If you missed out on the fuss about Mount & Blade: Warband, let us quickly fill you in. It is a popular medieval simulator ported from PC, in which you create your character and their backstory and set off into the world. What you do from there is up to you, whether you choose to go and be a swine or a sweetheart. You're not going to step off into the world looking like Brad Pitt or Kim K, but you'll bear a passing resemblance to human that looks as though it emerged from Dragon's Dogma's character creator.
Feb 20, 2018 - These mods allow players to add new building models, unique items,. We will of course keep looking at solutions for our players on PS4 as well. Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword Mount & Blade: Warband Europa. Aug 22, 2018 - Mods, combat, sieges, trailers, and skills - here's everything we know. Set 200 years before the first game, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. If you want to be better at one-handed combat, simply do lots of. Multiplayer only came to the first Mount & Blade as part of the Warband standalone expansion.
The safest place to start is the tutorial, and for a good reason. The combat on Xbox One is just terrible, and combat on horseback is nothing short of torture, but I'll touch on horseback combat mechanics in a moment. Long ranged combat -- using bow and arrows, javelins and crossbows is tolerable, yet still somewhat inaccurate judging on having to aim high and to the left to make contact with the skulls you have to hit. The sword mechanics are painful. Using the right trigger button to attack, you also have to aim the right stick to perform the strike at that direction. An overhead slash is performed by pushing up, but the camera is also mapped to the right stick! While I'm fighting against stunted and gormless looking AI opponents who wouldn't be out of place in an HG Wells movie, I don't want to feel like I'm flailing wildly with a sword. You don't have to use directional attacks, but they do help, especially since your opponent will certainly use them against you.
Horseback combat, or horseback anything is like fighting with a child throwing a tantrum in a supermarket. You want them to go this way, but they won't. The parent has to coax the child towards the goal with gentle physical persuasion. And then the kid speeds off, and now you've missed the cereal. It's the same is with these damn horses.
During training, you need to hit some targets from horseback while riding around a corral. Perhaps you should just turn the horse into glue now and save yourself the effort later.
The tutorial is terrible. It's difficult to be polite about it, and in all honesty, it was almost enough to scare me about what the rest of the game holds.
I was glad to persevere. Very quickly, the horsey aftertaste of the tutorial faded, and I was quickly plunged into this surprisingly pleasantly flavored and immersive open world.
Some of the scenery within the towns reminds me of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, though everything has a much sharper edge to it. The clarity of the graphics is starkly contrasted against the poor movement speed -- there's more than enough time to take in the scenery when you're trying to look anywhere other than at your character's awkward twisted running animation. If anything, Mount & Blade is better played in first person view since many of the glaring visual issues you may have are significantly lessened (and even the combat is a little more tolerable). Overall, Mount & Blade looks dated.
Setting off on your journey to make a name for yourself like a medieval Dick Whittington just leaves so much to your own choice. It's unexpectedly easy to overlook dated graphics when there is so much to figure out and do.
There isn't much variation between each of the smaller towns. When you enter a town, you're met with an overview screen which details whether or not the town is flourishing, and what the town is particularly productive at making. If you're smart, you can work out which items are best to trade between which towns and cities, making yourself a load of Dinars to hire extra hands with.
Hiring additional soldiers from neighboring cities and villages enables you to cross the expanse of the land (most often on foot, damn horses). During your cross country ramblings, you are likely to fall foul to attackers if your party isn't particularly large. After being kidnapped by a rowdy bunch of fellows, who then ceremoniously dumped me literally on the other side of the map, I decided to get a crew together for protection. Now whenever I run across would-be attackers, my extra swordhands make mincemeat of them, and then I sell the asailants to the nearest slave trader. Just call me Jorah Mormont. Party morale decreases if you recruit the criminals to your team, and you don't want your battle-hardened soldiers deserting you in your time of need. While I mention it, make sure you have gold to pay for their services. Wars weren't won with kisses.
There are so many quests to partake in, though some of them I've not worked out how to even start. In some quests, you're given an objective and a timeframe to do it in. This usually results in the locals taking kindly to you and eventually helping you out in turn. Unfortunately, the very first quest I attempted failed. Shepherding sheep shouldn't be brain surgery, but I was stumped if I could actually get the sheep to move. I could select them to be herded but they would just vanish after a while, making it unclear whether it was bugged.
