City-building smash hit Manor Lords received relatively frequent updates after it launched into early access last year, but the pace of patches has slowed considerably since the start of 2025. While there have been plenty of previews for new features planned by developer Slavic Magic, actual, tangible changes to the game are thin on the ground.

Now, Manor Lords' creator Greg Styczeń has explained why these regular updates haven't been coming, and the answer is the studio is working on a considerably larger, deeper overhaul of how the game functions. "I know you've been waiting a long time, and the reason for the delay is pretty simple. We're overhauling a lot of systems at once" he explained in a Steam update. "It's a full rework of how things like buildings, production chains, and environmental interactions function."

Styczeń doesn't share full details about the coming overhaul, but he does provide a thorough explanation of how one mechanic is changing—the affinity system. This governs the relationship between your structures and the areas in which they are placed.

"We wanted a more in-depth relational system between buildings and other buildings, as well as between buildings and their environments," he explains. "We prototyped what building games usually do—effects applied in a radius, or in specific zones, but found out that the Manor Lords' flexible plot system doesn't play very well with placing stuff in areas, especially when they are circular."

Styczeń describes trying to fit rectangular plots into circular areas as "not pleasant", which, yeah, square pegs and round holes and all that. Instead, he and his team have come up with an environmentally contextual solution:

"The environments we have so far are meadow, woodland, farmland, rural, and urban. Buildings have different affinities; for instance, apiaries will benefit from a large Woodland area in the Region," Styzcen writes. "Experimentally, we made it even more complex, and some buildings can buff the affinities of other buildings. For instance, having apiaries can increase the existing effect that pollination orchards get from meadows."

That's as far as Styczeń goes regarding systemic reworks. But he also shares some info on other, non-mechanical features being worked on. These include new shopfronts and artisan workstations, a new map called "divided", which is bisected by a mountain range, a new camera feature that lets you peer through the walls of fortifications, so you can see your soldiers standing guard inside towers and turrets.

All of this, plus the other, unrevealed changes Slavic Magic has in the oven, are why meaningful changes to Manor Lords have been sparse this year. "Because we're working on all these big changes, we haven't been able to put out smaller patches. They would make things messy or break stuff that's still being worked on."

Styczeń doesn't provide any kind of timeline regarding when these features will wend their way into the game, but does say there will be further updates about what other changes are coming to Manor Lords down the line. "I'll keep posting here as we get closer and share more along the way," he concludes.

There are plenty of projects on the to-do list for the Star Wars universe, but one that fans are itching to see get confirmed is a second season of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Now, following rumors via DanielRPK that something might be in development, fans are getting excited about what the second chapter of the show could involve.

Over on Reddit, a spitballing session began concerning Ewan McGregor's legendary Jedi knight, with pitches for what could come next being thrown in. One fan said, "base it off the Legends Kenobi novel. It's a self-contained Tatooine story," referring to the 2013 story by John Jackson, which followed Kenobi's first weeks of self-exile on the desert planet and is a straight-up western involving Jawas and Jabba the Hutt. Another fan agreed, saying, "This is 100% the answer. It would have been perfect for a TV miniseries. Self-contained. No 'galactic' stakes. No real risk of running afoul of existing characters."

The common consensus seems to be that McGregor's hero should not link up with other characters in the franchise, but instead highlight the isolation needed to protect Luke from afar. Another fan added, "We got all the fan service in the first season, and honestly, it was more than plenty. If we’re going to do this, I would prefer an entirely new, novel story involving an aging Obi-Wan. New characters with a new story, maybe even on a new planet. Just something that doesn’t screw up the continuity going into [A New Hope]."

Following the success of the first season, McGregor himself has chimed in on where he'd like to take his iconic Star Wars character, which he returned to after a 17-year hiatus. While it might be sending the character back instead of forward, the man behind the now legendary beard revealed his dream idea would be to revisit the Clone Wars. "I’d quite like to wear that armor, I was speaking to someone earlier, from the Clone Wars," he told an audience at Los Angeles Comic-Con. "I think that would be something that I would enjoy."

Of course, nothing has been made official just yet, but given how much of a reaction there is so far, we'll surely be saying "hello there" to old Ben Kenobi somewhere down the line. For every Star Wars show and movie that is actually happening in the future, check out our list here.