Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

I never played Warband and only came across Bannerlord after watching a YouTube video from The VMP Show. I took a gamble and haven't regretted it. This is all I'm playing, all my other games have fallen by the wayside. The castle sieges and big battles are just epic fun. I've started off in Sturgia but plan to eventually play through each faction. I just love everything about this game!!

I enjoy this game would recommend. 7/10 needs some features that should already be in the game but can be covered with the vast amount of mods.

This is the definition of a true sandbox. A perfect mix of a RTS, Settlement builder, and Medieval war game. The devs have followed through on all promises and support there community and creators who want to develop mods. I cant recommend this game enough.

This game is awesome, I had lots of fun playing it, keep it up devs, can't wait for the release to give it another go, hopefully with new improvements.

It's totally worth it for the start and mid game, so, the bad part, as most people on the reviews pointed out. The LATE GAME IS TOTAL CANCER and kind of boring. I was so pissed off that I stopped playing the game at that point, tried to get back a few times, but it's just too annoying. It should have some legendary items to hunt, that would make the late game more interesting, but it's all about war and expanding. So you are trying to expand from one side, then one or two enemy teams take all your land on the other side, then there's also that useless quest that keeps popping all the time repeatedly telling you to kill a caravan on the other side of the map that you are in, even if that's on enemy territory at war, while I'm spending several days running after that quest caravan, in the meanwhile a team I've "almost" completely destroyed, but now has guerrilla units all over the place, keeps spreading chaos on the back "safe" zone of my kingdom looting villages, spreading hunger and sinking my economy. My caravans in a few days are all kidnapped even paying extra for security. It's just a total nightmare. Playing on preset warrior (normal) difficulty.

Some bugs I've noticed:

When transferring troops and you have a huge number of different units, moving multiple troops with the slider, the scroll bar moves up automatically, if you have to move a few different troops you have to go up and up and down.
When using influence to help another clan, the message box has a crazy delay, after clicking the button 100 times to use influence, it is still displaying the second message and it keeps on and on, long after I've done everything.
When sieging, the troops at some point get stuck and don't climb the wall ladder anymore, not sure if that's a bug or intended, as the troops lose morale and are afraid to climb

Play at your own risk. Make sure your real life responsibilities are taken care of. You start playing this and your weekend is over, guaranteed.

my name bob, lord pharon asshole, i go kill pharon the idiot, my horse fast, my bow strong, my cock hard and pharon family executed, LONG LIVE BOB THE KING!!!!

Solid game with good mechanics for open adventure. If you liked the first one, you will most likely like this one.
It has come a loooooong way since launch day, with things like excessive loading times and lag being completely fixed as far as I have seen.

You'd think a game called BANNERlord would allow you to customise your banners... nope. from what ive seen its just warband with a shitter story line and better graphics. thank god they added the workshop but why wasnt this done sooner?

guess the younger generation want those graphics but warband will always be the pinical, buy the old one not this... atleast for a while to come.

After having had played this game off and on for a couple of years, it is definitely something that pulls me in and I do love the direction that the developers have gone with putting you right into the thick of battles as well as the diplomacy, kingdom building, and everything that goes with it.

Got this game with the intention of liking it - accidentally fell in love with it and now I can't stop playing. It was supposed to be a side game, not a primary game.

Absolute Blast!!!!! i play this game anytime im alone!!! lots of gameplay and updates this game never dissapoints!!!! I HIGHLY RECCOMEND IT!

A completely open world where you can lord around as you please. I'd recommend this to anyone wanting to experience a genuine RPG with loads of time-dumping put into it.

the game is amazing. BUT when you add some mods to it, it becomes a nightmare it crashes every 10 minutes.
They added a steam workshop a couple of days ago and it still crashes no matter what u do.
Good game if you play the base game without mods.

Great game! It´s in-game interface feels awesome and the options for developing your character´s "carrer" are way more complex and fun.

The ultimate medieval general experience. RPG meets battle/general simulator meets grand strategy. If you enjoy total war, crusader kings, or elder scrolls games, this is a must play

ver good gaem I would 100% recommend to anyone. Don't even think about thinking about this game.

(Okay, but on a serious note, this game is really good for the amount of popularity it gets. This game is pretty under-rated for how good it is.)

Was and still is an amazing game that I decided to come back to for the 3rd time. Sadly the more updated this game gets the more I get pissed at it. Haven't played for over a year and I'm gonna put all my frustration on their idiotic idea of nerfing the shit out of the athletics skill which makes footsoldiers unplayable (I never like to play as cavalry in any game infantry to the win!) and sadly not only my army but me myself with maxed out athletics can't or barely can keep up with chasing down anyone. I used to love being speedy gonzales now 20 points athletics and 250 points athletics feel almost exactly the same... like a snail.

Also not only did they nerf athletics to make it useless they also made it hard to even level it up... because shooting someone in the head once isn't enough. lets double-tap.

Game is solid 8/10
The athletics update is solid -1/10

I probs won't come back to this game unless someone makes a mod that returns the 1.5.9 athletics to the game...

Best medievil simulator our there..... as soon as you have a stable income the profits after your army pay then thats when the fun starts

Game crashes every time I try to reopen it and I have gone through every online tutorial and tech tip to no avail. When they fix this it isn't a terrible game but right now I am having a terrible time trying to just play the game.

Its a great game but its the same one I bought all this time ago and its always felt unfinished cause they only fix their Early Access game instead of adding content

Love this game, the developers are constantly working on it and listening to players by incorporating already popular mods as part of normal gameplay.

I've enjoyed it so far but it does get repetiative and it's a type of game where the late game is the least fun in my opinion. Just started playing with mods since workshop is now avaliable so the games about to become even better.

Comparing it to Warband, it's a million times better. There's so much more content and while there are still some slight problems, the game is still in beta so it's understandable.

Lot's of potential wasted by an arbitrary AI, grind-heavy progression system, and virtually unplayable main quest. If you want to drop 50$ on a medieval battle simulator you might not be completely disappointed, but there is still no strategy game to be had here.

Fun mechanics almost identical to the 1st game..but if you think dayz has clowns for devs then these guys take it to another level,constant disconnects and crashes almost every game and they expect 40 bucks for this!!!

Great game. Only thing I miss is the Warband dialogues, like "That's a nice head you have on your shoulder" bandit dialogues. Overall great game.

Finally the true successor to WarBand in all it's glory.

Good game that has now, after two years of updates in EA, has become the great game I was hoping it would be. 1.0 Release is planned for the near future so it's at the full planned experience at this point. Game play is solid and well tuned. Notably, quests now make 300% more sense and can be easily tracked and completed (it was a rough start). Combat is easy to learn hard to master. Personally I love the mounted combat experience. If you have a quality computer, do your self a favor and go into performance settings and turn the number of combatants up to 1000. That is the full experience. No shame in looking up guides or asking as you go. If you are new, keep the difficulty settings on easy to start. Then as you go you can adjust them freely based on what challenge you want. Very open and fun RPG game to create whatever kind of character you want to build. Trader, mercenary, bandit, soldier dedicated to a particular faction, or forge your own empire. Such an engaging and well developed world. Easy to lose hours just running about the lands of Calradia.

