Ride into battle and explore the world in Mount & Blade II
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord was released on March 30 as an early access game. Bannerlord, developed by TaleWorlds is set in the medieval inspired world of Claraid Bannerlord brings several improvements over its predecessor including enhanced graphics, quality of life changes, and new features. For those that may be unfamiliar with the term early access; it simply means the game was made available for purchase before it was finished.
There are a number of reasons a developer would want to release their game as early access. In TaleWorlds’ case, they made a statement on their Steam Store page, “Early access is something that we are very familiar with: our first title, Mount & Blade, helped to pioneer this method of release back in 2005. By working alongside our community we were able to deliver a unique gaming experience that players still enjoy to this day. These past experiences have taught us that it is vital to bring players in to help us iron out any issues and refine the game by utilizing feedback to bring it to the level that both our community and we expect.”
Bannerlord offers single player and multiplayer experiences. The single player campaign will put the player in control of a customizable avatar. First you pick the character’s starting culture, each of which is based on a medieval civilization. I picked the Calradian Empire because they reminded me of Rome. Next you customize the character’s appearance. The character editor gives the player freedom to customize just about any aspect one could want to edit. Next the player chooses their family background, then the player chooses what their character did at different stages of their life. Each decision impacts different stats and skills your character starts off with but as you progress you can add to these skills.
Once character creation is over the player is dropped into a tutorial quest that can be skipped. The initial quest is generated based on your characters background. Once completing or skipping this quest the player is free to explore the world. There is a lot to experience in the world of Calradia. I started off by searching through cities and towns for quests and recruits. After several days I have amassed about 13,000 Denars, the currency of Calradia. Admittedly I would have significantly more money if I could stop myself from buying more fashionable armor and using the new forge mechanic to make myself fancier swords.
I found myself gravitating towards becoming a trader to make money. The economy of each settlement is dynamic and dependent upon a multitude of factors. It took a lot of trial and error to find goods that were cheap to buy but sold for high prices in other cities. However, you cannot continually buy and sell goods between one city. If you constantly buy a good the price will increase, and if you constantly sell another its selling price will decrease.
The day the game came out my friend, Cameron Wahl, a veteran of the Mount & Blade series, jumped on the game immediately. Wahl has over 200 hours on Mount & Blade: Warband and about 50 on Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. When I asked if the game was worth purchasing, even though I already owned Warband, he said, “The graphics and gameplay mechanics are a definite upgrade and a nice breath of fresh air compared to the old one. Also, you can spend hours playing the game so it’s worth the money.” Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is available for purchase on Steam priced at $49.99. Also, at the time of writing Bannerlord is available for a discount on TaleWorlds for $42.50.
