Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

Good game, but gets pretty boring and repetitive in the late game.

This game advantage is you can integrate many mods to improve playing experience.
Sometimes I will turn on this game and kill all around.
Image I'm a lord who can command military and beat enemies down.
I promote to buy this game If this it is discounting.

If you're looking for THE medieval combat game look no further. This is it. But if you're looking for a fleshed out RPG this isn't it. No character has an ounce of personality. Only good for the battles. Modding is a must. I recommend Cut Through Everyone and Dismemberment Plus so you can take off 3 dudes head off in one swing. 5/10 w/o mods 9/10 with.

It's very good, however it feels a little unfinished still. You'll want to check out the vast possibilities the modding community provides you with to tailor the experience to your wishes.

Game is incredible, who doesn't love growing your clan, marrying off your daughters and sons, and personally engaging in epic battles. However the performance issues really detract from the game, and in my experience the game consistently crashes when I play any campaign long enough. My PC specs are well over the minimum/recommended, I've tried every work around I can find online, but it's gotten to the point I can't really play this game anymore.

I started my nomadic life as a marauder, then as a mercenary, then as a lord and finally as a king. My goal was to destroy the Empire and rule over a stronger Empire, and that is what happened. But after the Empire collapsed, the lords who remained idle did not pass to me, or even to any kingdom. There are dozens of lords wandering around, and I think the game needs to address this. I've played almost the entire Mount & Blade series and I honestly think that Bannerlord is no different from Warband. But I love the series and the team, I will play Mount & Blade as long as it comes out, then I will make my children, grandchildren and their children play it...

Every time I enjoy playing this game again, they publish an update that contributes nothing to the base game except breaking all the mods which made me come back to play the game again in the first place.

This feels a lot like a 65$ graphical refresh of Warband, with very few new mechanics. The mechanics and features that are added are very shallow and underwhelming unfortunately. The most significant additions are the new notable system, some criminal interactions, as well as the Kingdom council. There is also a questionable birth and death system, but it's kind of half baked.

Companions in this game are outright worse than in Warband. Instead of a set of unique and hand created characters, Bannerlord has opted to generate most of it's characters though RNG. Besides the initial set of important Lords and story characters, pretty much every person in the game will be randomly generated. This gets stale very quickly, as there is relatively few backstories and personalities for characters of all types, and the facial generation in this game is just simply not very good... Lesser Lords are just generic random generated cannon fodder. Notables are just soulless town and village officials, they give generic randomized quests. Useful for early game money and reputation. Companions are very devoid of any personality, besides giving you a big sop story when you hire them. They mostly become a means to an end of either filling a party slot or governor position, instead of feeling like actual people. The characters begin to feel formulaic as you play more, because they quite literally are...

Crime has the potential to be a very interesting mechanic, but it turns out to be very disappointing, as it is essentially just a tack on the the regular notables. Towns will have criminal gang leaders who will ask you to do certain tasks that are criminal flavoured, like acquiring them weapons or raiding a caravan. There is also the potential to take over gang territory, but it's not very beneficial from what I have seen, and mostly just incurs negative reputation.

The Kingdom council is another cool idea that is incredibly shallow. It really boils down to three or four types of distinct interactions. The most simple are votes on declaring war and declaring peace, where the faction leader and Nobles will vote and decide the outcome. There are also votes to decide the owner of new Fiefs, that are captured in war or whatnot. The last type is the "Kingdom Policy" which are usually just very basic single digit % (ex. 5-10%) bonuses to some stat such as village tax. Basically just different ways of increasing gain of consumable points like Gold, Influence, etc.

Now the Birth and Death system. The major problem with this system is the same as the others, where there is just too much procedural generation. Other characters dying in old age or battle just replaces them with more faceless boring characters. I've also found it useless to have children in this game, as it's a fairly late game mechanic. Seeing as the late game gets very repetitive and boring (either endless battles or map painting), and levelling your character is especially tedious, so the idea of doing it a second time is not appealing whatsoever.

Unfortunately the devs have phoned it in and this game is marked as a full release, after sitting in development for years and getting nothing but bug fixes and a few armour pieces... They couldn't even figure a way to make the game challenging without using the faceless rng Lords to swarm you, as they will spawn just outside your view range with 30-80 men. I'm not sure if TaleWorlds expects you to be forced to execute other nobles, but seeing as it has such a negative penalty associated it seems this isn't intended. The game mechanics run counter to this however, as you will be swarmed by endless hordes of randomly generated NPCs, until they are either executed or killed in battle. The campaign is also stacked with bad design and balance. Ironically the most fun part of the entire campaign is the beginning, as it has some heart and soul, pretty good characters, and a neat introduction. Your family has been scattered after a bandit raid on the inn you were staying at left it in ruins, and you and your brother must rescue your younger siblings from the notorious bandit leader who has captured them. Even the tutorial segment is pretty good (besides the random wandering in the one village segment) and does a pretty good job establishing the dragon banner and other details.