Steam cloud save unable to sync, I have two PCs this is the only game this happens with.

As soon as I made this angry review the issue fixed itself. I'm not sure if there is a moral of the story here. But it is back to lancing looters for me... on which ever device I want.

As the full release comes near, so does the quality of this game improve. Started playing at around 1.5 or 1.6 so I think I'm suited to say this game has relieved itself of many bugs, glitches and imperfections. From the Rainbow screens on the campaign map, to purple checkered banners in the banner customization tab, this game has improved and feels stable as time passes. Although small bugs are still present, this game has improved itself in function, quality and selection. To the individuals that bashed this game so hard upon beta release, I wish to inform you that beta does not mean finished. Before Oct 25th you paid for an unfinished game. Just an FYI...

really love the game even though its early access, and definitely the recent update makes it better. I hope they make multiplayer better.

It is still a bit lackluster and the grinding is insane and lacks endgame content buuuuut
it finally has workshop support and actual banners so it is a 10/10

a medieval sandbox RPG made by an indie developer definitely worth buying. The combat system needs to get used to and is a bit quirky, but this game really invites you to explore its rich world and craft your own adventure. It allows you to do almost everything you could imagine to do in a fantasy-medieval world.
Just to address the elephant in the room, its the technology (not just the graphics, but the overall engine). I don't know how they managed to develop a game with late PS2 / early PS3 technology standards that can make modern above average systems sweat. So if you wanna buy this game (which I definitely recommend!) you better make sure you have the PC for it and a fire extinguisher next to you. Just in case.

Got a bad tip from a caravan.. lost $7,000 on a trade (in a dynamic market). Got angry and rage quit. Got back on, Hired some soldiers, trained them up through killing pirates and looters, became a mercenary for a southern kingdom, joined up, swore some stupid oath, fought some wars and got a castle, built some street cred and became a rich business entrepreneur, voted to go to war with a North faction, sieged two cities and FINALLY KILLED THAT STUPID CARAVAN OWNER WHO GAVE ME THE BAD TIP! REVENGE IS BEST SERVED COLD YOU PRICK!! MUAHAHAHA!! Went home, got married to some 20 year old and ruled my kingdom, got fat and became a politician.. this game rocks!

Is it perfect? No
Is it pretty? Yes
Do most characters look like Tormund or the hound? Yes.. even the women... but whatever.
The combat is fun, the politics are great, the sieges are super fun, the tournaments are challenging. You can be involved as you want in entire army's clashing. So much fun

An Excellent next page in the mount & blade story! what is there to say if you are a fan of RTS games and role playing games equally this will hit that fix flawlessly I cannot wait to play this on xbox series X (here's hoping as stable as it is on pc) as Xbox is where I generally prefer to play games well done taleworlds! you have knocked it out of the park or as they say here in Scotland sàr!

5 stars - * * * * *

Its a fun game, i love the battle system and the big variety. But the campaign gets boring very fast. Late mid and late game is nonexisting.

No game has had the ability to continuously suck me in, over and over and over again since OG Skyrim. 11/10, would work my way to Vlandian Kings right hand man only to immediately turn on him and take over his entire country in one fell swoop.

It's a great game, but I think it's necessary to finish the early access to get quality mods without crashes.

Its a great game! it can become overwhelming in the late game but by that point youre already 80hrs in so I dont mind :)

If you enjoyed games such as Total war & Age of Empires, Mount & Blade: Bannerlord 2 may be right up your alley.

Playing this game for me was the epidimy of absolute rage. more intense than the previous bannerlord. I have tried and tried again top enjoy it but just cant. seriously wish i could get a refund for this game, but no. I love watching this game get played on YouTube, but fuck all when it comes to playing it.

Every few months I remember this game and how much I love Mount & Blade, then wonder why I haven't been playing it. I play it for a couple hours and then it crashes on me out of nowhere and I remember why I haven't been playing it.

Rinse and repeat.

Came back after 2 years and a half to check on the game, following 7 years of development, and the game is still not released, no modding community, no coop...

I might update this comment in a few years when it's all there, but it's just a joke at that point

Will be dead before I can play

ffs

Initially, the game's fun, but after a little while it starts to become grindy and boring. If you like those kinds of games, go ahead. Game developers would be better off adding Workshop compatability so the modding community can go ham like they did for Warband.

This is comparable to Fallout 4 where mechanics have been either dumbed down or completely removed from previous iterations of the game to appease more casual console gamers. I can not for the life of me recommend an unfinished game that is already a decade old. Especially if you had played M&B Warband.

TaleWorlds just took a dump on the original gamers who supported their company for years when they announced that they were pushing this hot steaming loaf out in this half finished state. There will be a big update when it hits 1.0, but all it will add is some minor combat updates. That large content patch that everyone was waiting for is not going to come. For the most part, all the content you see now will be it. Complete money grab by TaleWorlds.

I've hesitated to play this game for 2 years, now that it's to be released soon I tried it and it's awesome for an early access game. They're actually realeasing it depite the fact that there's still tons of stuff to fix, I do however wish the devs success. The modding scene is complicated due to numerous updates, worse than Skyrim SE/AE, and I've yet to understand how it all works and which mods to install.

10 dissappointments out of 10 and I'm still enjoying it.

Was Bannerlord 2 worth the wait? yes it definitely was even though i still haven't finished a campaign still have over 300 hours and counting. lots of gear to collect and plebs to conquer... just can't wait for more mods to be released.

I've been a massive fan of MnB since the first/before it was on T
Steam. I waited patiently for 10ish years between warband/Viking conquest and this.

It's a good game but feels like a fancy re-skin with a few extra features and revised map. I know there's more than that but having soaked up every drop of earlier iterations it doesn't feel like much new.

So why the recommend? Each previous game has booned due the modding community and the upcoming full release w/ workshop integrations gonna be sick. Ultimately none of that possible if they didn't make the game in the first place.

They may miss the mark but f**k if they didn't make a solid few games with great combat mechanics and a decent world.

Man what a ride early access has been.

I can say, yes I recommend this game in its vanilla state. There are some much needed content updates planned for post release as well that make me very excited (expanded criminal system).

I havent had a game breaking bug in months and only one crash. The combat feels rewarding, perks meaningful, and system decently complex that you really can play the way you want. There are obviously OP strategies, but you do not need to use them to win. Tactics are strongly rewarded. Skill choices matter.

Economic systems feel decent in general. Workshops need some love as they are difficult to optimize, and war is incredibly profitable, its not all perfect. That said town/castle management is rewarding if you choose to invest your time in it. Trade caravans are good if you have the right party leader for it. Even being a trader yourself can be an interesting game.

Combat really shines. You can cheese it or go sword/board and the game will reward you for it. However the system is complex enough that you can have decent matches vs the AI. Tactics are meaningful, you have to use them to win. Especially later in the game, you can defeat armies twice your size or larger with good troops and careful tactics.

