Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

Bannerlord is an action/adventure sandbox RPG where the player creates his/her own character in the medieval-like setting of Calradia.

The game has plenty to offer: battles and sieges, joining one of the several factions (each inspired by real-life historical cultures es. Vikings, Arabs and so on), finding a suitable spouse to have heirs, trading goods, managing your fiefs, and so on. The fight system is a lot of fun (first or third person view, as you prefer), specializing in mounted or unmounted combat, melee or ranged weapons...

There is also a very interesting option, which I recommend, where the main character (and his friends and family too) can die in battle or eventually of old age and the player takes control of the heir (if there is one) and can continue playing with the next generation.

Bannerlord is entertaining in the early-middle phases of the game, where the player is growing in skills and reputation, acquiring companions with different abilities, crafting weapons (smithing is overpowered to be honest, but I still love it) and climbing the ranks of a faction: you can even become king... which unfortunately is less fun than it sounds like.

Yeah, about that...

Unfortunately, the late game becomes a slog of endless warfare, as you cannot play for more than five minutes without other factions declaring war on yours; if you win, give it other five minutes and another conflict will start. Basically, the game I love disappears in a tedious grind where you have to micromanage wars, often on multiple fronts (some started by your own idiot allies), while having little-to-no control on your side's armies except one (your own), even if you have become king. Also, the algorithm to decide "who is winning" (and thus will have to pay tributes at the end) is dubious to say the least - you can win all the battles, have the enemy king and all his retinue in captivity, but if the enemy raided more settlements than you did (we are talking peasant villages, not capital cities), you are the one who "is losing". Wait, what? Oh, look, my vassals are voting to open the third war front at the same time.

It's like herding cats, if cats where medieval bannermen with an incessant war lust; if the in-battle tactics are fine, the war strategy needs a serious overhaul - your vassals will wander around with their men and keep losing the settlements you conquered, only to clamor for more wars a minute later. How I longed for a "Hold this castle with your troops or I'll cut your head off!" button. As a king you can overrule your vassals if you find a way to "farm" influence points, but you still have the wars started by the enemy factions to bore you.

In fact, in my last playthrough I had more fun as a soldier of fortune with his own mercenary company (which you can do, as a testament to the game's vast possibilities) and no fixed faction than I had as a king earlier. At least you are not forced to fight someone every couple of minutes unless you choose to.

There is potential here for a phenomenal game but, although it was finally released after much waiting, some issues still need to be ironed out. Also, the lack of co-op multiplayer campaign mode is a shame - there is a multiplayer but it's just battles (and why no commander battles against a friend like in Warband?). I still recommend Bannerlord, though.

First few minutes already got stuck multiple times couldn't do anything.

Stuck in tutorial couldn't speak to my brother or the headman after finishing the bandits.

The retail version is came out, over the years they've fixed optimization problems, big gameplay problems, other than these I didn't notice any big update.

The game is unique but it really needs improvements. Not like adding town scenes but like extending the gameplay variations and diplomacy or adding Co-Op mode. And maybe more RPG based features. Town scenes and all other are good updates but not necessary. They should change their aim to updating and improving the gameplay elements and features.

A wonderfully red-blooded game beset with serious design & logic issues.

Setting is roughly analogous to medieval Mediterranean (perhaps too-much so), but without the disease, infant-mortality, and ideologies, including racism and misogyny - though you can buy/sell women for breeding purposes. Towns and some villages are amazingly detailed, well worth having a look around, but not much to do there.

Story is minimal, with no real reason why the different cartels of crime families are fighting, other than greed for more peasants to extort. There are some token differences of opinion in cartel descriptions in the encyclopedia, but in-game there's no difference beside appearance and initially available troop types. It all feels contrived and pointless.

The battles are magnificent, with great combat mechanics and heavy of reliance of skill & luck over stats. The 1k vs 1k battles are the craziest I've played anywhere to date, especially when you can get one-shotted by a javelin, couched-lance or a crossbow bolt to the face. Combat ai seems pretty good at 1st, where you think "yep that's what I'd do in their situation", but after a while you notice patterns that reveal it to be scripted, resulting in immersion-breaking exploits.

