Mou n t & B l a d e II: Bannerlord

This time, TaleWorlds wants you to talk it out

fter a while, tactics and strategy no longer come into play. This is just combat,” says the developer showing me Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. After an elegant defense firing arrows from the battlements, he’s standing shoulder to shoulder with allied troops, swinging his axe wildly. There’s blood. There’s so much blood.

AAction-RPG Bannerlord has been in development for five years now, and it shows in the little details—smoke and debris on the battlefield, crumpled corpses of attackers filled with arrows. It’s the same game as before, where you gather armies and power, and plough through the game map getting into huge fights. It’s just a more picturesque slaughter now, a long way from Warband’s wonky aesthetic. There’s a sense of barely restrained chaos as bodies clash, and siege engines roll to the gates.

It all started so tidily too, being laid out similarly to a Total War game, unit by unit behind the castle walls. A few minutes later, the developer was dropping rocks through a hole onto the people below, while ladders and siege towers vomited enemy soldiers into the skirmish raging across the battlements.

It’s barely constrained chaos, but it didn’t have to be. The game has a solid diplomacy system—instead of just visiting nearby castles and warbands to chat with the aristocracy, now you’re wheedling for favors, or trying to negotiate. This will have

If you can sneak into a village and Assassinate someone, the AI can too