I could go on. Im loving the game after 200hrs throughout EA. It feels like a well thought out game finally with more to come. Initially the hate was justified, but I feel at this pount Taleword has delivered. Not on all their promies, but a good game none the less.

Love the game so far , Amazing graphics and Amazing Story. Also has a really great feel from an RPG prospective. Alot of the time it would feel like I Was really there fighting roaming bands of Savage Bandits, Gaining favor with Lords of the land, and being in a medieval setting.

I only have an hour or so in the game at this time, So I will be back to update this review once i have more time invested.

I would def recommend this game to anyone that is a medieval fan like my self.

Having played Warband pretty extensively and having put a decent amount of hours into bannerlord I feel I have a pretty good measure on the game. Bannerlord brings a ton of new features to M&B, has a few bugs of its own, but maintains the grindy gameplay that warband has. If your new to M&B, then you will probably love bannerlord. If this isn't your first runthrough with M&B, you will probably love bannerlord. M&B really isn't like any other games out there so the few cons that bannerlord has really doesn't break the game. Heres the differences to Warband:

New Campaign Map, new factions (some resemble warband factions while some are unique). New single clan mercenary factions that have a few armies that factions can recruit.
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Clan System. You are the leader of your own clan, you start off with yourself, your brother, and your two siblings being apart of your clan. You gain new clan members via birth, marriage, and companions. Theres two types of clan members, Nobles and Vassals. Nobles don't own settlements or lead armies, and usually reside at the capital of the faction or at a owned fief of the clan. Vassals lead an army and usually own a fief. The only exception to this is if the player gives a companion/family the command of a party, and in this case the party leader becomes a Noble. Your clan starts at level 1, and each level brings new features up to level 5 where each new level gives larger party sizes. Your clan xp is your renown, and you gain renown through most actions.
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Influence/Army system. Influence is a sort of currency you gain through defeating parties and capturing settlements. Influence is used to initiate kingdom decisions such as new policys, declaring war, making peace, exiling clans, etc. After initiating a kingdom decision you can spend more influence to further solidify whether or not the king approves it. You can also spend influence on who a fief goes to, including yourself. No doubt the most important thing you can do with your influence is raise armies. An army in bannerlord is a collection of parties that become one "army" on the campaign map. As the player you can join any army in your faction and leave at any time. The AI will stay in your army until you are defeated or the army's cohesion runs out. As the player you can raise an army by clicking different parties in your faction on the army screen and clicking the create button. Each party has its own influence cost to recruit depending on relation, size, and other things. Parties in your clan are always free to recruit.
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New Skill System. The skill system in bannerlord is similar in a few ways to warband but a lot different. There are familar skills such as "One handed, Two Handed, Leadership, Athletics, etc" but also a lot of new ones such as "Steward, Charm, etc". Instead of your skill level being defined as basic as how many points you put into it, bannerlord makes it a lot more complicated. You level up your skills by doing stuff that the skill would most likely entail. How fast you level it up, and how far you level it up is determined by the points you put into it. The skills are organized into groups of three with general names such as "Valor, Intelligence, etc". You can put points into the group as a whole which gives minor bonuses to all three skills, and you can put points into individual skills themselves. You get a "group skill" point every 4 levels and a skill point every 1. Unlike warband where skills just give bonuses to things you can already do, leveling up bannerlord skills give you access to entirely new features while also giving bonuses. Additionally, each skill has its own little sort of "tech tree" (its really not a tech tree, just can't find the word for it).
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Lots of new economy changes. Bannerlord kind of overhauls a lot of things about warband's economy. First, instead of all your expenses/incomes arriving weekly, its a daily thing in bannerlord. You can create caravans, buy or create workshops, and being a trader yourself is a lot more complicated. You can see the prices of items in other towns (with certain perks) therefor enabling you to make wiser trade decisions.

I really only scratched the surface in what bannerlord offers. I compared bannerlord to warband much throughout this review because they are much similar games and bannerlord can be scrutinized much more because warband was one of the greatest games of its day (in my opinion). Overall, I think bannerlord is worth buying *cough cough on sale*. At the time of this review the game is less than a month away from its main release, so lots could change. If you are a veteran warband player, you will probably enjoy bannerlord for a hundred hours before it gets a little boring (like me). If your new to M&B you will definetly enjoy bannerlord for a while.

in short:
the game reminds me of skyrim, the constant need for mods to fix / add thigs missing in the game.
alot of crashes as of the recent patch which make the game unplayable for me atleast
due to that fact it is worth buying only when its on discount but not at full price as it doesn't feel like a full game.

in more detail (only cons, if any of this is a deal breaker than you shouldn't get the game other than that its alot of fun and pretty much warband but kinda better):
early game:
alot of fun, you create you character go on a jourany and begin your playthrough like its advertised and kind of reminds me atleast of the previous game with better graphics combat mechanics and more to do (for now)

mid game:
after awhile you make a name for yourself you begin to encounter some grinding for certin skills and requirements for certin actions that might be considered too grindy unless you cheese the game (trade and smithing are two great examples) furthermore when you begin to actualy fight as a vassal or on your own you might encounter weird AI tactics that does not make much sense.. which for me kind of break the imerssion and fun but luckily there are mods to fix that...
its still fun to make your own kingdom or progress in an already existing one.

late game:
now there is the big problem for me.. there is almost nothing to do besides the horrible horde mode the game becomes, after awhile wars begin to feel like chors and not like amazing battles for survival and conquest but rather a weird mix of dumb lords and ai that keep suggestion war against random factions or random factions from across the map declaring war for no apparent reason, which doesn't help the fact that even after defeating a large army 1000+ even killing captured lords the ai somehow pops back up with another 1000+ army and thus begin the horde mode and immersion breaking anti snowball mechanics but! only against you! your ai lords don't have the same abilities rather they just try to capture a fief, might succeed and just leave it empty for larger armies to caputre. (ALSO when enemy ai lords capture a fief they just spawn a garrison out of thin air, also spawn more troops over time which you can't do)

other than that the game is filled with crashes for no reason constantly to the point it won't boot itself back up afterwards and just instantly crash.

in conclusion:
i hope they fix all these issues before launching the game because for 3 or so years in early access for a AAA studio backed by the turkish government its truly disappointing since i was waiting for this game since playing warband at 2013..

i am going to play rust now.

with nearly 1000 hours played I highly recommend this game you can finally raise a family and kill (permanently) any lord or king in calradia and have to deal with what ever fall out happens after an execution and heros and lords die of old age or sustained sever injuries in battle when your character dies of old age or on the battlefield you can choose to keep your legacy alive with one of your heirs of your choice I have played Mount and Blade since firelord and can say taleworlds did a good job with this game i hate when people say that its buggy its flawed etc like every game has its bugs and its issues so understand that the bugs and issues do get patched but sometimes they take a minute to release a patch as it takes time to understand within the algarythm to know where the bug lies but over all graphics and game play is highly recommended to give this game a try

I CAN RUN THIS ON A LAPTOP BAHAHHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! x3

its not very good optimized by now but for me being a gaming laptop gamer it runs very well for such a heavy performance game, this is very fun and enjoyable even tho turns my laptop into a heater and jet. I recommend playing this game if you like medieval warfare

(multiplayer is fun but the people are a questionable sometimes but its still fun to battle)

Even in early access better than EA games after release. Jokes aside, love this game as much as Warband. Keep it up

Looks supersweet, runs sweet, improves upon its base gameplay and adds alot of nifty features and quality of life. Only thing i could ask for is an easier way to make your own kingdom without making enemies with the world. Im also looking forward to alot of mods i still play on warband.
If you like warband youll like this, if you were serious about warband youll find stuff to complain about... but then youll be complaining about every other game aswell :)
Thumbs up, best EA ive had so far

I wish the campaign had a bit more story and emotion behind it, but the smithing seige and graphics makes up for it.

