Sean Bean escorts Life is Feudal: Your Own out of Early Access

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Our Early Access review of Life is Feudal: Your Own from October of last year declared it demanding, and not particularly stable on the technological side of things, but bearing "loads of promise" nonetheless. It's just about time to find out if it's lived up to that potential, as developer Bitbox announced today that the game will leave Early Access on November 17. It's $40, but will launch with a 40% discount when it becomes a Real Grown-Up Video Game.

As we noted in that long-ago look, Life is Feudal is a much slower sort of experience than conventional survival games like Rust, and it's also far more community-oriented. It's possible to fly solo but working with others is really the name of the game, and the tendency to commit mass murder that's so prevalent in other do-what-thou-wilt sandboxes is mitigated by a clever alignment system and the ability to yield in fights: Winners can claim victory (and the spoils thereof) and both parties can go home with all their pieces still attached.

Bitbox marked the coming full release of Life is Feudal with a new teaser featuring the one and only Sean Bean. It's an animated story trailer rather than in-game action, and in a nice change of pace he doesn't actually die at the end, although it does end badly. If a look at proper gameplay is more your thing (Raise that barn! Tend those cattle!) then you may get an eyeful over on Steam.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.