Coronation Q&A with Twin Swords Studio

Twin Swords Studio is working on something ambitious: Coronation, a medieval sandbox RPG where players can build kingdoms, manage NPC villagers, and shape a living online world with hundreds of others. We sat down with the team to discuss their vision, what makes the game different, and how it’s shaping up before launch.

Here is the full Q&A!

Big Picture

Q: What’s the quick pitch for Coronation? How would you explain it to a friend in one breath?
A: A completely player-built medieval world where PvE and PvP players cooperate in a friendly community with their NPCs working round the clock for them.

Q: What makes it different from games that inspired you? What’s the “oh wow” moment you’re aiming for?
A: We’ve always wanted the multiplayer gameplay from the games that we’ve played to go much further and deeper, such as Bannerlord but with an online campaign mode, similar to Bannerlord Online, but it’s quite restricted because it’s just a mod. Other games like Anno 1404, RimWorld, and Sims 4 Multiplayer have a maximum of 4, 8 or 12 players respectively. And it’s really difficult for these games to have a consistent player base where you can keep playing online with others. So ultimately, we want to achieve a combination of all these great games and bring together hundreds of players in one continuous world without any loading screens.

Q: Who is this game for first? Newcomers, sandbox fans, PvP die-hards, role-players?
A: Firstly, this game is for sandbox fans, those who dream of building their own villages, castles and towns in a large world filled with different factions, biomes and resources. In the future, we want the game to appeal to more kinds of players, people who come back from a grueling day of work to enjoy a nice cozy game, easily manage towns of people who work by themselves, designing pretty looking houses and castles, and making sure their people have enough food and happiness so that they don’t starve or rebel.

Q: Why are you making this game? What makes this different? What was missing that made you put all this effort in?
A: Back in 2019, when I was playing Bannerlord, I felt that the sieges were getting too repetitive, doing the same head-rolling one-man army sieges or field battles, only to be repeated for every settlement in the world map, I quit the game after being bored and couldn’t think of the next fun game to play. And then I thought of how Bannerlord could be more fun if it had a multiplayer campaign mode, where players can take control of different factions, and try to rule the world of Calradia. I stumbled across Bannerlord Online some time later but it didn’t give me what I wanted. So, just like my brother, we wanted a game that can satisfy our needs of ruling the world or managing settlements in a global multiplayer format, and not just between the both of us, but with other friends from all around the world!

Q: Who are the characters or teams? Can you decide or are they pre-decided for you?
A: Well, actually, it’s sort of a mix. In your circle of control, you’ll get to choose which NPC villagers to join your team depending on the kind of dungeon you’re getting them from, and then among your friends in your kingdom if you ask them to play together with you. And when alliances form with other groups of friends, they might engage in war games or wars with other kingdoms, so it’s a whole mixture of teams.

Core Play and Loop

Q: What do players do in their first hour? Fight, build, explore, trade, what’s the path?
A: They’ll go through a quick and easy to understand tutorial which teaches the basics of the game, like combat and building and learn more as they progress. By the first hour, they should be managing a small settlement or village, gathering ingredients to cook their meals and resources to further upgrade the economy so that they can sell their goods or trade with other settlements. When they are more prepared, they can visit dungeons of other players or build their own to complete quests and earn rewards, then advance their kingdom in terms of technology.

Q: What keeps players coming back week to week? Progress goals, rivalry, stories, big battles?
A: A player would want their kingdom to become stronger economically, providing quality goods and accommodation for its people, and defending from enemies. In the global setting, even if every player starts at a different time and pace, they’ll be able to fit somewhere in an alliance and contribute to it. Ultimately, if someone would like to rule the world, they can work towards it, diplomatically and militarily.

Q: When the game “clicks,” what’s happening on screen? Describe that ideal scene.
A: We would expect something similar to the pitch for Coronation, a very active world with many players leading different kingdoms and alliances, either trading with each other, having their own wars, building majestic castles and challenging dungeons for players to visit like tourists or adventurers and defeating pirate or bandit players.

Q: What parts must feel great at launch, and what can grow later?
A: The base game with the core gameplay loops of Coronation, building settlements, combat with bandits, trading goods, socialising with villagers, along with low latency and high FPS and performance. The in-depth systems or expansions like a more detailed war declaration system, siege equipment and factions controlled by Automation.

Q: What has been improved from the initial gameplay that this is built off?
A: When Coronation was first released in 2021, it had so many issues across the board. It was laggy, performance unfriendly, its game design and difficulty was bad, it actually put many players off, and the graphics were outdated. After many years of learning from feedback and game development education, all from YouTube, we should have fixed most of the major letdowns that plagued Coronation till this day, and not only that, it should feel more fun, engaging, and smoother compared to last time.

World and Session Shape

Q: How do people meet up and play together? One shared world, separate matches, private groups, or a mix?
A: Newcomers to the game can first join the official servers, get the hang of the game and maybe join some community or alliance in that world. Then they can branch out to other customized worlds based on their preferences or their own private servers if they would like to play with their friends.

