Mount & Blade Warband

Steam Description

In a land torn asunder by incessant warfare, it is time to assemble your own band of hardened warriors and enter the fray. Lead your men into battle, expand your realm, and claim the ultimate prize: the throne of Calradia!

Mount & Blade: Warband is a stand alone expansion pack for the game that brought medieval battlefields to life with its realistic mounted combat and detailed fighting system.

Graphical overhaul: Support added for HDR, FSAA, depth of field, soft particles, tone mapping, and many other effects
New models with greater detail and high-quality textures
Multiplayer battles with up to 64 players. Multiplayer modes include Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Conquest, Battle, and Siege
A campaign allowing you to become the ruler of a faction and convince lords to become your vassals
The ability to upgrade your companions to vassals by granting them lands
The ability to marry a lady of the realm for romance or cold political gain. Try to win a lady’s heart through poetry or bravery
Improved mechanics for soldier morale: Soldiers will break and run away if their morale gets too low
Pick any projectile off the battlefield for use as additional munitions
New motion-captured combat animations
Numerous improvements to the combat system: Your shield will still stop arrows even if you are not actively defending
The ability to play multiplayer matches on random maps as well as hand-designed ones
Multiplayer equipment system: Earn money by fighting opponents or accomplishing goals
The ability to use most throwing weapons in close combat: Switch to using a javelin as a short spear when the enemy gets close
Spend gold on more powerful equipment, using a carefully balanced system that will make combat more exciting without giving too much of an advantage to the leading team

My Experience

Completion: Several campaigns completed and a few multiplayer battles

Playtime at Review: 350.0 hours

Total Playtime: 408.1 hours

Achievements at Review: 57/80 (71%)

My rating: 9.2/10

Likes

Your choices matter

Play however you want

Open-world environment

Large sieges and battles

Huge replayability

Even more replayability with mods

Dislikes

Pretty poor graphics (doesn't matter when the game's so awesome)

Clunky movement (but great fun)

A couple of annoying bugs (nothing saving frequently can't solve)

Mount & Blade Warband - Review

At the time of writing this I have over 350 hours in the world of Warband, and around the same in With Fire & Sword, so I think anyone could have a guess that I enjoy the game.

Now first of all, I have to say the graphics are practically ancient. The graphics were well out dated when the game was released back in 2010, so to compare it to some of the games around now would be shameful. The movement is also pretty robotic, or at least there's nothing graceful about the movements. There can also be a couple of annoying bugs, particularly with breaking lords out of prison, but that's nothing reverting back to a previous save can't fix.

With that said, I love this game. Screw the graphics and the clunky movements, the gameplay is amazing.

On the surface the game looks pretty simple, but once you start delving further into the game you reaslise a hidden depth. You realise your interactions with every lord counts towards your personal relationship with them. This relationship can then impact on your marriage to one of their family members, or how likely they are to follow you if you decide to take up the fight for the crown.

You decide what army you want. You can hire a variety of different units, quite often starting from a lowly militia or bandit, but through experience they can level up to become great fighters. You decide whether to have an army of cavalry, archers, infantry, even horse archers. And each kingdom's units are different. Some infantry will carry swords, others great glaives.

You can encounter potential companions, all with their own story to tell, and all with their own likes/dislikes. Some won't get on with other companions, some won't like you stealing from villages, but you can level them up and make them into the warrior you want them to be. Or level them up ready to make them a lord one day, you choose their skill progression. You choose their equipment too. Give them the best weapons and armour on the market to make them into absolute killing machines.

Attack and siege castles and cities (this is my favourite bit). Have huge battles trying to penetrate the walls of a fortress and wipe out all defenders and reinforcements. Have a final stand-off in the trone room, one last rush for victory, and one last chance of survival for the defenders. Then potentially become the ruler of the castle you've just taken, depending on the path you've chosen already.

There's so much more to it than what I've written already, like ambushes, feif reputation, wealth and improvements, companion interactions, quests, kingdoms, consequences of winning/losing battles, items and equipment, morale and food, army size, renown, right to rule, and I'm gonna stop there before I go too deep and start listing things in my sleep.

All in all this is an amazingly fun game that I would recommend everyone give a shot. Don't judge based on the graphics because you'll be missing out on a true wonder.

Posted on 22-12-2018

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Mount & Blade Warband - Screenshots

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