The funny thing is, if you skip the tutorial, you lose pretty much 90% of the flavour in this section, as you missing out on most of the lore surrounding the world and the dragon banner. It instead just gives you small text boxes with brief text on how your siblings were kidnapped and that some random guy gave you this scrap of the dragon banner. Very abrupt if you skip the tutorial. The rest of the beginning section is pretty good, you fight the bandit leader (Radagos) and can decide if you execute him for the death of your parent's or spare him. Unfortunately he does not return at any point in the game. It would be very cool if we could have recruited him as he is one the most interesting characters in the story, and has an short arc before promptly vanishing.

This is the unfortunate end of the good content for the story mode. The next quest sends you on a continental fetch quest to ask about the battle of Pendraic from a bunch of notable Lords. Not only is this incredibly tedious, it's also worthless for replay ability. It feels like a massive chore to having to find all these characters, and then when you do they just spew a few paragraphs of lore and backstory. This quest is at an odd point where you cannot listen to every Noble's recounting of the battle (as after you get the required number it disappears from speech options) but there's also too few to add to any replay value. The story quests get worse after this, having you reassemble the dragon banner, which has terrible stats and is worthless in value despite everyone telling you how important it is. You must give this to a faction of your choice, eventually degenerating to the point where you have a three front war with all the Imperial factions over this. Most players suggest to just give it to the faction you like the least to have it destroyed, as it's a unbalanced and goofy quest.

It seems to me TaleWorlds just gave up and are leaving this game to be fixed and improved by modders, which is incredibly lazy... This game is a disappointment because all it needed was some effort into fleshing out the existing systems. But instead here it lies as a 65$ barebones experience that relies wholly on procedural generated content. Some of the more interesting mechanics planned are missing entirely. I guess they forget in 2018 they said we would be able to design our own castles and settlements? This game is very disappointing.

great game with amazing gameplay, could use an expansion or two of the map to continue my interest but otherwise great!

Bannerlord, is fun for what it is, it's also lacking content and abandoned, I can't in good conscience recommend this game. But.... the battles, oh my god the sieges and battles are incredibly fun! And the combat is clunky but has a decent bit of depth
I wouldn't buy this, because you're getting a glorified early access title, but if you find it on sale for half off it's a fun waste of time

The game got me really addicted, just like M&B 1.
Many improvements in the gameplay, graphics and real cool modding community.
Recommend the game, totally worth it.

M&B2 is not a good game, Modded M&B2 is and incredible game.
seriously the devs dropped real support almost instatnlu upon launch and have really only done bug fixes
if you are interested i highly recommend playing with banner kings which is a vanilla++ overhaul or The Old Realms which is a total conversion overhaul set in Warhammer Fantasy The Old World which adds classes, races, magic, flintlock guns, some monsterous units and artillary

Great potential, not much else. Game is unfinished and, it seems that, devs aren't going change it. Compared to warband it is less moddable and gets boring quickly. At kingdom stage there is hardly anything to do. It is fun to play for a while but not for normal price

WARNING: DO NOT BUY IF...

This game scratches some specific itches. Maybe you come from strategy games like the Total War series and have always wanted to be a soldier among the many you command. Maybe you enjoyed Warband and want to recreate that experience. These are all valid reasons to buy the game (preferably on discount, as the current price of €50 is absolutely criminal—it's not worth that much).

However, you should know that this game is unfinished. By this, I mean that the game seems to have been intended to include many more features during development, but at some point, the developers apparently decided, "We’ve already made the money, why do more work for free?"

The "unfinished" nature of the game is perfectly illustrated in a YouTube video "called Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord After 2 Years" (with which I have no affiliation). To summarize the core issues:

Singleplayer: The game starts off strong, with the makings of a good game, but it quickly devolves. The middle portion feels like a bad game, and there’s essentially no end-game content. As you progress through the campaign, you can almost pinpoint the moment the developers seemed to give up. If you buy this game, your singleplayer experience will likely involve starting a new campaign, only to abandon it out of boredom after 10 to 30 hours, depending on your playstyle. Rinse and repeat, and you may rack up to 1,000 hours, especially if every time you play you think, "Imagine when they finish it! It will be glorious." If you do this, however, you're not playing the game, you're playing yourself.

