Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Preview

In a sort-of preview/interview with TaleWorlds’ CEO Armagan Yavuz, PC Gamer takes a look at the upcoming Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord. The aricle conveys the journey of Yasmin, a character in a demo version that serves as a vessel to show off the new features and the imporvements as compared to the current pinnacle of Mount and Blade games – Warband. It’s quite an interesting read, and the accompanying screenshots look pretty.

All in all, if TaleWorlds manage to avoid having an ocean of bugs on release, this can turn out to be a mighty fine experience. Here’s an excerpt:

It’s clear from what I’ve seen that Bannerlord isn’t revolutionising Mount & Blade. This is a major progression of the series, focused primarily on tweaks and improvements. “We have been working on almost all aspects of the game,” says Yavuz. “There are many other new features that we couldn’t show in the demo such as the political and diplomatic system, better town management, a new and revamped character development, a crafting system, to name a few.” Add to that multiplayer improvements and better mod support, and it’s a significant overhaul of a familiar experience.

It explains why Bannerlord has been so long in the making. “We are trying to make the best game we possibly can,” says Ali Erkin, TaleWorlds’ managing director, “and this unfortunately has meant going back to the design board in certain cases, rethinking certain features, or rewriting a piece of code that doesn’t perform as well as it should.” By way of an example, Erkin reveals that the character development system has been reworked three times from scratch. “When all is done and we see a system working really well, we feel that it was worth the extra time and effort,” Erkin continues. “While we missed our 2016 target, we are confident we’ll be able to get the game out in some form this year.”

I hope so. Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord probably won’t be the most polished game released this year, but, all being well, it will be a deep, varied sandbox game that welcomes new players and satisfies existing fans. TaleWorlds has made one of PC gaming’s most endearing cult favourites, and the studio seems set to improve on it in almost every way. If this extra development time pays off, Bannerlord could well prove to be one of the year’s best RPGs.