Game is fun, but if you have to do something the day that you are playing this make sure to set an alarm. Don't wanna be late for work if you know what I mean.

The mod community's baby. Mods make or break alot of games and holy **** they made this one. GoT? got it. Ancient rome? sure. Realistic battles? mod for that too.

it's become stale. I'd love to buy some DLCs that would further enrich the game but as of now, I really only enjoy the early game and possibly the mid game but it gets boring quite fast.

500 hours at time of review, and let me say any game I can put 500 hours on and still want to play is a good game. I have put this game down for a couple months now due to the constant updates and restarts of campaigns, I wanted to wait for the game to be a little more stable when It came to updates but regardless this game is fun and carry's an infinite amount of options.

Game has a campaign to follow, I must admit under my 500 hours I have yet to complete the campaign I tried on my early days but found it difficult to complete in the time table given to you (its no short time table you're talking years and years of in game time) also found the main campaign to be almost pointless as its just fun to play.

Mod community seems to be active and on point, I have not messed with too many mods but I have looked to see if I can spice it up, but the base game is just soooo much fun.

Every campaign you can play a different play style and honestly there is no wrong way to play this game you can do what ever the **** you want.
You want to ride a horse and carry a massive swinging polearm and murder 100s of men in each battle do it,
If you want to join in on your shield wall and also murder 100's of men do it.
This game gives so much dopamine when you play well its awesome.

10/10 will recommend.

Only complaint is multiplayer, let be real youre not playing this game for multiplayer, but It is a downer that Ive gotten many friends to play this game and multiplayer just doesnt seem very flushed out or active, it would be really cool to play against other real people with your homie. Maybe in the future. I have faith in the devs. They have done a great job.

Current update, 1.81, feels like a complete game. They fixed a lot of the AI and I hear 1.9 makes the big battles work smoother.
Only complaint is the horse archer faction is impossible to fight in an open field

No feasts. No good dialogue. No meaningful world interaction. No good quests.

In the end you're just the king of a bunch of empty lifeless throne rooms and skyboxes with some mute npc mannequins for decoration. How long would it take to fill them with some minstrels, jesters, servants on a routine task loop etc? Give it some life?

Mods will eventually fix the staleness, but how long must we wait for other people to finish your game?

This is meant to be a sandbox rpg not just a strategy combat game. Put some damn toys in the sandbox before 2030.

With 1559 hours its safe to say the game is good. I haven't left the house in 6 months and i've lost 50 pounds. The game has became my life, i'm not the person i was before. I divorced and lost my whole family and i wouldn't change anything.

my legs dont work anymore. Pc is starting to melt. but ive finally beat the game. good buy.. pooped pant

The game is good. Very fun early game, and lots of replayability. However, it highly lacks mid to late game content. Becomes repeditive quickly.

10/10 fun !
This game was made for the community, the modders, the people.
And the developers put in a lot of effort that shows through the updates, the game just gets better and better.

Having gained a number of hours on Bannerlord as I have on Warband, I can say that the sequel has so far lived up to it's predecessor. Though it's not without it's flaws, I really enjoyed the first few hours and the midgame of every playthrough, with acceptable levels of challenge.

However, upon reaching the late game, I found a lot of the mechanics to be tedious. From the rather grindy experience system, to the endless boring wars that always end the same way, I always found that by the end of my game I had a number of cities under my banner, and nothing exciting left to do.

I'd still recommend it, but with the game relatively recently coming out of early access, I highly doubt we're going to be seeing any massive changes. Of course, just as with Warband, there will be mods to both enhance the base experience and add new ones.
Personally, I'm waiting for a fledged out Napoleonic war setting to sink my teeth into like L'aigle, but we'll only be able to see with time what mods come out.

Being a big fan of it's prequel I really wanted to like this game. However, I must (regrettably) admit that unlike the hundreds of hours I could (and have) spend on Warband, this is and probably will never be the case for Bannerlord.
The game feels little shy of an overhaul + fancy graphics mod for Warband. I understand the decision to not stray too far from the original concepts of the game. I daresay this is not different to the desire of the larger portion of the fan-base, including me. Neither is it a bad thing in and of itself.
The thing is that sadly, for Bannerlord they tweaked or added certain gameplay aspects which straight out make the game borderline unplayable. To give an example: In Warband armor actually did what it was made for in real life; protect you from being hit or making it harder for the enemy to do so. For reasons unbeknownst to me they changed it so that even when wearing full plate armor, you still have to mind rock-throwing peasants for they will ring your bell regardless. The thickest, rarest or most expensive armor of Calradia will not keep you from getting your back-end stunned and KO'd by some hand-thrown pebbles.
Another thing is that it has become nearly impossible to wipe out an enemy faction without having to execute every member of each mercenary group in the game and deal with all the negative modifiers that come with it. Where in real life mercenaries fight for the highest bidder, in Bannerlord they are moralist balance keepers; riding for the losing side pro-deo. All of them rush to the aid of any faction that is getting wrecked despite it not having two nickels to rub together. You'll find yourself sieging out the last enemy cities while getting swarmed by dozens of the same full stack mercenary bands that you decidedly defeated less than 3 days before. After a few of those battles you'll find youreself having to call off the siege as the mercenaries are able to seeming- and seemlessly pull out new recruits from their rear-ends or necromance their brothers from their graves the very same day on which they fell. I understand that this was done for balancing reasons, but this is definitely not the way to do it.
Also training camps have been removed, as has the weekly training mechanic (which gave your party an amount of xp according to your training skill level or that of your companion.) I liked this mechanic a lot for being able to more easily level up recruits a level or two for the defense of settlements.
Beside the change in aforementioned mechanics, the entire world feels almost more empty than Warband's. The settlements are nicely put together and the scenery looks good. But it is completely lacking of any new content. The quests are little different from those we have already done years ago, and not in the least less repetivite. There aren't any new things to explore and the conversations with NPC's feel soulless and uninspired.

If you are a new player to the franchise; pick it up and have fun. I'm sure you will enjoy it.

Launch is prone to errors even after all files and mods from previous installs have been deleted. Have never experienced a challenge like this in any other game

This game is basically warband 2.0, there isn't a ton of new features but all of the old features have been polished and lots of quality of life improvements have been made to make this game a ton of fun.