Multiplayer: The matchmaking is virtually non-existent—you will rarely, if ever, find a game. Custom servers are available, offering both vanilla and modded experiences. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but for a game like Bannerlord, you'd expect a more structured online experience than what Call of Duty offers. So, if you're hoping for a co-op campaign or custom servers for roleplaying, let me be clear:

There will never be a co-op campaign, at least not from the developers. The game is "f1n1sh3d."
Modded RPG servers exist, but they are terrible. Why? Because Bannerlord is not an RPG by design. The core features aren't present in the vanilla game, so modders have to create everything from scratch—and there are limits to what people will do for free.

This game isn't *Finished*

As much as TW loves to say it's been 2 years (at the time of this review) since full release this game is basically the most barebones skeleton of a framework, even more so then the previous game. All the concepts for the game are there, but none of the effort for implementing them into a compelling game loop. This series has all the potential to beat out Total War as a flagship strategy franchise, but much like Creative Assembly's own issues, being the only game in town practically means the Devs have basically abandoned all ambition and have decided to be satisfied with making a modding sandbox for people to invest much more time and effort then TW is willing.

This game is good for a hundred or so hours to experience the factions, battles, troop types, and the fun of making your own warband. Most city designs are unique and the sieges are a blast. Unfortunately, the game becomes pretty repetitive once you either make a kingdom or become a strong vassal.

TW will add small updates from time to time but this game has been all but abandoned. I hope that the modding scene continues to take off and makes up for the lack of larger updates/expansions. So much potential for this game wasted by inactivity from the devs.

Its an incredible game.

Sadly it's nowhere near finished. The diplomacy in particular is an absolute grind. With a bit of work this could be one of the best games ever made but i cannot in good conscience recommend this to anyone.

You will hear the same criticisms, nowhere near enough content and unfinished product.

TaleWords haven't listened to paying customers. In fact they have ignored and lied to them. Please encourage them towards more ethical business practice by not buying this until it's finished.

6/10

As much as I love the graphics, epic battles Bannerlord has to offer, it still lack the immersion and fun Warband did back then.

Warband had feasts where a lord can invite you to his town during peace time. This is also where you can also increase your relations with other lords and join tournaments to increase the town's relation with you. In Bannerlord, there are no feasts, barely any peacetime because whenever my kingdom is at peace for a couple days, they straight up declare another war with another kingdom, giving no time to rest, govern your castles or towns.

Whenever you enter a town or village, there's a chance of an event where bandits will surprise you, leaving you to fight them singlehandedly making the fight enjoyable and rewarding. In Bannerlord there are these alleyways where bandits hang around where you can attack them and take their loot, but it takes forever to walk to them.

Training villagers in Warband felt more fun, where you had to fight them with wooden pole arms, and at the end of the quest, you help them defend their village against bandits. Training villagers in Bannerlord however feels like a chore trying to keep them alive and by late game you wouldn't really need this quest.

Companions in Warband had a lot more interactions with player and with other companions. Some companions hate each other and if they do one or the other companion will leave the party and some companions like each other's company. I feel like in bannerlord, the potential of the traits each companion you have is wasted literally not interacting with eachother.

Wooing a lady or lord in Warband felt more rewarding because you had read poetry in order to increase your relations with them. You can even fight another lord if they also like the lady you're courting and duel for their hand in marriage. In Bannerlord you are presented with the most boring way to court a lady and its through dialog boxes and you just go for the highest percentage.

In Warband you can tell lords tactics and strategy on where to attack and defend villages or towns or to just follow you, while in Bannerlord you can't.

The soundtrack in Warband just feels more epic and fun compared to Bannerlord as well.

In conclusion I feel like Bannerlord is wasting it's potential and is lacking elements from its predecessor lacking immsersion, and feels more like a battle simulator/sandbox.

One of the biggest disappointments I've experienced in gaming for quite a while. Everything aspect of the game is just... Half arsed. It had so much potential but the dev's, I don't know, they just don't care.

What surprises me is the number of positive reviews. The only thing I can think of is that people come for the combat, love that, and that's enough for them.

If you crave mindless hacking and slashing, this could be a great game for you. But if you're actually interested in lore, progression, immersion and kingdom building, you're going to be sorely disappointed.

I think it took about a year for a proper fix to soldiers ignoring two of the three ladders to climb a castle wall. It was seriously unbelievable.

Imagine outnumbering the defenders 4:1 but they win or you take horrific losses because in every wall segment your units just ignore two of the ladders.

Maybe I'm just getting old but this feels like a downgrade compared to previous M&B titles, in every aspect except the graphics.

Even after 8 years of development, the game is half baked. The game feels unfinished and empty. The only reason I played it for so many hours is pure boredom and lack of other fun games. I was a loyal fan for all those years but I wont support any future projects of taleworlds.