You can talk to anyone you see, asking them questions about how life is in this town, but they'll all tell you the same things, recounting their town history in the meantime.
If you played the game with little-to-no combat at all, it would be considerably boring; but the combat mechanics are so clunky and wild that it doesn't really feel like fighting. Perhaps there's a finesse required that I haven't achieved, and am unlikely to with my 'close my eyes and stab away' methodology. Fighting is a big downside, but with better armor and weapons, in time you should at least be able to weather more hits before you die.
It's difficult not to expect more regarding exploration and NPC interaction. You can't enter any buildings beyond the main castles and the taverns, and you can't interact with anything. We're a bit spoilt with open world environments lately, what with the likes of Elder Scrolls and Fallout, and we've fallen into a trap of our own expectations.
The warring factions across the lands add an air of political intrigue, as the actions you take for one country or another will help stoke or calm the fires. I get the feeling, particularly for new players and early game, that the life of crime is, in fact, the easiest. Since you can repair relations with towns and cities for doing good deeds, rustling off a few cattle now and again for money doesn't make me bad, does it?
Summary
I've spent the majority of the time in Mount & Blade traveling from town to town, being a general bit of a swine and just generally finding the direction of how I want to shape things. It won't try to feed you a story, as that part is entirely up to you.
Cons:
- Poor combat mechanics
- Even worse horse riding mechanics
- Dated (though upscaled) interfaces
- Lack of variety in NPC dialogue options
There is much more time to sink into the game, and a larger part of me looks forward to it. Mount & Blade: Warband isn't supremely polished and swanky, but it is enjoyable, and there is enough intrigue to keep anyone entertained if they can see beyond its datedness. The fighting mechanics and the horse-riding need overhauling entirely for it to be a great game, but in the meantime, Warband is a good game to spend a few hours at a time in.
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This review was conducted on Xbox One using a code provided by the developer.
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Turkish game developer TaleWorld’s 2012 masterpiece Mount & Blade: Warband drew a lot of attention from the gamers, especially from the RPG fans. The singleplayer threw players in a vast, open-ended world with plenty of options but that wasn’t what made Warband stay alive for 8 years.
Considering the fact that from a technical standpoint, Warband was outdated even when it came out, the game should have been dead years ago. The graphics are 15 years old and the sound design is not too shabby either. But what kept this game alive were 2 things: an amazing gameplay with an easy-to-learn-but-extremely-hard-to-master combat and the huge modding community. Ever since the game was launched, developers welcomed the modding community and the game was open to all kinds of modifications and this gave way to thousands of different mods. And if you are still one of those people that play Warband regularly, we have compiled a list of the best Mount & Blade: Warband mods for you to change things up.
12 Mount and Blade Warband Best Mods
We have also added download links of all聽mount and blade Warband mods below there description.
1. The Last Days of the Third Age
One of the best total conversion mods that was created for the original Mount & Blade was conversed to be able to run on Warband. As you can understand from the title, this mod lets you play the events of the Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings novels. All the factions of the Middle Earth are available for you to play as and there are many fun side activities. There are different races with different bonuses/penalties and all of the gear and items reflect the Middle-Earth. If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, this mod alone is worth buying Warband for.
Download it here.
2. Decapitate and Dismember
Mount & Blade: Warband has one of the most simple-looking yet really hard to master combat systems. The directional attacks and blocks make each encounter a test of reflexes and guess. During all that, landing a perfect slice to your enemy’s neck feels extremely satisfying, but what if told you that it can get better? As its name suggests, Decapitate and Dismember mod lets you decapitate and dismember your enemies and watch their heads and limbs fly off.
Download it here.
3. Bear Force 2
If you do not own the original Mount & Blade and therefore cannot play the brilliant Star Wars mod that is Star Wars Conquest, Bear Force II is probably the best Star Wars total conversion mod for Warband. It is a multiplayer only tactical shooter taking place in the Star Wars Universe. It has 6 factions with each having multiple different classes and a unique shooting and force system. From normal infantryman to jet troopers to using force with Sith/Jedis, there is a lot of detailed, fun content here for Star Wars fans.
Download it here.
4. Full Invasion 2
If you ever feel lonely in the vast world of Warband, Full Invasion 2 can spice things up with its co-op survival formula. You can team up with other players and battle countless waves of invaders and bosses to survive as long as possible. There are various different maps, classes, enemy types and bosses. As it is one of the most fun mods to play with your friends, it is no surprise that it has been rated by the community numerous times as the most popular multiplayer mod.
