Interested in owning your apartment complex? How about managing various people’s needs while building a business empire? Well, The Tenants is the game for you. The title from the developers at Ancient Forge Studios is back with their newest and largest update with their Manhattan addition to the game. With one of New York’s densest boroughs, you can now build your empire and make your fortune. Find out how the Ancient Forge Studios title has changed with our review of The Tenants.
Story: Interesting but a little lacking
Starting from an inherited apartment from your family will begin your ascent to a real estate mogul. First, you’ll have to complete a few jobs, which will assist you in designing and furnishing apartments, but we’ll save that for later. Playing The Tenants, you’re not going to find much of an overarching story to sink your teeth into. But, you will find a lot of small detail that will entertain you with some attention. As your build and rent out your apartments, you’ll be introduced to the various residents of each district.
Interacting with these residents will, for the most part, only yield a bunch of repeatable minigames, but they’ll ask you for help with more personal stuff now and again. For example, during our review of The Tenants, we’d give dating advice to various residents in my building now and again, which would yield positive and negative results. Picking the right movie and meal would help their date go well, and they would shower you with praise, or when it inevitably went awry, would scold you and question why they ever went to you for help.
Gameplay: Buy apartments and houses and build your real estate empire
Building your real estate empire won’t be quick, and it won’t be easy. First, you’ll receive your starter apartment from your family, but you won’t have much money to begin working on it. From here, you’ll have to use your phone in-game and take one of the various jobs offered: remodeling, conducting an open house, or just watching over an apartment for some time. These jobs will be an excellent way to earn some extra cash as your play. Then, once you have enough money in hand, it’s time to return to your apartment.
From here, you can start in various ways. For us, we started with the apartment’s layout, where you can decide where and how the rooms will be laid out, don’t forget to put doors in. Next, you can choose the wallpaper and flooring. Starting, you will have a limited selection that will expand as you complete assigned tasks and side jobs. From here is where you can begin to fill your apartment, choosing again from a limited selection of furniture in the beginning. Fill each room as required to meet to basic needs of the tenant, but it’s also good to remember that style also matters. Choosing the right style in almost every regard is important for getting the best price and the best tenant. Lastly, and most importantly, selecting the apartment in the world will allow adding several upgrades, like internet, TV, and cleaning robots and some of which are necessities before the next step. Make sure you add electrical outlets, water lines, and heating vents before moving.
Lastly, it’s time to find a renter once you’ve finished setting up the apartment. You’ll host an open house, and possible tenants will begin to arrive. Here you can click on them and see some basic information, but you will also have several abilities, two of which allow you to look into their credit histories and criminal records. During our review of The Tenants, we paid little attention to either of these and rented to whoever paid the most, which frequently saw our apartment become hangouts for mobsters. Once you’ve chosen who you’d like to rent to is when the deal-making begins. You’ll have to go back and forth making offers. Which to you only have a few offers, so choose carefully. Don’t go too high, or their counter offer will be low, find that balance in making offers to get the best one. Now that you’ve struck your deal, you’ll be off to find the next one.
The Tenants Manhattan update brought some basic changes to the game. Now you’ll have to set up the three core necessities in each apartment before you can proceed with renting it out. Placing up to at least seventy-five percent of electrical outlets, water fixtures, and heating vents will make the building useable. The developers also sought to give players more freedom to decorate their apartments by overhauling the furniture system. Players can now decorate the tops of surfaces with miscellaneous items adding more personalization to their apartments. During our review of The Tenants, we spent hours placing pots, pans, and various cooking items around our kitchens before renting off the apartments. City pickups will reward the player with money, tenant hearts, or a rare item along with permanent boots to Uncle Steves’s movement speed. This comes as part of many changes in the latest and largest update in the Ancient Dorge game, The Tenants before the game leaves Steam Early Access.
Graphics/Audio: A beautiful and dense game world full of characters
Building your real estate empire won’t be the only thing you’ll get caught up doing. The developers at Ancient Forge Studios deliver a moving world. While designing and caring for the apartments you’ve purchased, the world around you will continuously be moving. People will be walking around. Cars will be honking and going about their way. It could have been easy to design a world that did what it needed and didn’t offer anything else. But the team gave players a world that feels alive and sounds even better once the repetitive background music is turned off. From there, not only does the player get to see a world just outside the apartment that is constantly moving, but they also can hear all the sounds that accompany it, which feels like developers when to great lengths to create.
With Tenants Manhattan Update, players will get to dive into a beautifully designed version of the borough in New York City. The developers wanted the update to be different, stating in their community post on Steam:
“Apart from the new environment itself, accompanied by new flats to buy and do jobs in, we wanted Manhattan to feel special compared to the other two districts. After all, it’s the late-game area in which players who “finish” the game (reach the final mission) spend most of their time.”
This Manhattan district is dense and filled with characters walking, driving, and doing random activities. As a result, during our review of The Tenants, we found a world that feels even more alive compared to the two other districts. It’s a clear example that the developers are moving closer to how they want their game to look.
Unfortunately, there is one big issue with The Tenants with a problem during every game launch, and the game would hang on a black screen and appear as if the game had become non-responsive. Of course, if you sit and wait for a bit, the game will eventually load, and you can begin playing with no issues from then on. But it can be easy for some to think that the game is completely broken when they would have to wait a couple of minutes before the game would launch.
Conclusion:
The Ancient Forge Studios title The Tenants is an enjoyable game with a beautifully crafted world that will scratch that property management itch and will undoubtedly take up a few hours of your day. Even with the issues launching the game, The Tenants is still a worthwhile title that shows the developers’ tremendous effort. It may just be best to wait a little bit for the developers to sort out a couple of the issues, which should be fixed by the time The Tenants hit their 1.0 release later this year.
After reading our The Tenants review, you can find the Ancient Forge Studios title available on the Steam Early Access Program for $19.99. Additionally, you can head to the Ancient Forge Studios development page to learn more about The Tenants or any other projects.