The learning curve is long and boring, so expect many losses in the beginning, but if you stick with it, you'll eventually get the hang of things and start winning battles and enjoying the game. My main complaints are the lack of variety in the hideout raid maps and the repetitiveness in the end game.

I won't say much here.... but... yeah look at my in game hours! ENOUGH SAID.
Wait even tho i give it a:

7/10 Vanilla
10/10 With MODs!

:) Im done. Hahaha

One of my favorite series of games. I've been addicted since I found them. Not sure what has happened, but unmodded, all saves cleared, every guide I could possibly follow and still has been unplayable for me for over a year. I keep returning to it month after month hoping to resolve the issue with no luck. It's an amazing series of game, but sadly, only if it works for you. I would gesture everyone to try it if it seems like any bit of what you would like, the game itself is absolutely amazing, I just can't recommend it with my current problems.

A good game that could have been great if it wasn't for the early access crutch. They are now talking about officially releasing the game in its unfinished, broken, unrealized state. If this doesn't drop in price you should probably just buy the previous game instead, witch is a very similar less broken experience.

I DOnt write reviews, actually this is my first. I have only really played a select few games over the last 10 years that have really gripped me. ELite dangerous, Dayz and Bannerlord. reason. this game isnt generic or another clone of the plethora of gamess out there. this game like the others mentioned stands on its own. there really isnt quite anything like it and yet it is an amazing experince. indy titles tend to be buggy, but for what they lack in bugs they make up for in fun. it is a slow game, and it isnt stratergy so much as an RPG, almost combining old school Zelda world with total war. i strongly recommend this game and i really hope there are still creative developers out there instead of the rereleased full price garbage we being swamped with lately. more original and creative ideas like bannerlord please.

Would I recommend this game...? Hell yeah I would, the mount and blade series gives a great mash up of (basic) RPG and strategy, if you want to thunder in at the head of your knightly horde, go for it! likewise if you want to be a William Thatcher at a tournament or shoot a bow like Robin Hood. there are literally hundreds of hours waiting to be enjoyed as your character of choice, be it executioner, diplomat or anything in between, now a Troy DLC would probably take this game to the stratosphere! ( at least for me it would ) I suppose this is a long winded way of saying yes it gets a thumbs up.

This game is the best
Here's why
1. Very fun
2. It's not hard or easy
3. You wont get bored for a while

170+h deep in it. (Plus 100h on no net connection when on business trips)..
Grinding a game in order to roleplay in my head makes little sense at this point.

You can't be a merchant, workshops will guarantee that you end up broke after 40h in. Rogue? Have fun constantly running around. Knight? Oh, so you want to be pulled in a never ending fight me or flee kingdom roulette! Want to make you own kingdom? Smith from ashes to glory? Yes but first let me give you 2.367 pommels for your two handed sword! Yes, at least 2mil should be enough to buy you time before getting stomped by 23 vassals with neutral relation (of whom many valorous enough to burn down villagges randomly every 3 ingame weeks). Relations mean nothing, influence means nothing, workshops and fiefs are a joke and don't get me started on the characters. If it was not for the colors of the factions the is NO immersion in culture, dialogue, atmosphere to set them apart.. Nothing really.. Oh, yes. The drunken snow vikings with the fish-like-running-joke name are ok. Ah, the Empire! 3 slight variations of color and 3 lines of story dialogue.. CELTS! NORMANS! STEPPE TURKOMMANS! ARABS! ... Skins, skins, skins. And a hollow empty map. A grind battle simulator.

It got me chocked in a Stockholm syndrome of "what if I do like this, will the game mechanic let me roleplay the way I want".. Oh, right. No. This is not fun, this is a chore.

It is a nice reskin of Warband with less content & immersion, graphic are good enough at the moment. ALL the rest is just modders delight for the future to come.

Before you start leaving comments I am already aware of: I might be playing incorrectly, I might be a noob (gitgudlol). I am very very salty about it, yes. Because I had very high expectations after Warband Floris (yes, Floris, the hyper-Modded one).. Still, no excuses. In 10 years you reverse engeneer a space rocket, grow a kid to school, you had MILIONS to work with. A community that is ready to forgive things AAA teams would sunk with, and YET still YOU THRIVE TO LET US ALL DOWN. (I am talking to you TW, you know it).

You used us to ramp up the quality of the game to be good enough for consoles didn't you?

Should have left it at 1.4 & let the modders do their magic. Pride is not even on the list anymore.

Me llevé una gran desilusión con este juego, siendo fanático del M&B Warband. No aporta nada nuevo a la jugabilidad. Muchisimas menos opciones de interacción con otros personajes y el entorno en general. Se vuelve monótono y aburrido al poco tiempo.

I told my 3 best friends about it on PlayStation 4 on how amazing this game is!!!! Its what AAA premium games
always promise there put out but they never do AC Valhalla from UbiSoft for instance they have become a huge disappointment towards there community... I support companies who have true ambition in there content like Mount & Blade Banner Lord 2 Thank you for creating a game we mere peasant gamer's could enjoy and have the chance to become a ingame king

The economy is broken. Caravans are trash and don't bring in enough money (they also get murdered a lot and cost an shit ton to start using) Towns and cities are trash (not enough money, loyalty system is garbage, garrison system is also garbage), castle are AGAIN shit, (not enough money comes in from them, they just suck in general. the only way to make good money is game breaking exploits like the YT vids show. so annoying. Also really no workshop ? Wow

lost of promises made and only 1/4 actually kept. nice job TW oh and if you speak about this the fanboys will be sure to set you a fire.

For me, best sandbox of this genre. At one point (2y ago i think) I had a feeling they are slow on patches on serious issues (siege part of the game, ladders and towers were unsuable) but they fixed it later on and now, my only sore point is troop management - I´d love to be able to recruit and train just certain type of units - for instance, I´m now in "no kingdom" run, I´ve captured 20% of cities / castles so far (its a little bit of pain to have loyalty in check but its doable) and I´m going only with elite cataphract and battanian fian champ (roughly 130 each) and I´m meat grinder, imperials tried to defend their city with outstanding 1K troops in open battlefield, at the end, I had roughly 100 remaining units and enemies were all depleted, those moments when you feel like "300" thats sooo cool, mowing with doublehanded long sword through archers like cutting a field.

anyway, 700hours in and still didnt touch multiplayer, so this game is definitely worth it.

Hard to recommend this game, I've only played 25 hours and although they were "fine", I wish I didn't buy the game in the first place.

This was recently announced to be leaving Early Access and ported to consoles soon but the game itself is far from finished, the community are still aware of a wide array of bugs that are still prominent, right now the new quiet update has rendered the game unable to launch and crashes on startup (no mods installed), even reverting to a previous version doesn't help
Finally there isn't a clear message on whether this game will be fixed before full release, if I could get a refund after 25 hours then I absolutely would.

Don't buy this game in it's current state, either wait for the reviews after full release or go play Warband with mods.

