The Guild 1 Remake: Europa 1410 Review

A Faithful Return to a 25-Year-Old Medieval Rags-to-Riches Sim

The Guild 1 Remake: Europa 1410 is a medieval economic and political life sim from developer Ashborne Games, published by THQ Nordic, built as a direct homage to 2002's The Guild (also known as Europa 1400: The Guild), rather than a follow-on to the more recent, differently-styled Guild 2 or Guild 3. You start a single business as the head of a fledgling dynasty — Smith, Preacher, Alchemist, and more are on offer — and work across generations to grow your family's wealth, marry well, secure an heir, and climb the political ladder of your chosen city through popularity, bribery, or blackmail. It entered Steam Early Access on September 17, 2026 at $29.99, following a public Next Fest demo earlier in the year that shaped a number of the changes present at launch, and the developers have been explicit that this is a deliberate return to the original's top-down, menu-driven sandbox style rather than a reinvention in the vein of its more recent, more cinematic sequels.

A Very Positive but Sharply Divided Early Access Launch

The Guild 1 Remake launched to 172 reviews, 143 of them positive, for an 83% "Very Positive" score on Steam. English and German reviews make up the bulk of the sample, reflecting the series' strong European fanbase, and this is a launch pool with real texture to it: a solid majority of reviewers, especially longtime series veterans, are enthusiastic, but a vocal minority — many of them newer to the franchise — are considerably more skeptical, and the split tracks closely with how familiar a given reviewer is with the 2002 original.

Genuine Nostalgia, a Faithful Atmosphere, and a Promising Foundation

The praise across this pool centers overwhelmingly on how convincingly the remake recaptures the feel of the original Guild rather than reinventing it. One reviewer who says they wrote an in-depth review of the original Guild 1 back in 2014 pushes back directly on players expecting something else, writing "they say very clearly it's a remake, a homage to the original; and that's exactly what it is," while another describes being flooded with memories, saying the game "captures the spirit and atmosphere of the original Guild incredibly well" and calling it "a must-buy" for anyone who loved the original. A player who grew up on the similar business-sim Fugger II writes that they "never thought I'd get so lucky to get to play this remake," praising the enhanced graphics and logic over the original while keeping its old-school structure intact. Several reviewers single out specific touches as well-executed even at this early stage, with one praising character creation as "10/10 no notes" and others noting that the music, sound design, narrator, and small character jokes from the series all carry over intact. Multiple reviewers explicitly frame their positive reviews as votes of confidence in the direction of development rather than a claim that the game is finished, with one writing plainly, "I want to support the direction this game is heading in," and another calling it "already fun with a lot of potential" despite being "slightly unpolished, rough around the edges."

Missing Cart Management, a Cluttered UI, and Early-Access Rough Edges

The most consistently repeated complaint in this pool, raised independently by numerous reviewers across both the positive and negative columns, is the absence of direct, manual cart management for trade caravans, which several describe as the backbone of the game's economy. One reviewer withholding a positive review over this specific issue writes that "until that is added, I can't give it a positive review," while another calls it "so basic" that its absence undermines running more than two or three businesses at once. The user interface draws similarly widespread criticism, described variously as "a mess," "cluttered and not intuitive at all," and simply "terrible," with multiple reviewers reporting menus that won't close, unclear controls for basic actions like building upgrades, and a storage system so limited that producing more than two items at once quickly runs out of space. Technical rough edges come up often for an Early Access launch of this kind, including recurring T-posing characters, frame-rate drops, unimplemented professions and item upgrades still marked "Coming soon," and one detailed negative review reporting that the game's largest map, Nuremberg, freezes and stutters every two to three seconds past a certain in-game year. A separate, more pointed strand of criticism comes from newer players who feel misled by comparisons to the more modern Guild 2 and Guild 3, with one writing bluntly that new players "will probably be turned off quite quickly" since the deliberately old-school, menu-driven design isn't a good introduction to the series for anyone who isn't already nostalgic for the 2002 original.

Verdict

The Guild 1 Remake: Europa 1410 is a clear labor of love aimed squarely at longtime fans of the 2002 original, and on that narrow goal, most of its early reviewers agree it succeeds — the atmosphere, humor, and dynastic rags-to-riches structure of the original Guild are recognizably intact, and the developers appear to be listening closely to Early Access feedback. But this is an unmistakably early build, and its problems are consistent and specific rather than scattered: no manual cart management for a trade-dependent economy, a cluttered and confusing interface, unimplemented content throughout, and real performance issues on at least one of its maps. At $29.99, that's a meaningfully higher price than many Early Access sims ask for an admittedly incomplete state, and reviewers are split largely along generational lines — a strong recommendation for players who grew up with the original Guild and want to support its faithful revival, and a much more cautious one for newcomers, who are better served waiting for cart management, UI passes, and further content before jumping in.