Download it here.
5. Blood and Steel
Blood and Steel is like a semi-total conversion mod; it changes a lot from the vanilla game but does not create a whole new universe/story. It rebalances a lot of the mechanics, improves visuals and effects, a new economy and adds hundreds of new items. If you have played the vanilla singleplayer and got bored from it, this mod is a nice change of pace.
Download it here.
6. H.O.T.D.
If you are bored from the classic medieval style of the vanilla game or all the other mods and just want to try something entirely different, H.O.T.D. (short for Highschool of the Dead) is probably the craziest Mount & Blade: Warband out there. You are thrown into a Japan that is infested with zombies and you try to survive with various weapons, characters and enemies. There are 4 factions: high schoolers, police, the Takagi mob family and the zombies themselves. It is not without its problems but if you want to turn Warband into something crazy and unrecognizable, this mod takes the cake.
Download it here.
7. Gekokujo
If you like Japanese history or anything samurai-related, this Warband mod is for you since it takes the game’s singleplayer into the Sengoku period of Japan. Just like the vanilla game, you will start from nothing and attempt to gain control of the entire country. The mod itself contains more content than the native game: 32 towns, 72 castles, and 161 villages. Of course, entire weapon, armor and item inventory is changed to fit the theme of the era and there a whopping number of 20 factions.
Download it here.
8. Warsword Conquest
Right now you may be asking “Is there a fantasy world that isn’t modded into Mount & Blade?” and the answer to that is probably no. Warsword Conquest is a total conversion mod for Mount & Blade: Warband that takes us into the world of Warhammer. There are races from the books such as orcs, dwarves, elves, vampires, Skaven and Lizardmen and you can play as any one of these. Of course, just like any total conversion mod, there are new weapons, armor and items. If you own Warband and like Warhammer, it is a no-brainer.
Download it here.
9. A World of Ice and Fire
Another great total conversion mod for Warband that is featuring another awesome fantasy world, A World of Ice and Fire takes us to the world of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. You create your own house and challenge the Seven Kingdoms and try to claim the Iron Throne by battling and betraying your opponents. The mod is complete as it stands today and it was last updated in this June. There are a plethora of new armor sets, weapons and items and the entire map is changed to fit the Game of Thrones universe. For the fans of series, this mod is a must-try.
Download it here.
10. Prophesy of Pendor
Unlike most of the mods we listed here, Prophesy of Pendor does not take you into a well-known fantasy universe, it rather creates its own and does a quite good job at that. It tries to find a sweet spot between the generic medieval theme of the native game and the fantasy-fiction themes with a low fantasy setting. You play as a hero with an aim of uniting the lords of Pendor under a single Ruler again. Now, as the developers said, “Prepare to enter the world of Pendor and accept the challenge of the Prophesy – if you dare.”.
Download it here.
11. 1776 American Revolution
Just like its name suggests, 1776 American Revolution takes us back into the times of American revolution. You do not have to fight for rebels; you can side with Britain to even join the Native Americans that see both rebels and Britain as the same. Of course, every single item is replaced to fit the era with the guns are being the most significant change and the original map is replaced by a piece of North America. If you wanted more from the Mount & Blade standalone DLC Napoleonic Wars, this is the mod for you.
Download it here.
12. Floris Mod Pack
If you were looking for more gameplay-changing or bug-fixing mods rather than total conversion mods, we were saving this one for the last since it combines a lot of great small Warband mods together. This mod pack enhances native gameplay by combining a wide range of mods provided by the Warband community. Additionally to the new troop trees, it offers improvements in gameplay, graphics and many other areas. It has 3 different levels: basic, gameplay, and expanded versions and you can choose among them depending on how much of a change you want. This is the best聽mount and blade warband graphics mod.
Download it here.
Also Read:Games like mount and blade warband
So there they are, the best Mount & Blade: Warband mods to try out we waiting for the upcoming sequel, Mount & Blade: Bannerlord. If you have a favorite fantasy and/or historical setting, chances are there is an M&B mod for it and we tried to list the best ones among them here. From the futuristic Star Wars to the world of Game of Thrones, it is up to you to decide which free mod you want to install. Until the release of Bannerlord, start modding!