Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
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Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord - PC & Consoles Official Release
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Critic Reviews for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
Despite some shallow ancillary systems, Bannerlord is the master of medieval warfare
A shallow grind of an overworld strategy game threatens to ruin enjoyment of Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord's unique and sublimely gritty tactical action.
My return to Calradia wasn't entirely jubilant, though Mount & Blade 2 Bannerlord is a game I'll likely stick with, simply due to my love of the original. A wealth of new systems and activities help this sandbox strategy sim feel more alive than ever, though the busywork required to get anywhere can feel like a grind. Overall, existing fans will rejoice while newcomers may look on unimpressed, unsure what all the fuss is about.
Grind and jank aside, there is nothing else like a Mount and Blade game, and Bannerlord is undisputably the best one yet. Its uniqueness alone makes it worth playing. To talk about it that way is to do it a disservice though; the true marvel of Bannerlord is that it actually delivers on what is an astonishingly ambitious concept. The two halves of the game complement each other perfectly. It may be on a slow boil, but once it gets up a head of steam, you won't be able to put it down.
Like Total War, when the players massive armies clash in battle it is a sight to behold, luckily the game offers the option to simulate battles and watch the AI troops clash. This, to me was massively more enjoyable than trying to struggle through the games clunky combat. While I loved the depth offered in the RPG elements of the world, I came away disappointed enough by the combat that is just made the whole experience feel like a chore to play; combine that with the lack of a real story and I Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord just didn’t turn out to be the total medieval simulator game I was hoping for.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord roundly excels because it lets players be whatever they want to be and rather than penalise those choices, instead makes players own those decisions and provide a peerless theatre for them to thrive. Though technically not perfect, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord invites players to weave their own tapestry of ambition and be whomever they like in their own Game of Thrones, letting them wage war, engage in diplomacy, fight in the arenas, trade illicit goods, be a town alderman and absolutely everything in between in one of the most ambitious PS5 games to date. If you'll let it, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord II will become your new obsession. And you should.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord combines RPG mechanics with grand strategy and features battles so epic they can be overwhelming at times. It has some rough edges, and the interface can be unwieldy, but at its core lies a roleplaying experience that is virtually unrivalled in scope - especially on console.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord comes back with improvements to everything we liked about the previous games and some new systems as well. However, it's not a perfectly polished game, so you'll have to navigate a few edges on your path to restore/destroy the Empire.