It's been years and the devs continue to come out with meaningless "balance" patches adjusting trivial things like armor/weapon values.

This screws up the modding scene and prevents anyone from harnessing the game to its full potential.

Siege AI still extremely wonky.

Certain base game features such as diplomacy are barebones and offer no discernable function on gameplay when compared to the first game.

Economy, caravans and shops are non-existent, compared to the first game.

The combat and graphics are basically flawless, but ultimately a shallow experience and a disappointment.

- The devs keep pushing useless bugfixes and/or tweaking numbers instead of adding content that was initially in warband.
- Modding is a necessary but horrible experience due to the constant updates and overall janky state of the game.
- Diplomacy, Fief management, Politics and the overall Economy is totally absent. Marriage serves no real purpose aside from pumping children. Workshops used to be the cornerstone of early-game in warband but are very much a waste of ressources in bannerlord.
- I dont think the devs will ever fix the column formation on horse archers and i've given up on that.
- NPC's are just bland. very few dialog options despite the elaborate personality system that governs their reputation.
- Quests are very uninspired and really need more work & I won't talk about bandit hideouts.
- The AI is terrible. Even after installing RBM to make it less dumb its still dead easy to win fights using basic tactical warfare.

Now do I regret the time i've spent on this game ?

ABSO-LUTE-LY fucking not.

It's almost 2 years since the release of this game, so far there are only a few updates that really enhances the game. The only thing that is keeping this game alive are mods based on my personal experience. I've finished the game's half-baked "story mode" on my first 60 hours and the other 400+ hours is me trying out new mods that I've seen on the internet.

TaleWorlds is LAZY on releasing new contents on the base game and bug fixes often only come once every 2-4 months which in my experience haven't encountered those "noteworthy" bugs. Basically just ruining mods every "bug fix update"

This game is BONE DRY without the modding community, unlike this game's predecessor Warband which the vanilla game alone can stand on its own with good story line that is.

Story line on base vanilla is TERRIBLE I feel like the story was written by ChatGPT, it has no soul AT ALL. Basically, the "story" revolves on you running around the map trying to find nobles to get their lame-ass dialogues while battling here and there raising your rank along the process. After that, you'll need to collect some items to finish your flag and defend it from conspiracy (yet another chase around nobles and battle on the map).

I get that modding community is an important aspect of today's game, but to be the sole method of progressing the game? I think not. Especially from a big game such as this.

For now, I wouldn't recommend the game, perhaps wait for another few years to let them make some good plot for the story or even release a good DLC with memorable story line.

I can't believe this game has less content than warband does. We were expecting a more depth RPG, but what we have in our hands is just a tool for modders and not much.

Can't call it a game at this point. I'm sorry. This is just an mod tool for those who like Game of thrones, lord of the rings or whatever. I might give those mods a chance but this doesn't mean Taleworlds developed a good game. Disappointing.

You will be surprised when the game looks good from the outside but is bare bones inside. Lack of meaningful content, game turns boring once you reach mid-late game in campaign.

You will always be doing the same thing once you reach late game.

the single player game is absolutely amazing beautiful work but when it gets to the multiplayer i can say the worst experience ive ever had

Abandoned Game i love this game for what it could of been between playing Wack a mole in campaign end game to broken talent trees this game is still a great experience to have... this game DOES NOT deserve the "VERY POSITIVE" as there are way better games than this, this game was rushed and abandoned after some what working then hope for mods to fix/finish the game.

Its SAD to see a good dev (taleworlds) team kill their good name with a half bake game knowing they could of have a gem here.
5/10 only good on sale and to experience what a good game could be.

M&B Warband is probably the only game I ever put the time in to the point where I could confidently say I was good at the game, and I'm not talking single player, I'm talking multiplayer's team deathmatch and whatnot. So believe me when I say I liked the game a lot, both the SP and MP, and understood it pretty well. I don't know how many hours I have in Warband but it's around a thousand.

Bannerlord added things that basically nobody really requested, and refused to add things that were sorely needed. Example: fleshed out diplomacy systems are never going to come to the game.
Another example: smithing weapons which was completely and utterly broken on release because of how easy it was to amass a fortune selling weapons you made.

So the list goes on, but really TLDR, the game added features that don't work well, won't work well without mods because the devs have effectively given up, and what little is functional isn't really enough to bother with when Warband exists. There are so many quality mods for Warband that it's quite staggering really, whereas with Bannerlord there's only so much that can be done when the game's basic systems don't even work.

