Forged in Fire lovers unite. We can now own and operate our own medieval smithy where we manage staff, process orders, buy goods, decorate and build the smithy of our dreams.


One of my favourite shows of all time is Forged in Fire. I have seen all the seasons, love all the judges and still get excited after ten years when Doug says “it will keal” (his famous catch phrase meaning Keep Everyone Alive). I ended up naming my smithy It Will Keal just for the hoot of it.

I played Untitled Studio’s other game Tavern Master and thought it was a pretty good game so I was happy to see them take on the theme of a medieval smithy sim.

❗ Keep in mind in this game you manage your own smithy but you do not do any crafting yourself. It would be nice if it had both aspects but in this game you're simply the management.

The gameplay has you managing your smithy by hiring workers, buying materials and in the beginning filling orders for merchants to make money and level up your workers. The tutorial is great, step-by-step instructions as you play. Everything in this game is unlocked by levelling up your shop and selling items to merchants (merchants sometimes reward blueprints and cosmetics). You cannot skip ahead and buy everything in one day, everything is earned by levelling up so at each level you have a sense of progression and objectives to aim for. It makes for satisfying gameplay to work towards unlocking the more elaborate items and materials as you play.

There is a sandbox mode as well if you just want to get creative without getting progress locked.


Settings & features include; Time format, language, quality, UI scaling, display mode, resolution, frame rate, VSync, audio controls, keyboard layout, and the ability to turn on or off icons and other indicators. The game also has a photo-mode for taking screencaps!

✨ The game auto saves but also has manual saves that you can name.


* Let storage crates be accessible from both sides and make larger sizes (we have so many small chests all over the place-allow us to upgrade our chests).
* More engagement with the workers besides them sitting on a bench at the end of the day (eating can give them temporary buffs for example)
* Assign workers to specific stations (if they specialize in carpentry let us assign them to just those stations, why specialize if they do everything?)
* The game can get overwhelming if you grow your smithy with multiple floors and have dozens of employees. You have to grow your smithy to a point as merchant orders get more demanding the higher level you go. So keeping a balance as you progress can be a challenge.


The game is primarily a top-down view but you can zoom right in to watch your workers hammering away or designing blueprints. The small details when you zoom in are really well done. Finishes like stone and wood look good and the lights give a nice warm glow to your smithy. There are even animations like steam and sparks coming off of your metal forge or steam rising up when you quench the hot blades.

I took these pretty early on when my smithy was smaller, to show some of the up-close details.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3491086172
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3491084637


This game will give you a lot of hours for being in early access. Once you start making money and hiring more staff the game plays itself to a point where you can check in for upgrades (the game notifies you of any potential upgrades or workers that are ready to be levelled up). However it does get overwhelming at later stages with a whole host of employees to manage and none of them able to be assigned specific tasks (outside of the design person). However the game is in early access so a lot will change, including balancing and mechanics over time.

I tend to keep my smithy on the smaller side (I have unlocked the second floor but have not built it yet). You can also dabble in the sandbox mode to just relax and create so you can have the freedom to do both. For me there is enough content to justify early access but take the pros and cons that others have reviewed and see if it is for you to jump in early. 🔨

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It's quite OK at the beginning and overall has many nice things to like, but the logistics in this game make it a nightmare to play for long.

Once you get to smelting and producing your own lumber and ore you have to hire hoards of assistants because they can only move one specific item around. On top of that you cannot just designate stockpiles for certain things or tick some checkbox for them to be refilled, no you have to first hire a carrier from warehouse to an ore box (each item by itself) then hire an assistant to smelt the ore (once again, that assistant doesn't touch any other ore) then hire .. yes you guessed it another assistant to transport that specific ore .. and not just wherever it is needed no, it only picks up stuff from one source to one destination, which is silly and breaks the whole game.

Crafting strategy games are all about logistics. How to bring A to B and if this doesn't work, which it currently does not properly, then everything down the line is just extra fluff that's nice to have but really not worth the effort.

Frames are a nightmare late game.
Need an option to set workers to certain floors.
Need more/better options for management of workers in terms of what items they create/use.
Game structure is solid, but details need alot of work in terms of ease of use and micromanagement. Which seems ridiculous considering this is a game based on exactly that.
Still having problems with workers freezing after removing items from chests, dragging the frames down while they glitch, making the frame problem even worse, almost to the point of being unplayable.
Good game but until most of these problems are solved, personally can't give a thumbs up.