So there's been a bit of an interesting debate surrounding Bannerlord since the full release build of the game was announced; notably, about how the game is missing long since promised features that don't seem to be included within the final build. So, I thought I'd take this moment to throw my hat into the ring and explain to the ardent defenders of Taleworlds why the situation is unacceptable as it stands.

First off, I'd like to cover the overwhelming arguments I've seen defending the release of Bannerlord in its current state:

-The game is fun and totally worth its current price tag. What are you complaining about?

-You're being overly emotional, Taleworlds doesn't owe you anything.

-If the game lacks content that you want you can always just mod it in. What's the big deal?

All of these arguments are strawmen that refuse to address the actual problem that Bannerlord lovers, including myself, have with the full release news; the unethical nature of making promises that you are either unable or unwilling to fulfill. Taleworlds has talked a big game over the course of Bannerlords development cycle, making large, swathy promises about robust diplomacy mechanics and interesting interpersonal relationships between characters, among other things. They then proceeded to leave these promises unfulfilled and it has left players rightly upset at the deceptive nature of their marketing practices.

I've devised a little analogy for those who are still unconvinced of the problematic nature of what's happening here: Let's say I want some pizza. I go online and find the website for a restaurant that claims to serve the best pizza in town. I'm enticed by their menu and marketing and decide to order myself a large pepperoni. Only, when the delivery person arrives, they hand me a turkey club and no pizza. Am I right to be upset at the situation? I would argue that yes, I am absolutely right to be miffed at my lack of pizza. It's not that I don't enjoy turkey clubs, in fact, I enjoy them a great deal. But I'm not in the mood for a turkey club, that's why I ordered pizza in the first place. And you can especially understand how my blood pressure might rise if the delivery guy started giving me guff about being "entitled" or "ungrateful" at my protests over the situation.

Ultimately, this comes down to a pervasive problem within the modern gaming industry of over-promising, or even outright lying, in order to generate hype and interest in a product. It's wrong and you shouldn't justify it with weak arguments that, ironically, seem to stem from a place of emotional attachment to a studio or game in particular. Sadly, the only people who can hold companies accountable for deceptive marketing practices are us, the consumers. So stop arguing against your own self interests and start expecting some honesty and conviction from the developers that you claim to love so much.

provides a unique sense of medieval scale battles. theyve smoothed out the game very well in the last few months. full release should mean heaps of full conversion mods around the corner as well.

> I build army
> I protect villages from looters
> I sell horses
> I simp for Queen
> Queen love my simping
> Ask Queen for marriage
> Denied but given daughter instead
> It is what it is
> Queen dies
> I became King
> Heart broken and 4 Kingdom declares war
> Became mad
> Obliterate and kill kings/lords of 4 kingdom
> Everyone is afraid of me
> What have I become
> Continue to obliterate the rest of the kingdom
> I rule the world
> I feel empty
> I remember the Queen
> I restart and became enemy of the said Queen
> I kill her first
> Game is wonderful 10/10

Now that Bannerlord is close to a full release, i'm keen to write my thoughts on it, because i think it has its pros and cons to Warband, the previous M&B title. I'd also like to mention that i talk about both as native, since i think telling people to get a game and go straight to modding is unhelpful. tl;dr at the very bottom.
i'll start with the good;

Gameplay-wise, Bannerlord has a lot going for it. The games concepts are relatively easy to understand, at least compared to Warband. Combat feels smooth and impactful, you can feel every arrow hit its mark and every time your sword connects. i understand people's reservations on streamlining, but considering how hard Warband is to pick up for a new player and that this is a product thats been in the works for the better part of 15 years, i'm fine with it. the level-up system is nice, and i like how improving one aspect of a skill means forfeiting another, and it doesnt feel like you'll simply stop improving at one point or another. lastly, the graphics are a good upgrade; some of the faces in Warband would make Oblivion Sliders look like Renaissance Era marble sculptures, although i think thats part of the charm.

and the bad;

when i say that Bannerlord is streamlined, i do mean it. there tends to be quite a bit of hand-holding compared to Warband. instead of asking lords and ladies where people of interest are, you can just check the Encyclopedia for an up-to-date report about it. companion personalities don't conflict with each other, and so you're never at risk of losing one by simply having both in your party. you arent hard-pressed to find lords and clans who would actually make a good addition to your kingdom. these are the noticeable examples of the streamlining to me, but there are undoubtedly more. there are also some realism and roleplay qualities that Warband has and that Bannerlord has done away with, such as female characters having a harder time thanks to the Medieval Society instead of just being a different character creation option. lastly, there are some skills that i prefer in Warband, such as a dedicated skill for training troops, and one for determining how much loot you can actually carry.

tl;dr - if you're looking for a fun medieval war sim RPG thats easy to get into and satisfying to play, pick up Bannerlord. if you're looking for a classic medieval war sim with a nice emphasis on historical realism and roleplaying, pick up Warband

To be honest, this game doesn't have much to offer. Everything is behind grind mechanics that's prolonging the entire game. Once you have your kingdom or you're vassal yourself you'll notice that diplomacy doesnt exist, at all. The only thing AI is programmed to do is FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT, there are no features besides fighting. Smithing? Okay, but you gotta grind to actually make some good weapons. Tournaments? It feels so dull compared to Warband, just fight and you gain nothing but some gold and some random item, sometimes worth like a 500, lol.
There is no world to be immersed to, just neverending fight. If you look for nothing else but fighting, this game might be for you, but if you're a bit more demanding and doing same thing over and over and over and over and OVER again is boring you, don't buy unless it's on good sale.
For me personally, this game is one of the biggest dissapointments in gaming. Preordered it, didn't play for few years cause it was quite literally unplayable.
Once I heard about official release and console editions I thought "finally". Well, game is nearly in the same stage as it was few years ago on release. Shame, real shame.

Get the game: Works fine
Get an update : Game keeps crashing on lunch,.
Get another update : Game works fine
Get another update: Game crashes again
Get anohter update: Game works fine.
Get another update; F*** u thats why. (Games crashes again)....
Very positive...
Otherwise, gameplay is good, but the devs needs to look at some mods player makes cuz they definetly would be improvements...

Highly recommend if you like to control armies as well as yourself. Looking forward to running my own kingdom.

The pre-battle deployment system is clunky and can't be turned off or skipped. It literally creates extensive time, clicks, and selections just to move past the stupid thing. Made me uninstall, yet another horrid addition. I'm even hiding the game from my library so i never accidentally install it again thinking "Oh man, I remember that game! It used to be pretty good!"

And for those who might say "Download mods", I say a pox upon you, sirs. I shouldn't have to download MORE mods just to get rid of a terrible "upgrade".

Peace out bannerlords. You were fun while you lasted. Peace out devs, you were fun while you lasted too.

You know, graphic is amazing, cool map and other stuff but I personaly still miss something from Warband ... dont know what but Warband is still unique and nostalgic. This is perfect but something is still missing.

I might have enjoyed more sinlge player hours in Mount & Blade and its endeles number of mods that in all the MMO I've played. M&B II looks very promissing. Only in the beta, I have already enjoyed 910 h.

