Mount & Blade: Warband

I've put 131 hours into M&B: Warband according to Steam - one of my top five games of all time. In Warband, you control the leader of a warband who gathers followers, trains and equips them, and clashes with other warbands on a massive map. You join one of the factions and prove yourself by aiding the nobility and helping defend the kingdom. You can raze enemy towns, rescue captured maidens, track down deserters, take control of your own castle, even eventually become the king! The AI characters all move around realistically - defending their castle, joining their king in war, attending jousting tournaments, secretly visiting lovers, trading, patrolling, and chasing bandits. You move around the open world and interact with these characters - either fighting, talking, or trading. The combat is real-time, third-person combat. You lead the charge, but you can issue orders to your troops - tell the archers to stay on the high ground while your cavalry flank the enemy, for example. The combat is much more realistic than most games - you have to aim your attacks, arrows drop after long distances, cavalry will run you down with their horse. It's challenging and intense and rewarding. The game doesn't hold your hand - quests are generally short and, to be fair, pretty repetitive at times. You have to carve your own path - do you train your warband into an elite force and hunt down bandits? Do you suck up to the king in the hope that he awards you a fief of your own? Do you sneak into a castle to rescue a captured nobleman and fight the guards yourself? it's up to you!

An amazing game if you want to trully make your own story in a medieval set up. You can customize your characters and create many kinds of of backgrounds depending on how you plan to play. This game doesn't have a solid story but instead everything is simulated so every gameplay is different. You can decide what your plans for glory are and roleplay accordingly. Build your army, trade goods, join tournaments and even become a king and attempt to conquer the world. Combat is really fun and engaging, even if clunky at times, and you can command your army and use the terrain at your advantage. The AI is very challenging and you have a wide variety of combat styles depending on your weapons. This is not a story driven game so you need to be warned that you'll have to use your imagination when it comes to looking for quests and things to do. The game provides you with enough mechanics and events to do so, but you won't have any guidelines as of how to build your army or who you should side with.

The base game put me to sleep, the vast modding community woke me up again and gave this game a fresh coat of paint and kept me entertained for quite a while, but then I feel asleep again because the modding community is a giant mess of very inspired but very unfinished mods that will never ever be completed. The base game itself is really cool but I can't force myself to play it for too long because it's just the same thing over and over. It's really satisfying to be the hero and win the battle for all your AI buddies, but after doing it 100 times I just can't anymore. I'm very excited for Mount and Blade: Bannerlord because supposedly it's going to be some kind of huge upgrade in terms of gameplay, Or that's what everyone else says. I'm really happy I got this game and it was fun while it lasted, which wasn't really as long as it had hoped for but it was at least something. This game is much better than most of the AAA-trash these days so I highly recommend it for being as good as it was.

This game is a masterpiece. It is difficult to succinctly explain why. There is no story beyond the one you create, so there's very little pulling you in any particular direction beside your ambition. Wanna get rich? Trade! Open businesses! Guard caravans! Wanna get rich through violence? Run a mercenary company! Rob caravans! Loot villages! Capture and ransom nobles and kings! Wanna overthrow a government? Take up the cause of a pretender to one of six thrones! Politics and violence will follow! Wanna marry into the nobility? Learn poetry! Woo your lady or laddie! Kiss their father's noble ass! Win tournaments! Host feasts! Get married! Get a castle! Wanna murder into the nobility? Lay siege to a city or castle! Take it over and declare yourself sovereign, beholden to no one! Good luck, I believe in you! Politics and violence will follow! Wanna lose sometimes? Get embarrassed! Get captured! Get dragged behind a horse for weeks on end, or thrown in a dungeon for months! Try the politics! Wanna conquer everything? It's possible. Without mods there isn't even a congratulatory splash screen. Wanna play fantastic mods? Buy this game already! No other game has come close to the freedom of the M&B series, and Warband is my favorite. Graphics, even with the new update, are behind the curve. Some players prefer a story to follow, rather than having to take the lead. Progress can be kind of slow. Combat, both personally and tactically, can be difficult. Politics is a game of compromise. For me, it all means the power fantasy feels earned, but for some people, it may be too much work. Any RPG player owes it to themselves to at least try the M&B series, and Warband is the most accessible. Get hooked.

Linux version doesn't have the launcher, any many settings cannot be set without it, including resolution setting. UI looks bad on widescreen resolution (16:9), UI and font is horribly stretched.