For fans of Taleworld's Mount and Blade series, the long, 7+ year wait for a new game is nearly over. Or at least, the wait to try out an early build of a new game is. Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord, is finally hitting Steam early access in March next year, giving gamers their first hands-on taste of what the developers have been working on to improve what this writer believes, is one of the best games ever made.
Mount and Blade and its pseudo-sequel/expansion, Warband, is an open world sandbox that combines first/third person RPG mechanics and combat, with tactical squad control, and strategic kingdom management in one game. It pioneered the mouse-based, melee combat system of games like Mordhau and Chivalry, and gave expansive modding tools to the community to create all manner of exciting experiences.
But neither game was pretty and both had many janky elements. Bannerlord is designed to fix that, but for fans, it's been a long time coming.
With its debut in March, gamers can look forward to new and expanded siege battles and improved displomacy for dealing with other rulers without necessarily resorting to burning their existence to the ground. There's also a new sandbox economy that is entirely driven by the actions of the game world, and a crafting system which will let you build new items for yourself and commission specialized equipment designed just for you and your trusty steed.
The new engine is far more optimized than the original too, potentially opening up the possibility for even larger scale battles, as you order your tightly managed squads into combat.