How to play this game in simple steps:

1-Put the cross in your banner and raise the flag
2-Join Vlandia and recite the oath of loyalty
3-Show respect to other nobles, marry a cute Khuzait, gather a big army
4-Declare war against Aserai, raids all their villages and siege their castles
5-When the whole Aserai faction is destroyed, start a new game and repeat previous steps

Really underwhelming compared to previous game even after 2 years, yep 2 YEARS. It's clearly not done yet, but guess what? TW rushed it so this game can launch on console (good fkn job btw). Yeah buy it when it ON SALE, it's NOT WORTH THE FULL PRICE.

Looks great and character creation is fun but the combat gets tired very quick and the world lacks life.

Stupid and broken AI, unstable performance, littered with bugs, lack luster in content.
Many unpolished features that feel unfinshed.
If the release version is barely an improvement save your shekels for a later sale, only mods can save this game now.

Im posting this with the "Full" release upcoming:

PLEASE, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PAY FULL PRICE FOR THIS GAME
My opinion is similar to that of Zantimer

Its taken over a decade for the Mount and Blade community to receive this, and then it was released in Early Access. We complained about the game being broken and imcomplete- but hey, it was early access.

Fast forward to now, and they're announcing a full, cross platform release for a game they've still never completed. There are entire sections of the game missing, loads of community feedback has been ignored. Critical gameplay elements were left out entirely in favor of fixing small bugs and adding in additional systems nobody asked for.

The only way to justify this purchase is to wait two years, buy it on sale, and fix it with mods. Because the devs wont.

To begin with, I really like this game. If they were to keep it in early access, I would definitely give a positive review, but I look at the release date and then look at the state of the game and I think "Really? A full release, including console?". If you get into this game with the mindset that it is in EA, and will remain in that state, regardless of a full release, then you will greatly enjoy it, but don't believe for a second that this game will be completely fleshed out and perfect come October.

Every single time I play, something/s break. It is most often the AI. In fact, I would say in nearly every battle, the AI does some stupid crap that it should/shouldn't be doing, especially during sieges. The balancing for settlement and castle production is all out of whack. Some perks on the skill tree do not work or are not implemented well. Enemy parties will escape imprisonment and spawn with an army of 60 troops in unfriendly territory, immediately raiding any village in sight, and keeping the enemy warring nation constantly at full fighting capacity since those armies don't have to spend the time recruiting troops and building up their fighting force. There is very little to do when your nation is not at war. You can grind non combat xp, do bland repetitive quests, or chase weak bandit parties for measly troop and player xp.

The AI can get very confused during sieges. The AI still has no idea what to do with ladders/siege towers. Don't get me wrong, it was much worse in the past and is at least passable, but the amount of times I've seen a group of soldiers just staring at the empty ladders is infuriating. Using a catapult while attacking a castle can get infuriating. The AI reloads it for you, but the pathfinding is so bad, that the soldier will try to walk through another soldier and will get stuck until you jiggle the catapult back and forth enough for the reloading soldier to slide around the hit box of the other soldier. For the defenders of a siege, often times clumps of soldiers will attempt to pass each other on the battlements. This results in huge traffic jams during a siege that will result in the AI soldiers getting stuck for much of the battle, resulting in the enemy easily scaling the walls with no opposition and then killing everybody from behind because the defending AI is trying to get to some point and will do nothing else until it gets there, not even turn around and defend themselves. There are no back railings on the battlements, so sometimes the AI soldiers will jostle you off the wall, resulting in you dying from fall damage and forcing you to reload a save or fast forward through an entire battle.

Sorry, but this review kind of turned into a rant for me.

All in all, buy this game if it looks fun, but don't expect a polished or finished project for a long time, even if it is "fully released".

I have question. Do you ever dream of being in the Ride of Rohan or maybe lead The Horde of the Dathraki well i live this dream every time i play!

If you ever wanted to immerse your self into a dark age or medieval time period this game would be great for you. If you're thinking to only play the single player wanted to take part of a line battle or shield wall feel free to join My clans discord we are NA https://discord.gg/BNaMjqxGqh or add my discord Zeus#5984 we attend private events with 120 players soon to be more

Hands Down best game series of all time i will continue to play not ust this mount and blade but all previous titles for years to come an absolute masterpiece

This game is a very worthy successor to Warband. in my opinion, the game is perfect in every way, except for bugs, balancing between factions, and lack of maps. But the game is in early access so those things are expected, and the developers are adding more content, fixing bugs, and balancing factions overtime, so i feel it is worth it to buy the game and have fun playing it. (i love fortnite)

A shallow experience once you get over the novelty of swinging your sword and telling archers to fire from high ground. Systems that were promised were never delivered, after two years of early access development. The updates that have come are things no one ever asked for. Modders create better mechanics in a week then this company does in months. Change logs for major patches consists of 75% bugfixes, 15% new content (maps, weapons, armor), 5% balance updates for a multiplayer that no one plays, and 5% new mechanics that no one asked for.

Bannerlord is a great game, and continues to improve. I've spent a few hours playing vanilla, but the community mods improve the game dramatically. Realm of Thrones is a must for any Westeros fans!

With over 2,000+ hours in Mount and Blade: Warband, and over 100+ in Bannerlord, I agree that is it safe to say that this game is quite good. Despite obvious updates and regular bugs people encounter, this game for the most part is quite good. I'd recommend this game to anyone if they asked me what a good game to play is, and I'll always speak highly of it. Only thing I would say is that Taleworlds watch youtubers who play it, and take in what they say, as siege AI and AI in general could use a fix.

For example, during sieges, either your troops dont start going up the ladder, or only a few at a time go up, and when you take the walls of the enemy during the siege, they shouldn't be trying to reclaim them, they should be defending what they can.

For field AI, if they lose a leader, that's a morale drop, and if you can command different detachments of units to only fight agains't other units like your left flank cav engaging only their right flank cav. Something like how you can put troops into different sections like, Spears, Swords, Halberds, etc and have them engage the enemy across the battlefield in different mini battles, or maybe flank around during a major battle.

And if you couch lance a hero in the head, they should die or at the very least have a loss of traits and be afraid of battle for some time.

I really like this game over 700 hours in and I can keep coming back to it. There are lots of different ways to play this game, but my favorite is obviously the combat focused way.

Where to start.....if you didnt play M&B 1 than you missed out. For those that cant run this game due to having a weak computer you may have to settle for M&B 1 in the meantime and make sure you get the dlc Warband.

Now,

Pros = Graphics are 100, Replay Value "Over 9000", Difficulty 100, Not to easy ;which is good cuz than it would get boring and replay value would suffer. Plenty of Mods to keep you busy as well.

The question is what cant you do? Lets start with what you can do, You can play storyline but Sandbox is where its at. Storyline is kinda weak. You can get married and have kids and keep your bloodline alive thru the ages, Wish they gave us a little more options for what we can do with our wife or husband but no biggie.

