Renown Preview: 100-Player Sieges, Custom Combat

Renown, the ambitious medieval PvP sandbox from RDBK Studios, is teasing massive 100-player battles, deep weapon customization, and physics-driven castle assaults. After a successful Kickstarter and promising early playtests, our extended preview examines whether Renown can live up to its lofty goals. From the weighty swordplay of its combat mechanics to the satisfying splinter of a trebuchet shot, the game shows real potential—but lingering questions about balance, server stability, and long-term engagement remain.

Combat Mechanics

Inspired by Chivalry and Mordhau, Renown’s melee system emphasizes timing, feints, and precision strikes. Early builds deliver weapons that feel heavy and impactful, with each swing influenced by reach, angle, and stamina levels. Players can customize their loadout beyond cosmetics, tweaking attributes like damage, attack speed, and block efficiency. This opens the door to unique playstyles, whether you favor a lightning-fast rapier or a crushing two-handed maul. However, the risk of unbalanced builds is real: will the community find exploits that break the meta, or will the developers continually refine numbers to maintain fairness?

Siege Features

Where Renown aims to stand out is in its persistent castle-building and large-scale sieges. Teams can assemble walls, towers, and gates from modular wooden and stone components, then coordinate assaults with trebuchets, battering rams, and gunpowder barrels. The game’s physics engine renders tides of stone and splintered beam fragments in satisfying detail. Demos show walls buckling dramatically, but without careful tuning, fortifications could become either too costly to build or too fragile. The ideal balance will let defenders repair breaches mid-fight and attackers plan tactical rotations, rather than resorting to endless spawn-camping or griefing raids.

Audio and Visual Design

Renown’s audio team has built authentic medieval soundscapes: the clang of steel-on-steel rings out with reverb tailored to vaulted halls or open fields, while ambient creaks, crackling campfires, and distant horn calls immerse players in a lived-in world. Visually, the game favors realistic proportions and muted color palettes, lending weight to every battered shield and moss-covered battlement. Subtle weather effects—drizzling rain slicking stone floors, drifting fog masking enemy silhouettes—add tactical depth, forcing squads to adapt their approach when sightlines shorten.

Customization and Progression

Beyond pure combat and construction, Renown features a progression system tied to faction reputation and individual skill. Players earn crafting materials through skirmishes and resource runs, then spend them on upgraded weapons, reinforced fortifications, or custom heraldry. This persistence loop rewards dedication, but also risks creating power gaps if newer recruits fall behind. RDBK Studios has pledged to avoid pay-to-win traps and intrusive monetization. Even so, the community will monitor carefully to ensure cosmetic sales don’t bleed into gameplay advantages.

Early Access Outlook

Renown is charted for Steam Early Access in Q3 2025. The studio’s tight-knit team has shown impressive agility so far, rolling out quick patches after each test weekend. Yet server stability under a hundred concurrent players, effective anti-grief systems, and scalable matchmaking pipelines will be the real litmus test. Survival sandboxes often attract enthusiastic audiences at launch, only to lose momentum when bugs and balance issues stack up. Success will depend on a robust roadmap, transparent communication, and a steady cadence of updates to keep players invested.

Renown boasts the core ingredients of a standout medieval sandbox: epic 100-player skirmishes, nuanced melee gameplay, and cinematic, physics-based sieges. Its ultimate fate hinges on whether the developers can deliver consistent combat balance, robust server performance, and an engaging progression loop that resists cheesy exploits. For clan leaders looking to orchestrate sprawling raids and survival veterans craving high-stakes warfare, Renown is a title to watch—just temper your expectations until that Early Access bell rings.