Q: When a play space feels “full,” what’s going on? About how many people and how much AI (NPC's) are you picturing?
A: We could see thousands of NPCs doing their own things or fighting between many built settlements of large castles and towns in one world or server. The game has been optimized to handle up to 600 NPC characters in one area in a multiplayer setting.

Q: If friends want a private place, how should that work in-game?
A: We will direct players to Imperium Hosting servers probably through a button in the lobby system that says “host a private dedicated server” which will lead them to Imperium Hosting’s private server hosting webpage. Players who want to host their own private servers on their computers will be able to do so too although these kinds of servers will shut down if their computer does.

Combat, AI, and Scale

Q: How large do you want battles to feel?
A: We plan to have 1v1s up to 5v5s, with around 60 NPCs being commanded by each player, so a total of 600 NPCs in a big battle.

Q: What should smart AI look like here?
A: Militarily, the troops should be responsive to the player’s commands, spontaneously react to engaging enemies, taking cover from fire using surrounding parapets, battlements or walls, bandaging or rescuing each other to safety if they are injured. Economically, the villagers should be working based on priorities set by the players, not get stuck between objects, take care of themselves using the facilities provided, have quests or cutscenes and social interactions with the player or among each other like conversations, giving gifts or asking to hang out somewhere.

Progress and Persistence

Q: What should carry over when players return or switch locations?
A: Since villagers continue working in the server, returning players will be greeted with a scoreboard showing how much gold and resources were gathered or crafted when they were offline. When players switch locations, they can refund the entire village’s costs and bring all their villagers along to a new location.

Q: If something breaks, how far back is an acceptable rollback?
A: Ideally, just before the incident would be the best. Roughly between several hours to a day. I would have to fix the issue and test it thoroughly. This would be on an experimental server. The public servers would be using a very stable version of the game to minimise the possibility of rollbacks.

Social and Community

Q: How should player communication work?
A: There’ll be multiple chat channels like global, local, kingdom and private messages. We could have in-game voice chat in the future.

Q: What’s your approach to player conflict vs. cooperation?
A: When players can’t agree with each other, it’s always better to go for diplomacy first. It also brings in the community, and together, they will try to find a resolution or compromise. If that’s not possible, then we will provide other options like raids, tributes, vassalage and even detainment.

Fair Play and Safety

Q: What behavior or exploits are absolute “nope” from day one?
A: Item and gold duplication exploits will be immediately addressed as they break the game. Any form of hacking will be investigated and they would be banned. Offensive players will be muted at first and if they continue their behavior, they will be banned from the server.

Q: How should player reports work in-game?
A: We don’t have an in-game reporting system yet, so players used to send us screenshots and messages on Discord. They would tell us exactly what happened and we would investigate.

Modding and Player Creativity

Q: How do you want mods or custom content to fit in, if at all?
A: We would provide as much flexibility as we can to modders who can create their own worlds and potentially make the base game even better with their creations. We could even learn from them and infuse their ideas into the game.

Launch and Roadmap

Q: What does a “good launch” look like to you?
A: It would start with the players not having any issues with the starting tutorials, feeling engaged and learning the ropes without much difficulty. Many towns and dungeons being built and players questing in each other’s dungeons. Players logging in daily or on weekends and bringing their friends to join in the fun.

Q: What are your big public milestones before launch?
A: We’ll have our first MVP playtest on Christmas this year, after 3 years of internal development. We’re also applying for the Epic Megagrants and hope that might possibly boost our development. The game would undergo continuous updates and polishing before full public access most probably in 2026.

Q: What’s the first update after launch you’re excited about?
A: We’re not sure which would be the first, but we could be adding in new races like elves and orcs, very rare magic, and monsters and dragons.

Platforms and Access

Q: Where do you plan to release first?
A: On Steam, with Imperium Hosting being referred to in-game for players who want to host quality private dedicated cloud servers that’ll let their friends hop on any time.

Q: What would the perfect, and finished version of this game entail?
A: The people in-game would become very human-like and less like pawns. The world would technologically advance towards space age and transcend towards multiple planets and galaxies, intergalactic diplomacy, conquest and expansion.

Additional Questions

Q: Will there be special events?
A: Yes, we can decide to work on special events if it benefits the gameplay for players.

Q: Will there be a way to customize your people?
A: You can modify your own coat of arms any time you like, customize the exact equipment of every person under your banner, as well as categorize them into your own troop groups with specific roles and choice of weapons.

This full interview highlights the scope and ambition of Coronation while echoing Twin Swords Studio’s words directly. With its focus on sandbox building, large-scale multiplayer, and persistent AI-driven worlds, Coronation is shaping up to be one of the most unique medieval games in development.

And when it comes time to host your own private dedicated kingdom, Imperium Hosting will be right there to power the experience.

For all your server hosting needs head to: www.Imperiumhosting.net

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