Sieges are much improved over the original game, with a great deal of carnage & chaos. You don't fully control your troops though, and some commands can quickly lead to disaster, for example: while defending after destroying their ram, issuing 'charge' will send troops rushing to open up the gate, then out into a horde of enemies, rather than up onto the walls where the enemies are trickling in via ladders: "K my bad, let me spell it out to you numnuts... oh, you're all dead".

Battle terrain is handmade, so expect plenty of repetition. Terrain lacks cavalry-neutralizing areas (where cav must dismount to proceed), like rocky hills, old-growth forest and marsh. Many villages are filled with obstacles, but its tricky to lure cav to fight there. This forces the player to go cavalry or suffer... greatly. It is Mount & Blade though, not Sword & Sandal.

Outside of battle, the rest of the game is a long brutal grind, initially to get your stats and cashflow up to a point where you can afford to partake in the global politics, then grinding the endless ebb & flow of expensive turf wars between rival crime families/cartels, seemingly without end (I'm told one doesn't 'finish' Bannerlord).

Mechanically there are heaps of goofs and arbitrary design decisions that will frustrate the player, worst of which was the artifical caps on otherwise sensible improve-with-use skills that results in characters peaking in their chosen field well into old-age instead of their 20's (if they work hard). There's magical caps on what your family can do, regardless of money; have 3Mil early game and want a 4th workshop? Go away looser. Have 10M and want to buy a town from a broke family or rebels? Nup you need to *grind* your way to trade level 300 (and like 40yo).

The smithing income also deserves a mention, as it earns more than enough to fund your family milita, while a combination of trade, bulk manufacturing, ransoming and extortion probably won't cover costs. To me this feels like a player-only exploit that's allowed, as its the only workaround to a flawed economic/resource model.

Npc companions, including spouses, have a basic backstory, but that's about the depth to them, they're a mostly mute troop you can equip and delegate certain limited tasks to. You can't ask a companion to transport troops/goods to a specific location. There is no contract-builder for conditional or repetitive tasks. You can't converse with companions about what affects their disposition towards you or other parties. As far as I could tell, they don't leave if you displease them. This is quite a step back from M&B v1 where companions had stuff to say, complained about other companions, and set clear boundaries.

Human breeding is part of the game, as it ensures long-term playthroughs, however its handled in a coy & superficial way, with no franchising, adultery, "wife stealing", work-wives/husbands... or even the actual deed, unless the board-game is some kind of euphemism. So one wonders. I even made a grotesque horseface character to be sure, since progeny inherit their parent's features. In any case, the idea of mating/breeding as a simulation parameter is intriguing, especially the potential drama if npc mating instincts don't quite align with npc expectations of others.

Violence is prominent but relatively sanitized: there is blood, but no gore, dismemberment, broken limbs, crushed heads/torsos or ragdoll-trampling. Characters on the battlefield are fully alive or fully dead, none of the awful in-between. Corpses don't pile-up and form obstacles, blood and other fluids don't pool in chokepoints. Horses never panic and throw their riders or bite/kick nearby troops. Horses can be killed & injured, you'll often see riderless horses fleeing in distress with arrows/javelins sticking out of them. 0-morale troops flee rather than surrender, you can slaughter fleeing enemies, and some of your troops will do it unless you call an end to the battle. You may execute captured enemy family members, it isn't explicitly shown and it turns everyone against you. It is however an effective way to hasten the demise of a cartel.

Character design is pretty weird, with most looking meaty & modern rather than the stunted, hard-lived appearance of feudal peoples. Player character design is OK, but very Caucasian. Many of the Mongoloid characters often look like Caucasians with rotated 'slant' eyes.

Lighting, color and environments were great, the sun, sunlight and skies all looked convincing, which is rare in so many productions these days. Walking around a desert settlement at golden-hour was amazing. Riding on starlit dunes was a memorable moment.

2D artwork was outstanding, as it was in M&B v1.

Music lacked the traditional instrumentation and cultural variety that could've added heaps more character. Battle music changes according to how things are going for your side.

Played on 'realistic' settings, except companion death. Game ran perfectly on Linux (all-amd) thanks to Steam Proton... just don't fight in forested areas while its raining.