This game got the most Ai Feeling Ai ever hundres of AI got 2 voice lines.
Good storyline with poorly executed quests.
Grind hours and hours ultil final quest just to get a worm mounted molding stick that’s worth 0.2 dollar and does absolutely nothing.
My own sister in law dont know who tf i am when i talk to her.
All the places to visit but nothing to do.
Can RPG only if you got Strong imagination power.

One of my favourite games, especially with the Realistic Battle Mod. This game is just the ultimate medieval warlord sim. The battles are epic and dynamic, the game is highly replayable, combat is endlessly fun, the modding community is amazing. Personally I think it's a massive improvement over Warband, which I have more than 500 hours in. It's larger scale, with improved physics-based combat, much more troop variety and more viable strategies, significantly smarter (although still not the best) AI, plus some Crusader Kings elements thrown in there which I really appreciate. For me at least, it's a 10/10.

Only playable because of mods. Shame, the developers have given up on this

The game is unfinished, some of the mechanics are just placeholder. The cloth physics are disabled on some towns. Nothing to do except fighting in battles. They should rename this to Mount and Blade Slogfest. Also, seems like it's already abandoned by the devs. It's ashamed.

Sadly a shallow game with so much untapped potential. The game gives the impression you can do what you want but in reality it just leads you in the same path in every playthrough. You can fight battles, be a lord or lady, rule a town and even become king. Yeah sounds cool on paper. In the end you just get bogged down in tedious repeating battles trying to keep enemy armies from besieging your town or castle. This is fun at first but since the AI keeps declaring war every other week you end up fighting the same battles over and over again.

Want to become a merchant instead? Sure! Roam the land, travel from town to town. You'll get wealthy, but any lost battle will pretty much reset your progress. So you'll need a stash and a place to call home. So you become a lord or lady and you end up in the same boring shallow gameplay as described above. Same goes for becoming a smith or mercenary. It all leads you down a path to become a lord in the end to at least have something more than a party.

Towns, castles and villages are too featureless to really interact with. And after two towns you'll do most of this interaction through the worldmap menu. No in depth relations to build, nothing to talk about with people, no sense of a living world except for the endless churning of the calradic wars.

I've got about 250 hours in this game, which might make you think, hey this guy got his money's worth. Well to be honest most of those hours is me trying a different playthrough spread over 4 years of trying to find a new way of playing the game or finding some new hidden content to scratch that itch of living in Calradia. But it all ends in the same monotonous gameplay.

Utterly crushing an enemy army of 1100 strong is awesome and gets the adrenaline pumping. This is it, the battle to win the war once and for all! Well, no. You've defeated them, but in two days another will come by, which you will probably also utterly destroy. And then another, and another, and another. You won't spend any time in the city you govern because your fighting these wars. And if you finally get a day or two of peace before your faction declares another senseless war, it's not like there is anyone or really anything to interact with.

It's a fun game for a playthrough or two. But you won't really find the freedom to interact with the world in the way they portray it. I also don't think you should pay full price for this game. 50 euros (prob about the same in dollars) is not worth the amount of content that you'll get for it.

Nope, not worth the trouble.
M&B 1 was great, this took that and made it feel even more lifeless.
Add to this the saves corrupt themselves after 2ish hours of play every time, or randomly become achievement disabled for no reason.

I want to start and say that I really like the game. I am currently on my 3rd character and having a fun time. However, the game is simply not finished. The NPCs lack any depth, much less than previous titles. The characters you can hire really aren't really unique to one another. The mini quests given by NPCs are repetitive and not that interesting. The main story line is just....meh. When you end up creating your kingdom, it is a huge slog to destroy the other factions, as they will all eventually declare war at the same time. The AI armies in your faction will often refuse to help your cities that are under siege by the enemy. They'll just stroll on by.

When it comes to smithing, it feels like there should be more. At this time, you can only smith weapons (no bows though). There's no crafting any shields, armor, horse armor, helmets, boots/shoes, bows, arrows, etc. It just feels incomplete.

Overall this game just feels like it's in early access. It's fun, but after a while the cracks start to show and you realize that it is just not a full game. I'm not holding out hope that the developers will finish this game.

Edit: The game keeps crashing for some reason as well.

Graphically it blows Warband out of the water, Sieges are now interesting, and you can do multiple troop formations, but holy hell the rest of this game unfinished.

Hit detection is spotty at best, the directional combat sensitivity is way too high, band aid fixes are everywhere, smithing destroys the game by logging EVERY single weapon you make bloating the memory, sudden frame drops mid combat, certain skills not working, Workshops are borderline useless, Smithing stamina mechanic doesn't restore unless you rest in towns, diplomacy gives schizophrenic results, the loading times are long and occasionally the game loads and freezes just long enough to make you think its crashed, Smithing... you know what, just smithing. It's bad. Mods are meant to make a game MORE enjoyable, they shouldn't be a requirement to make the game fun in the first place.

