Review: Mount & Blade: Warband

Name: Mount & Blade: Warband

Developers: TaleWorlds

Publishers: Paradox Interactive

Genre: RPG, Simulaton

Platforms: PC

So in a previous post I mentioned that you should get a severe punishment for not having played this game. I now realised I never really told you exactly why, so why don't I just go ahead and do that. So shut up and sit down and listen to me while I tell you why this has taken up more hours of my life than hitherto any other game.

Yes, I know, this game is not pretty. It isn't. Some mods make it a bit prettier, but it's basically just dressing up a pig, really. The core experience of this game is the gameplay, which we will get to later in the review. The feeling of having a true sandbox game in a medieval setting is, at least to me, a truly freeing experience. You can ride around doing just about anything. You like being the merchant type, trading things back and forth between cities? Go ahead, mate. You prefer to make them yourself in shops you buy and set up, and then sell them? Go the fuck ahead. Or are you the type or person who'd rather take up arms and go and kick some ass as a mercenary? That's possible. Or you might just want to go further and make your own kingdom, because hey, guess what, you can do that too. There is a multitude of places to go, factions to join, people to stab, and things to buy. Let's get into some of the depth of it shall we?


 

Typical battle. Chaotic. I love it. RRAAARGH!

Story:

Well, truth be told, there is no set story in the game, and that may not come as a big surprise, being marketed as a sandbox game and whatnot, although there are of course some depth to it other than that, the thing is just, there's no laid-out story specifically tailored for you. You are not some chosen slayer of dragons set out to save the kingdom and get it together with the girl. What you do is what makes your own story, and along the way, you'll meet others with the same thing. You can recruit partymembers to your warband, and they all have their own likes and dislikes and backstories, some more complicated than others.

Having a lack of a set story for you may or may not be what gets it going for you, but if you love real roleplaying games as I do, then that won't be a problem. I feel I am free to make my own story for my own character within the game, and especially when selecting the "unable to quit without saving" option which makes it hard to relive certain hard points, making your story consistent of ups and downs. Sure, who doesn't hate having your entire army of a hundred strong knights wiped out because you made a tactical error in a siege and had to flee, leaving them behind? I know I do. And have done similar a few times, forcing myself to pull myself up form the depths of hell, everyone trying to put me out of my misery... Man, fuck those guys anyway.

Jeffrey? Jeffrey! Wake up man! Yea, this game is not.. Uh.. Flawless.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is rather simple, with some nice added mechanics that are somewhat unique to this game. At least I can't think of it being in any other game, but if you know of one, drop me a note so I can fix this statement. Anyhow. It functions as a First (or Third) Person RPG at most times, like when you visit towns or engage in combat. Once in combat, you can fight either on foot or on horseback, with your weapon of choice (or rather, purchase/looting). The combat feels solid, with the neat mechanic of that damage is dealt depending on several factors, like how you swing your weapon, how fast you're going, and so forth. Running backwards and stabbing at your enemy will do little to no damage, while holding your lance couched under your arm, charging straight ahead at high speed will sometimes instantly kill some enemies. In combat, you can also command the troops, if you have any, in quite some advanced ways, such as choosing whether they should use their missile weapons or blunt weapons to get prisoners, holding their ground, taking up formations, and so forth, and after some practice, a little know-how in battle will give you a certain edge over your enemy. 

Outside of combat, you have a huge worldmap to navigate through using a small avatar representing you (and your army, if you have one). You can travel between towns and cities this way, find other armies or bands to battle (also represented by small avatars). This is where most of the game will take place as you manage your armies and whathaveyou's. 

From the get-go,  you start out in different ways with different equipment in different areas, depending on your choices made in character creation. You get to choose what kingdom you wish to start in, what your background is, etc., and you can start from all between a gown and a knife, to studded leather armour and a sword, and then your adventure starts from there. There is a quest you are introduced to early on which gives you some basic know-how of how the game works, and after that, or before that, you are free to roam as you please.

Through-out the game you have a multitude of things you can do. You can simply fight for the good of the country, looting your enemies and selling their things to get new stuff. You can recruit new fighters from villages to add to your army and make it bigger, which will make it easier to win battles - although you have to keep them fed, and paid, and happy, or bad things may happen. You can join up with kings or lords, or run errands for them, take quests from villages or cities, make an enterprise with shops set up in different cities, participate in arena fights to gain gold, and much more. It's really up to you how you want to play. 

The look of the worldmap, focused on one of the major cities

 Personally I love gathering a small host of an army and joining with a kingdom straight away to battle their enemies, and capture castles, in hopes of getting them myself. Of course it is always up to the king of the kingdom you join if you are worthy of the fief. If you're not pleased with the result, hey, why not leave them and start your own kingdom? Everything is possible, and the management of a castle and villages while your kingdom does war on several fronts, having to defend your home while simultaneously going on crusades for your king, saving your bro-lords in battle... Well, that is what has the effect of swallowing all your time, because once you start you may find it hard to stop, because "I just have to do one more thing" is always present.

Mount & Blade: Warband also features multiplayer, which does away with all the worldmaply assets and has you pitched in combat straight away, with a system to buy equipment between deaths in a similar fashion to ye olde Counter-Strike.

Conclusion:

All in all, I must say I love this game. For all its simplicity, it really has a good feel to it. I've rarely charged against a swarm of arrows shot at me, finding myself flinching from the screen, even when I know they're digital and they can't hurt me. There''s just a complete immersion into the game that takes hold of me and keeps me reeled in, and has me spending my entire day infront of the screen, and has me coming back for more. With the mod-friendly code, there are also many, many mods out there to try, that puts you in other time periods like the Ancient Roman times, or during the Samurai age in Japan, or even Star Wars with lightsabers and neat things! The community is great and is constantly growing with mods and new fixes, some of which I suggest you'd may want to take a look at. The vanilla game is fairly solid as it is, but some may want something more, something fixed, something added, and so on.

But all in all, there's almost certainly a playstyle for you, however you play. So go out with your blade and your mount, and create your warband, today! (See what I did there?)

It is avaliable for Steam over here. There is also a free demo to try if you'd rather do that first.