Lessaria is not just another strategy game popping up on Steam and getting forgotten immediately after. It is a conscious and passionate project to revive the spirit of the cult classic RTS Majesty, started by nine fans from Krasnodar (Rockbee Team studio).
As the developers themselves have stated, “We’re essentially making Majesty 3.” And so their goal isn’t a remake but rather an evolution, bringing the unique gameplay of indirect control strategy into the modern era, incorporating player feedback and experimenting with mechanics.
Did they succeed? Let’s check it out together. This is our Lessaria PC review.
Lessaria belongs to a rare strategy subgenre. You can just pick and choose your units and order them to go and do something directly. Instead, you, as the ruler, create the conditions and motivations for your subjects to fulfill your wishes. This connects the game to classics like Dungeon Keeper, where you had to first satisfy your subjects’ needs before they would complete a task and prevent you from losing the game in the process.
This approach forces you to treat units as living beings with their own will and behavior quirks, rather than as expendable copies. Lessaria’s release is a response to the demand of a close-knit community of fans of this niche but devoted genre.
The key principles behind Lessaria’s creation are iterativeness and openness to change. Inspired by the original, the developers initially explored various ideas: from a complex economy with multiple resources to tower defense elements. However, thanks to active playtesting and community feedback, they consistently eliminated anything that interfered with the core idea—observing living, independent heroes.
Mechanics such as tower defense as the core of gameplay were put on the watch list after the negative reaction from the community. The multiple resource system introduced in the first missions was also criticized by Majesty fans for being too complex. In response, the team worked on both the multi-resource and the classic single-resource (gold only) models to find the optimal one. In the final version, a focused approach with a single, united currency prevailed.
The first missions served less to outline the story than to introduce players to the new and perhaps unfamiliar mechanics. As developer Alexander (the AI programmer) noted, “Our goal is to simply introduce players unfamiliar with the genre.” It was a dynamic process of finding the ideal gameplay core, which, by release, evolved into a clear campaign.
Lessaria carefully preserves the sacred trinity of the original: indirect control through the promised rewards, independent heroes with their own priorities, and an economy tied to their needs. However, modern systems were built around and on top of this core:
- In Lessaria, heroes have real characters and even evolution. The system makes each unit unique by assigning them traits like “Rat Slayer” or “Coward”, which affect both their stats and behavior.
- A neutral hero can evolve into a hero of Light or Darkness, changing their appearance and gaining new abilities.
- Heroes of different factions can clash. Thieves are capable of stealing not only from monsters but also from other heroes, which can lead to skirmishes as an incensed hero chases the thief away.
- Players can create a permanent squad in the Tavern by uniting heroes. Getting an entire squad off their asses can be more challenging, especially if the leader is a high level hero, but their overall success rate skyrockets.
- In addition to gold, a second lever of control is added. Royal Influence resource can be used to temporarily increase interest in a reward or speed up extraction.
- Players must choose one of the elite guilds and one racial ally (Dwarves, Orcs, Elves). This choice determines tactics for the entire map.
In addition to the mechanics above, Lessaria also perfectly captures the spirit of oldschool RTS games from the golden age. The recognizable blue-tiled houses, sawmills at the edge of the forest, and peasants constructing buildings in green meadows are a direct homage to Majesty.
The world is vibrant and detailed: cats and chickens roam the streets, and in the tavern, you can see what the customers are being fed. It’s a cozy, meditative world for contemplation, somewhat reminiscent of observing an anthill. The game doesn’t strive for hardcore difficulty, offering a comfortable pace with the ability to pause at any time, making it ideal for those who miss the old strategy games but aren’t up for the additional stress.
At launch, the game offers two main modes: a 14-mission campaign that serves as a gentle introduction to the mechanics, but quickly develops into a full-fledged adventure. The story isn’t overwhelmingly deep, but it’s generously spiced with humor and full voice acting, constantly throwing up new situations and introducing different races (orcs, elves) and factions (angels, demons).
For a beginner, the Light Faction is the most reliable choice, providing an angelic healer with resurrection. Experienced players can experiment with demonic or nature magic.
Meanwhile, the Survival mode is a serious challenge for tacticians. It allows you to experiment with the full tech tree as waves of enemies mount their offensives. While there’s only one map for now, the mode’s potential is enormous.
The game world is spacious and filled with activity: monster lairs, treasures, and caravans. Stationary portals allow for quick travel across large maps. Direct intervention in battles is possible through spells from the Library (healing, stunning, and protecting), but these have long cooldowns and require gold, making them difficult to rely on entirely.
In the interviews, the developers and the publisher have pointed out three key “high points” of gameplay that were prioritized: the need to see and empathize with the heroes, the importance of portraits and their progression. The publisher even openly stated that early on the team lacked a detailed vision for the final gameplay experience beyond – and this is where the new game designer was needed and later on the player feedback to iterate the game with.
The final goal from the beginning had been to revive and refine Majesty’s unique gameplay process for the modern audiences that might not have had much experience with the indirect control strategies. That means re-introducing a nostalgic atmosphere and a comfortable gameplay pace, balancing difficulty and accessibility. However, it might be hard to beat the idealized image of Majesty that players have formed in their minds. After all, Lessaria is more of a reincarnation instead of a replacement. Naturally, it is the project that divided opinions of the players. The game’s score depends almost entirely on what any given player expected from a spiritual successor to Majesty.
For many fans of the original first Majesty, Lessaria is a long-awaited and high-quality gift. It faithfully recreates the unique “management by rewards” cycle, adding in modern QoL and tactical depth (trait system, evolution, factions). The iterative development, the team’s responsiveness to patches, and respect for the original source material are clearly visible to anyone. This is an ideal entry point into a niche genre for new players and a pleasant return to a familiar sandbox for veterans.
However, there is another, no less important point of view, vividly presented in one of the user reviews. From this perspective, Lessaria isn’t so much the long-awaited “Majesty 3” as it is a conservative “reimagining of the first game.” Some fans were expecting the developers to expand on the ideas of Majesty 2, a more complex and story-driven approach, with greater control and scale, but what they got was a reincarnation of the philosophy of the very first game.
There are also some very specific drawbacks noted by both groups: a cumbersome interface (large icons that get in the way of clicking, buildings that blend into the background), a sense of imbalance among some classes (for example, the excessively glass cannon nature of Rogues), and artificial limitations (a squad size limit that had to be quickly expanded from 3 to 5).
To sum it up, Lessaria is FOR YOU if you appreciate the original Majesty for its unique philosophy of indirect control, are ready to embrace it in a modern, more user-friendly, and tactically deep package, and aren’t expecting a revolution of the genre. If you’re looking for a cozy, atmospheric strategy game where you can observe the life of a fantasy town rather than constantly tackling crises.
It might NOT be for you if you were expecting an evolution of Majesty 2’s ideas, or if minor interface inconveniences and the feeling of “unfinished” mechanics irritate you.
Lessaria a confident, solid, and respectful successor, perfect for a leisurely immersion. Rockbee Team studio’s debut can be considered a success – they took a responsible approach to a complex genre and created a game that, despite all the minor rough edges, is capable of giving dozens of hours of fun, nostalgic and tactically rich experience.