This game unforunately appears to have been abandoned by the devs. They went through 3 programming teams and created multiple code bases that they appear to have given up on fixing as well as stopping development on a great many of the originally promised game features.

It's "mostly" complete, though things like seiges have significant bugs that require work arounds and save file edits. It's being kept alive by the multiplayer community though many of the single player modders have abandoned it as well sadly.

Only purchase if on significant discount.

Yes, it is really and fun to play for what it is. But can't recommend it for full price.

Still crashes a lot.
Enemies stuck in walls prevent sieges from ending.

Mount & Blade II's recent update just disabled all mod functionality. The continuous updates by TaleWorlds Entertainment only adds to the frustration. So, if you're excited to play this game with a mod you've seen, I recommend staying away until TaleWorlds Entertainment releases a single-player final update and allows modders to be creative without the constant game-breaking changes.

I love this game but im getting an error every time I try and launch the game so I cant play it anymore. Ive tried reinstalling it and wiping the drives but nothing seems to work. Super frustrating.

It's 'ok' if you play it by itself.
Good, if take the time to add in all the mods needed to finish and implement all of the games systems.
Pure crap, when compared to Warband.

Honestly, just play Warbands..

A critically underbaked experience that fails to evolve or improve upon its predecessor, Warband. The developers have all but abandoned this game. "But it's done," you say. Unfortunately, while the game was still being updated, it felt like Taleworlds were only trying to prop up a corpse of a game. Updates consisted of things that should've been in the game at launch, considering how many of them were just stuff from Warband. Don't buy this game. Lacking in features, balance, polish, it's ugly, and abandoned. If you do, install mods to fix up this sad excuse of a Warband successor. M&B needs a competitor as soon as possible. This genre is essentially dominated by this game because no other studio- no matter the size- will try and develop a competitor.

As wide as an ocean, shallower than a puddle.

A shame, a real shame. Game has so much potential and it's half baked. People love riding taleworlds for some reason.

100 Hour Review:

Actually, closer to 1200 hours...

I have waited a long time for this. I really wanted to be able to say they delivered, but here we are. I believe I have given this game more than enough time to deliver on it's promises, so I don't feel bad doing this now.

I wanted this game very badly back in the day. It had so much promise. So many ideas. So many things.

And then time went on. And on. And on. And on. And the promised things got written off, cast aside, left behind.

That alone is bad enough, as I really feel I did not get the game I payed for.

But that is the nature of EA anything. It really is. You really can't use that as the basis for negative anything. Life happens. Events happen. They did to tale worlds for sure.

But.... But But But BUt.... And how I love a big big big however...

The updates for this game are downright painfully slow. When they do come, they break things that were fixed three updates ago. The game still has the some of the same issues it has had since release into EA let alone release as a "completed" game. It's been that way from day one.

There are so many items that need attention that have just sat and sat and sat. Silly things like needing mods to do basic kingdom things and army things and people things. There are so many holes...

And then there are the mind numbingly silly reliances on the game trying to make troop delineations by percents and overlapping factors instead of just being able to command your troops. You know, tell these go here and those go there and you belong to this group and you that group.

The current system is nonsense. Seriously. It's nonsense how they separate and organize things, it never works right and makes life unnecessarily complicated. Yes it was brought up, and no they don't want to fix it.

As a battle simulator I find it quite enjoyable. Sure you can cheese the AI, but when can't you..? There's enough challenge in what's here, and you can handicap yourself and really make things as close to the wire as you want. I only play SP mind you, so YMMV if you venture off into MP land where the servers are.... on sometimes.

Yes, reinforcements are spawning way over there instead of here. Yes you can cheese the sieges and anything else you want to if all you want is to win. Yes, my horsemen are galloping over to the 7-11 for jerky instead of charging the flank as I commanded, but hey...the battle AI knows best. It's all in what flavor you like your cheese to be.

But after that..? Um... Well. You can put your color flag on all the places.

See... There is no diplomacy. You can get married and have what I think are children. You can cheese relationships and abuse the prisoner system to make everyone like you. You can "adjust" your surroundings to buy Lords. But you aren't going to make the world anything. I mean that seriously. The game has the depth of a mud puddle.

So why am I leaving this negative review..?

Well... I have been gaming since the computer was a thing. I used to build them back in the 386/486 days. I still have one of the first discreet video cards ever made, a whopping 1 meg of ram and that was the upgraded one...

I can count on one hand all the games that have truly let me down to where I felt taken. This game is the worst one for me. I feel like they took money for things they didn't deliver. That's my personal opinion based on the information they provided. What they said I was going to play vs what they actually delivered.