Cons = Honestly they storyline is weak but Sandbox is better anyways. Muliplayer could be improved. Overall Great Game 10/10

great game if you can get more than 1 mod working at once, devs are stupid and put out tiny hotfixes that break every mod just to mess with people, without mods its a bland game that hasent changed one bit since launch with 0 content updates, besides mods working less now than before, moders get a thumbs up the devs get a thumbs down

After watching all of the videos of youtubers playing this game, I finally got a pc that can run this game and am thrilled with the experience. Not only are the graphics gorgeous but the game mechanics work too. There is a level of difficulty (i.e. learning curve) for the melee fighting and other elements. I recommend persevering because the feeling of winning your first tournament or big battle are so much fun! Great game, great fun.

Really couldn't recommend this game anymore than I already do! It is amazing. Definitely one of my favorite games. The game still needs some love with the diplomacy and some castles and towns need work still with siege ai but overall the experience i have had is 10/10

The biggest complaint is that soon after declaring as your own kingdom (face it, THAT is the only reason we all play it) the Kuzhaits declare war, then the Vlandians, then the Northern Empire, The the Asserai, and then attack with 1-2 armies with up to 1000 men each, while you can muster a force of 400. The 4 towns you secured will each be taken by each faction which will then sue for peace with you paying 3k gold tribute.
Economies depend sorely upon your smithing skill, but you cannot smith while fighting 4 enemies, etc.

WHY CAN 3-4 NATIONS DECLARE WAR ON YOU EVEN IF YOU ARE NOWHERE NEAR THEM?!?!

It's a fun game that's not finished and when it is finished it'll be worth all the trouble, I hope. Currently unable to play because the main menu is nothing but a black screen and the entire game appears to be broken, even though I have a clean, fresh install copy of Bannerlord. So I'm not sure what Taleworlds did with this latest patch but it's made sure I can't even play the game! I will recommend this title when the developers aren't breaking things with their "patches".

This game is the perfect follow-up for anyone who loved Warband or the original Mount & Blade. It's still in early access, but I think if you, like me, have borderline exhausted Warband, this is the next step. Although, it is a lot more complicated than its predecessors, and the game does introduce you to its new systems fairly well, there are some things you should be made aware of before you start.

1) The entire game revolves around a clan mechanic. No longer are you a starting adventurer with nothing and no one, now you have a clan. You rise and fall with your clan. When you die (yes, you can die), you take over as someone else from your clan. There is now an actual reason for getting married, but the clan system can take away some of the fun of Warband where it was just you. Starting the game, you have several siblings whose lives you are in charge of, and because of this, it can feel micromanagy at times. Clan tiers are a thing, and the game locks you out of some of the more fun aspects of Warband (like starting your own kingdom), until you hit a certain clan tier. So just bear with it.

2) The trading is kinda still funky, but as of 1.8.0 it seems to be somewhat more stable in giving you towns and cities that will buy and sell at the highest and lowest prices.

3) Kingdom management is a lot more complicated. Whether you are a vassal or a monarch, there's a lot going on, it will be needed for new players to be looking things up or pausing the game just to read through the kingdom screen, It can be confusing at times.

4) Mods work with native. Unlike in Warband, for the most part, mods here affect your native gameplay, and some work with new updates and some don't. I recommend playing the game for about thirty hours without mods, then adding a few in. But like any Elder Scrolls veteran can tell you, try adding one at a time in case it starts crashing your game.

5) I am glad to see how far this game has come in the years that have passed. When it first came to beta you could only do so much stuff, and the construction of the banner was not even a thing, it use to get bugged and crash the game.

6) I would highly recommend adding some mods to the game 100%, it will make your experience more pleasant and enjoyable, even more so than it already is. Mods will add more dynamic to the game and can make your start easier if you wish. Mods will also give your character his own uniqueness in his conquership.

Overall, this is one of the most fun games I've ever played, and it is a true sequel to the original games. If you think you can live with the early access "features" pick it up. If not, just wait. And if you've never played a Mount & Blade game before, I would recommend either starting here or Warband.

What to say about this. Hmm... Well... I'm told that in Turkish, Kısmetse (which means "God willing") is frequently used the same way as the Hispanic "mañana;" but without the sense of urgency. That describes this game.

Announced officially 10 years ago, and teased in the Taleworlds forums with some questionable imagery even before that, Bannerlord had been long awaited. After "narrowly missing" several "windows of opportunity," It was awaited even longer. Then it was let out of the box as an EA title with a full "finished" price-tag. It was not. Two years of EA later, it still is not. As a whole, the release was average, with small parts being horribly broken. What followed was a year of hasty patches followed by a slower-paced release of fixes. In the meanwhile, players noted that the map had almost nothing in relation to the chosen setting, the quests were just as tediously repetitious as its previous incarnations, and major game mechanics were either poorly realized, or else missing. Nonetheless, they remained hopeful.

This may lead you to believe that I don't like the game; but that simply isn't true. The map is NOT Calradia, but it IS attractive. The scenes are detailed and engaging. The depth of potential character growth is breath-taking, and what Warband did so well continues to be done well.

However, those issues which were never resolved in Warband are also unlikely to be resolved in Bannerlord. Some of those have already been mentioned, others include misconceptions about the subject matter, or simply lack of education regarding physics or historical realities. New issues have been introduced, notably the shallowness of the marriage mechanic, the ability to buy your wife even from a hostile faction, and the utter lack of the basics for a dynastic simulation even though that is a major aspect of the game. Character appearance selection is also like visiting a wax museum of horrors. True, once you put on a helm, no one really should care, but you'll know. You'll sit there on your horse, staring at the Battanians you are about to slaughter, and thinking about just how unbelievably ugly your character is. Why should it be so? Lack of Turkish reference material, I suppose. Additionally, balance regarding costs, income, trade, smithing, etc., have also never been resolved, and will likely remain that way indefinitely. Mechanics regarding the perpetual conflict of cavalry -vs- spears, 300 meter archery sniping, have never really made anyone happy.

Steam has no "meh" button. For Steam, like ants, everything is either "done," or "not done." In response, since no is shorter than yes, I choose not to recommend it. Not because the game is bad, mind you, but because it remains unfinished while charging a finished price. That is yet another thing that is unlikely to ever change.

I don't play games like this, I'm a shooter and looter guy. It's a good change of pace, and I like the stratregy behind it. The only thing I dont like is town or kingdom attacks while Im gone. It's hard to keep ownership.

the best shit game you'll ever play

i have a lot of criticisms and if the devs are actually interested reach out

tl;dr - glitchy, buggy, unfinished fun mess that has the wheels fall off towards the end of the campaign and becomes an absolute chore. A rip off at this special price, let alone at the original price. This game has a long way to go which is a shame because it could be brilliant

optimizasyon sorunları dışında bir oyundan isteyebileceğiniz her şeye sahip, süper bir oyun. ama insan görev sonunda bir flüt sesi arıyor :((

This is a great game but there's certainly a lot of rooms for improvement and updates. I'd like to see more interaction with lords/NPCs, more diplomacy options and better fief management. Also, I feel that game progression is quite slow without mods. Despite these flaws, the combat system is top-notched. I never get tired of commanding massive armies to siege towns and imprison lords.