, wait on that. I'd refund this game if I could. Also, yes this game has been abandoned. So, no new updates/fixes since 2023. Save yourself the money and wait for The Guild Europa 1410.