If you just want a battle simulator and you don't care if your troops get mixed up and you don't need or want anything resembling depth, this is the game for you.

If you use mods, which I do not as they are off site for this one, you can do quite well making this something worth playing. But bear in mind you will need them if you want anything resembling an intelligent game of anything aside from yay, battles again..!

For a time this game was awesome. And then they started wasting time on troop assignments that don't stay and are ambiguous and stupid and they started not doing the things they said were going to do and not delivering the things they said were going to be in there and now we're in a lengthy holding pattern for the next fix let alone the maps and other things they said were coming when snow was on the ground.

I'm not trying to tell you not to buy the game. What I'm telling you is to clear any expectations you have as to actually doing anything beyond fighting. If you are OK with shallow game play that holds little to sink your teeth into, this is your game.

For everyone else, best look elsewhere.

Cheers..!

The amount of RP in this game is fun (especially with mods) one game I'm a Viking taking over all Sturgian land for myself another, game Im a Celt, and another game I'm the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. Make your destiny in this amazing game that IS one of the greatest games of all time.

Many of the good features from the previous game are absent here and for no reason. You receive messages or important notifications and you cannot see them if you missed them when popped up. I received an "offer" from a king and I have no clue of what offer because the message just disappeared. It's absurd. In Viking conquest I could check all the messages pressing a single key shorcut.

For evrybody who wants to buy this game:

Only really good with mods. Its a great game that lacks (not lags) when its getting interesting.

You want to refuse a fief? Only possible by giving it back never by denying the offer.
You want your son to marry the youngest daughter of a Knyaz? Wait until his eldest daughter is married because you cant ask for a specific daughter.
You want to besiege a castle? No Problem. Until another Lord comes by and joins your Camp. He's the commander now.
You want to talk to a Lord in the hall of his castle but your name is unknown and the guards wont let you in? No problem bro. Just click the portait up right and you can talk to him anyway.

And so on. Taleworlds created a huge and goodlooking piece of gold but refused to smith it into jewelry and despite the facts that, what i said up there is known for a long time, never did they anything to change or repair it or even to better it up. They leave it to the modders. Its a true shame that a company that only became relevant by the title Mount&Blade lets their MasterPiece rotten in an unfinished stadium.

As i said. many mods were made to handle it and many work pretty good..others just try to. Especially for those of you who need or want an translated version...better get used to the fact that some of these mods probably dont have a translation und you will be forced to play a german version and evrytime youre doing something thats handled by a mod you will have to switch into your english lesson. Maybe not a big problem but it starts eating and grows until youre fed up.

For those of you that played Warband or Viking Conquest.

The graphics are better now. The map is bigger now. But the mechanics seem to be made to make people happy that have never played M&B or/and for those never had the backbone to play it right. Im talking about that type of players that complain about not getting a fief and stuff. That type that want it easier not deeper. Viking Conquest was functionally inventive. Bannerlord is just a bigger and easier version of warband with some upgrades and sadly some downgrades. They didnt learn from the DLC VC. They just seem to totally ignore the possibilities of their own great creation.

It is not finished and Taleworlds dont seem to have the will to do it and that is really really stressful at some point...but hey...you can play it on Playstation now ;)

If you want to buy Bannerlord you will see yourself that there is a lot stuff that will make you crazy and a bit sad because you will know for sure and very quick that it wouldnt exist they way it does if they would do their job right.

I love this game and im playing it often but i really hope that what ever is going on at taleworlds headquarter is getting back into their strengths soon.

Read the negative Comments after your looks at the positives!! there are many who go way deeper into topic and most of them are totally right!

Love this game, there are so much to do in it. It is a bit sad that when you play a single player your character is not superiorly stronger than ordinary NPCs. Also, the NPCs are very skillful and hard to deal in a close combat.

Almost every aspect of it is MUCH WORSE THAN WARBAND, Bannerlord stuff doesn't make any sense, lacks alternative experiences and there's bunch of hidden and annoying mechanics. Basically the only option you have is to recruit useless and stupid vassals who does nothing other than providing low level troops. Without mods this game is stupid and feel unfinished. From vassals, combats, diplomacy, marriage, to garrison troops and balance of power.

Let's talk about vassals first, in Warband you have the option to conquer the entire continent without recruiting any vassal as long as you have enough garrison troops in your fiefs. Although it would be a lot harder than having more helpers in Warband, it is playable and possible option. However in Bannerlord without vassals you would be greatly outnumbered, like 400 vs 2000 troops.

