The Guild 2

The Guild 2 is a real-time life simulation video game that incorporates nonlinear gameplay, playable from a bird's-eye view, allowing to zoom in and out of the game. The Guild 2 introduces features including construction and management, tactical role-playing and social simulation elements, in which players assumes control of a defined character avatar, to simulate medieval life with characteristic features, role-playing game-style ability scores, classes and special abilities in European cities. It can be played using a mouse and keyboard. Similar to its predecessor, it features character classes and affects what buildings can be constructed and upgraded, which grants access to more improvements and therefore what businesses can be run.

Players have the option to develop and create their character at the beginning of the game, benefitting from a variety of customization, during the character creation, by selecting the appearance, first- and surname, class, sex, zodiac sign, religion and spent experience on talents. An objective for players is to improve their character's skills at levelling up, which are numerical representations of their ability in certain areas.

The Guild 2 takes place in the medieval world of the 15th century and begins in European cities like London, Lyon or Berlin. The player chooses where to play. Set in a medieval environment, a setting influenced by England, France and Germany, the game focuses on the common ideas of the centuries between ancient and early modern times, which has been transformed into an astonishingly diverse and evocative view of life.

Especially in the Middle Ages and the transition to the Renaissance in which many important influences, such as entry into politics and the potential associated rise of the civil society, as well as a growing meaning of cities are just as palpable as ubiquitous differences in status between different social strata, reflects the division of the church its entry and a spirit of optimism has been designed by a good development of action combined with a family empire foundation, to compete against players or computer-controlled opponents.

Development for The Guild 2 began in early 2003 with a team of more than 80 people and was headed by Lars Mertensen, director of Europa 1400: The Guild, which was published in 2002. The game is characterized mainly by the increased importance of the private life of the individual figures and released in September 2006 to largely mixed reception at its launch. The Guild 2 was first announced at the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, on August 21, 2003.

After initial logistical delays, the first expansion pack named Pirates of The European Seas was released in May 2007. / This stand alone expansion pack added several features, such as new professions and several different types of ships. This first expansion pack met with slightly better reviews than the original game. GameSpot gave it a "fair" score (6/10), and from Game Watcher a score of 8.2 out of 10. As a result of this, then-Community manager, known only as Fajeth had between the years of 2010–2012 in a fan community forum announced, that he and some of the members of the game's community led by Fajeth, has taken over the flawed game issues and attempted to fix them with an overhaul and updates, that the issues has been adequately addressed.

Upon release, The Guild 2 received average acclaim from magazines and websites. 2 out of 10 points from GameSpot. Eoghan Brophy of the former gaming website gamers Europe praised the opportunity, that players can gain through accumulated experience in the form of redistributable points and noted that it is beneficial to invest them immediately upon receiving in class-related talents. Stuart Thomas of game debate praises the combination created by modifications made by the modding team in the community around the game, calling it an incredible piece of work, that would pay a little patience as the game progresses in terms of the opening complexity of the game.

Ludovica Lagomarsino of Italian reference point multiplayer praised both, the particular system of "favor" for both sentimental and political as well as commercial relationships as useful and also the user interface for its user-friendlyness. GMC's Vincenzo Beretta noted that the "developers try to overcome their receding success" while criticizing that the "results are not entirely the same" continuing with criticizing the user interface "that more problematic than functional" is, but lauded the game's setting as "very lively and fascinating 3D environment".