Medieval Games That Don’t Feature Swordplay

Key Takeaways

• Medieval life was not as brutal as commonly portrayed in pop culture games, with proper hygiene and a realistic feudal system.
• Medieval-inspired games like
  Kingdoms and Castles
  offer engaging city-building experiences with minimal combat.
• Games like
  Potion Craft
  and
  Pentiment
  provide unique gameplay experiences in alchemy and historical narratives.

The representation of the Medieval Era as people might know it, from general understanding and pop culture, is very different from its reality. Life expectancy was shorter, but not drastically so. There was proper hygiene, as Kingdom Come and its sequel can attest to, with Medieval reactions to walking around covered in mud being startlingly similar to how people in our contemporary age would react, and the whole Feudal structure as it’s understood today is more of a misunderstood fiction from much later in history.

If there’s one thing that Medieval games, both those rooted in history and fantasy, get right, it’s that war was a frequent fact of life. Often, simple farmers would be drafted to fight in their lord’s wars, and if their liege had not hired enough mercenaries to build a death stack that trampled the enemy’s armies, as Crusader Kings 3 teaches us, bloody death awaited most soldiers. However, gaming doesn’t always have to be about bloody death! These Medieval-inspired games are engaging and engrossing without relying on in-depth duels or swordplay.

8 Kingdoms And Castles

Lightweight Siege Mechanics Alongside A Great City Sim

Kingdoms and Castles manages to be an excellent, lightweight, and beginner-friendly city builder that has a gradual building complexity but never overwhelms the player. This game does have some light combat, including dragon attacks and raids, but it’s all very distant, with no duels or drawn-out war mechanics to speak of.

These combat encounters can also be disabled for those who just want to focus on growing their tiny hamlet into a burgeoning city, and then spreading even further with colonies.

7 Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator

Brew A Variety Of Potent Elixirs

Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator is a great game for testing wits and imagination. Customers will approach the player with various requests for elixirs, and it’s up to the player to figure out which ingredients will give the desired results.

A steadily increasing batch of equipment and ingredients can make this game difficult for beginners, but mastering the art of alchemy is incredibly satisfying and worth the effort, even if there’s never an instance of swords being drawn.

6 Pentiment

An Iconic Medieval Game Like No Other

An instant classic, Pentiment is one of the best things to come out of Obsidian Entertainment, and that’s meeting an incredibly high bar. This story-focused, historical narrative has plenty of opportunities for players to change the outcome of the story.

It’s a deeply emotional, deeply insightful exploration of Bavaria that, while falling just outside the Medieval period proper, still brings a lot of the era’s influence through the protagonist’s role as an illustrator, with traditions that date back to this time.

5 Yes, Your Grace

A Medieval Styled Political Drama

Balancing harsh decisions with reputations and intrigue, Yes, Your Grace has been a staple among fans of story-based games for a while now. While the game does employ combat, it’s framed in a more dramatic, narrative way.

Controlling an entire kingdom is a daunting task, and Yes, Your Grace lets players experience this while trying to juggle more personal, emotional problems with the royal family as well.

4 Medieval Dynasty

A Slower Paced City Builder RPG

Medieval Dynasty is a game that is inherently peaceful. Weapons are not the sort that a Medieval commoner would have, and, as such, are reduced to poaching tools—spears, clubs, bows, and crossbows. Not a sword in sight.

This game has city-building and RPG elements that synthesize together wonderfully. This title is perfect for those who want to immerse themselves in growing crops and hunting for food rather than bloody wars and duels.

3 The Guild 2

A Classic Medieval Life Sim

The Guild 2 and its many expansions have come together to be an older, but much-loved fixture in the historical gaming scene. This game lets players experience Medieval Europe and, through certain choices, change it on a vast scale.

The game is focused on city builder elements and grand strategy more so than individual minutiae like melee combat. There are aspects of it, but the focus is mostly on the bigger picture of Medieval life.

2 Banished

A City Sim Focused On Fluidity

Banished flew under the radar for most city-builder fans, but there’s an excellent and incredibly organic game here for those looking to try a slower-paced and more immersive Medieval title.

Besides banking on the weather to grow crops, players can also build and coordinate their towns with no technology trees to hamper their progress—any building that can be built is an option for the player right away.

1 Tavern Master

Keep A Cozy And Bustling Tavern

A simple but engrossing game, Tavern Master has players juggle the many competing needs of patrons in a Medieval-style tavern. Food and drink, not just of high caliber but in diversity and quantity, are needed to satisfy every patron.

As the tavern continues to rake in profits, it can gradually expand, becoming wider and taller as the player sees fit, with rooms able to offer lots of utility and help specialize the tavern in interesting ways.