In addition to that, your garrison troops will always be starved to death since they only take food from settlements stock but not your party inventory nor the settlement stash. (The game tells nothing about this until you find your garrison all starved to death) Also there's zero way to directly increase settlement food stock, so the only and forced option you have is to have more vassals to waste enemy armies' time by basically suicidal attacks to let your settlement food stock grow on its own.

You might think, Oh I could avoid these just by having more vassals, but remember vassals are bunch of fools.
Both your vassals and enemy vassals are all crazy about besieging fiefs, they would constantly lead huge armies, with troop count anywhere from 1000 to 2000, and waste all of them on some useless castles which only gives about 500 denars a day in profit. For comparison troop wage for 1000 troops is roughly 6000 to 8000 a day. Not an economical choice at all, and they would probably waste around 1000 troops on this castle and still couldn't take it.

Then what happens next is the rest of army (of around 400 to 600 troops) would be attacked by the enemy army who's been waiting around the besieged settlement and the vassals would all be captured. The "War" is basically a repetition of infinite besiege - half of army died - half of army meets an enemy full army - full enemy army won - full enemy army besiege loop. Almost zero army would think about eliminating enemy armies first. And without strategical objectives, the "War" is just wasting lives on besieging useless settlements.

The AI of an army would always prioritize closer targets, let's say Vlandians and Aserains are at war, and my kingdom is at the middle. Vlandians would always create an army, thinking about taking back settlements from Aserai at first, and on the half way they would see my castles, and start besieging mine instead. In such a stupid fashion the game would always create giant forces with 12000 strengths like Vlandians and Aserai, with rest of forces all at around 6000 strengths, simply because they are farthest from anyone else and besieged less often. The rest fight each other only to weaken each other to prepare themselves to be taken by Vlandians, Aserai, and Khuzaits.

As a matter of fact, under such a stupid game design, for these stupid Kings and Vassals, the best option is actually not join any war, that would prevent any town or castle from starving, thus more prosperity and profits. But they are just stupid enough to always propose war for more fiefs, forgetting what they already have at hand.

Even if you're the king of a kingdom, there's zero definite way to have a nominate in settlement owner vote. I know it would be affected by bunch of hidden mechanics, such as number of fiefs you already have, fief proximity, or relation with other vassals. But you just can't tell how much they influence the nomination. It is not a problem in Warband since as king you could've just give it to yourself at the cost of vassal relations and tax rates, but again there's no such option in Bannerlord, even if you are willing to give considerable expenses.

In Bannerlord there's no such option. Even if I want to reserve some vassals for farther fiefs, they would always be one of three nominee as long as they have a closer castle or some of them have no fiefs. I would be willing to reward them denars, or influences, or my old fiefs instead, but in this game I don't have such an option. Every nominee is a forced choice of this game. Looking through online sources, I found the solution to be a "well-designed route of expansion", you have to design a route of your owned fiefs and fiefs to be taken by you for you to have your desired fiefs, again even if you're the king, you have zero right to nominate yourself in one of the only three nominees of a fief vote. I don't think it's a democratic senate considering the fact that I don't even have the right to nominate myself. Basically the outcome is that no one is happy with the in-game senate, the kings are not happy because they can't take the fiefs they want, and the vassals are not happy because only those who won the hidden mechanics would make themselves to nominations.

Troop transfer is again stupid, if you want to give troops to a vassal, in Warband you simply move troops from your party to theirs, but in Bannerlord there's again no direct way to do that. You can only donate troops to their settlement garrisons and pray that they would take the high level troops you trained to battlefield.

Even as a king, you have zero way to command the stupid AI armies or parties, even if party leaders are your clan members, which causes them to always be captured by enemy parties and exhaust you by constantly having to change party leaders and saving your clan members. As a comparison, in Warband if you're the marshal, you could ask other vassals to scout, defend in settlements, besiege settlements. Even if you're not the marshal, you could ask your friend vassals if they are willing to perform the above operations.

What all of the vassal junks add up is a simple result, is that this game becomes a game about whoever have more troop count wins, whoever have more vassals wins, whoever stays away from wars wins.

This eliminates the joy of defeating an enemy army with fewer troops, take the towns you want to take, or command armies and parties for strategical moves. What has left is that you can control nothing strategical in this game, even if you're the king. Most of the time wars feels like watching two idiot soccer teams kicking balls into their own goals.

If there's anything better for Bannerlord when compared to Warband, it should be the game graphics and combat movements, but these things deteriorate in later gaming when you worry more about strategical factors over combat factors.

It shouldn't be called Mount & Blade, it should be called SPAM VASSALS & TROOPS. Only Warband deserve the title Mount & Blade.

It is one of my favorite games in the field of strategy. It is the best version of the game. Of course, playing with mods is also very good