With over 1000 hours in Warband (starting as the armored person in a mp server afraid of the naked greatsword to becoming the naked greatsword), 50 hours spent in the closed beta, and feverishly staying up till 4 am to buy the game when it finally came out (only for steam to break for a solid thirty minutes, making me and my friends who also stayed up to buy it panic) Bannerlord is an interesting beast.

I speak from a primarily singleplayer POV but a lot of people skim over a lot of smaller but very much needed changes, some being ones I never even thought of, from Warband to Bannerlord.
One of the most important things, that you'll be seeing almost all the time is the overworld map and UI. Oh lord do I love the new UI. All the information that you need is right in front of you, no more constantly opening your inventory to make sure you have enough food, no more checking reports to see if your morale is ok, no more trying to hover your army as it's moving to see how quick it's moving. It's all right there. It doesn't take up anymore space than the UI of warband but it's so much more useful.

The new map is gigantic. Like at least 5 times, maybe more, larger than Warband. And the map is finely detailed and looks so much better than Warband's. The guy on the map that symbolizes you has been changed to literally be a tiny version of your character and his horse(if you have a horse)

I know I keep comparing everything to a previous title and that the game should stand on it's own but honestly I think if I had to choose which one I'd rather own it would be this one. Don't even get me started on how much better talking to npcs, trading, tournaments, vassalage, lord interaction, "marshalls" (hint there is no marshall so you can finally assemble an army of lords without first having to become marshall, a different system is in place), even the inventory screen and prisoner selling has been cleaned up and are so much better.

The battle maps are honestly gorgeous. Playing as Khuzaits (horse lords of the steppes) nothing is more beautiful than a horde of horseman charging through the steppes at sunset. It's a sight to behold. The animations are so much lifelike, even death. It makes every strike, every arrow, every throwing weapon feel weighty and powerful and so satisfying to use. You don't get that with warband. I know people like the ease of Warbands combat but it lacked depth, it allowed people to cheese (in multiplayer) with Bannerlord the combat feels fluid and weighty. With momentum flowing through strikes, it feels awesome.

The game is not without fault I will admit. There are bugs, crashes, there are optimization issues (a memory leak I keep having to deal with), the factions are not exactly all created equal(Sturgia used to roll every faction in mp because their berserkers were way too strong, even going full archers wasn't enough) but TaleWorlds has done nothing but improved their "child". The first two days of release 3 patches were released to fix the most pressing issues people were having. I have full faith that the game will do nothing but get better and I will end up with even more hours than I do in Warband.

With over 1000 hours in Warband (starting as the armored person in a mp server afraid of the naked greatsword to becoming the naked greatsword), 50 hours spent in the closed beta, and feverishly staying up till 4 am to buy the game when it finally came out (only for steam to break for a solid thirty minutes, making me and my friends who also stayed up to buy it panic) Bannerlord is an interesting beast. I speak from a primarily singleplayer POV but a lot of people skim over a lot of smaller but very much needed changes, some being ones I never even thought of, from Warband to Bannerlord. One of the most important things, that you'll be seeing almost all the time is the overworld map and UI. Oh lord do I love the new UI. All the information that you need is right in front of you, no more constantly opening your inventory to make sure you have enough food, no more checking reports to see if your morale is ok, no more trying to hover your army as it's moving to see how quick it's moving. It's all right there. It doesn't take up anymore space than the UI of warband but it's so much more useful. The new map is gigantic. Like at least 5 times, maybe more, larger than Warband. And the map is finely detailed and looks so much better than Warband's. The guy on the map that symbolizes you has been changed to literally be a tiny version of your character and his horse(if you have a horse) I know I keep comparing everything to a previous title and that the game should stand on it's own but honestly I think if I had to choose which one I'd rather own it would be this one. Don't even get me started on how much better talking to npcs, trading, tournaments, vassalage, lord interaction, "marshalls" (hint there is no marshall so you can finally assemble an army of lords without first having to become marshall, a different system is in place), even the inventory screen and prisoner selling has been cleaned up and are so much better. The battle maps are honestly gorgeous. Playing as Khuzaits (horse lords of the steppes) nothing is more beautiful than a horde of horseman charging through the steppes at sunset. It's a sight to behold. The animations are so much lifelike, even death. It makes every strike, every arrow, every throwing weapon feel weighty and powerful and so satisfying to use. You don't get that with warband. I know people like the ease of Warbands combat but it lacked depth, it allowed people to cheese (in multiplayer) with Bannerlord the combat feels fluid and weighty. With momentum flowing through strikes, it feels awesome. The game is not without fault I will admit. There are bugs, crashes, there are optimization issues (a memory leak I keep having to deal with), the factions are not exactly all created equal(Sturgia used to roll every faction in mp because their berserkers were way too strong, even going full archers wasn't enough) but TaleWorlds has done nothing but improved their "child". The first two days of release 3 patches were released to fix the most pressing issues people were having. I have full faith that the game will do nothing but get better and I will end up with even more hours than I do in Warband.