Recent reviews by Eldy

So after playing around with 3 different characters and accumulating almost 40 hours I've decided to write a review for this highly anticipated title I'm sure many of us waited years for. I am going to preface all of this with the fact that I can't outright recommend this game to newcommers to the series or anyone expecting a more polished product. Bannerlord has its fair share of issues due to its early access state, but I'm hopeful it will improve with time. That said, let's get into this!

Objectively, I'm going to compare the game to what most from the series are coming from: Warband. In many ways, Bannerlord is a straight improvement upon what we had.

The Good:

-Graphics (While dated, they are a step up from Warband, and highly immersive in epic battles)
-Castle Sieges! (A former brain dead part of the game has been fleshed out and improved in a very big way)
-Commanding/Tactics (Far more intuitive than Warband, with more options)
-Better Inventory Management (Possibly opinion based, but I feel they struck a good balance this time around)
-Talent-Tree-esque Progression (While limited in choice, It does feel rewarding unlocking those perks!)

So, let’s start with that. The graphics are a huge improvement from Warband, people look like people (even if half of them are asymmetrical nightmares) and battles feel more epic than ever with horses kicking up dirt as they trample through lines of infantry. It kicks butt! Castle Sieges capture that sense of dread be you a defender or attacker knowing how the entire battle can turn the second one of your defenses fail. You can hold off one wall the entire time, but once the enemy pours through the gates you’re hopelessly surrounded. Catapults and Ballistae launch their payload all the while bodies upon bodies are thrown from the parapets of each bloodied fortress. And then, so too are the tactics improved. Nothing serious, and maybe not as noticed by others, but I felt they were easier to use and felt a lot more confident multi-tasking commands in battle while actively fighting.

The inventory feels better being weight based rather than limited by a skill. It just makes sense you can carry more by employing more soldiers or tugging along a pack of mules or horses to carry the extra baggage.
Finally, the new skill system, while trimmed down has seen a revamp in terms of each individual skill now having a branching talent system with 1-2 choices every 25 skill levels. Sometimes they are ultimately unrewarding (1% movement speed for 50 scouting!), but its still a fun step in the right direction. I would like to see them improve upon this going forward. Especially since one of my biggest issues with this system was the incredibly slow leveling the game features- which brings me to the bad.

The Bad:

-Leveling is a Grind (My most recent game ended with the ai conquering the entire kingdom before I hit level 10...)
-Same ai? (If it has been improved, I haven't noticed. Horse Riders in arena are the perfect nod to this.)
-Restrictive Play (With only a handful of quests and a painstakingly slow leveling system, the game wears down the spirits after hours and hours of grinding for every inch of progression which only opens a small amount of new play options)
-Bugs Galore! (Not surprising for Early Access)
-They Forgot Women Exist (Ok so this one is a bit of a mixed bag)


Leveling is a serious pain in the butt. Arena no longer awards experience, and in the early game I found myself running a group of 40 soldiers who couldn’t keep up with the existing 8-10 man looter bands who out paced me. My only recourse was gaining experience through trading and bartering, which I wouldn’t exactly consider the most exciting part of a game centered around epic scale medieval battles.

Speaking of battles, the ai doesn’t seem to be improved at all, or very little at least. In a 30 v 30 battle against an opponent, they made a circle formation and hid back until we walked at them. After losing a dozen arrows and killing 3 of them, they all broke ranks and fled. Confusing to say the least. But outside of that we can look at arena ai to see horses still just get caught on walls and the ai forgets what to do, stabbing aimlessly as they’re rendered immobile.

Just as the ai find themselves restricted on horseback; we find ourselves restricted to what we can actually do. The quests are limited, barebones and often times can just be given to a follower to do for you anyway. Like previous iterations, we have to earn renown to become mercenaries to gain more renown to gain land to gain influence (a new, more specific type of renown for court politics within your kingdom.) to gain land or sway with our fellow vassals. In itself, it is a rewarding loop, but combined with the new grindy leveling and the limited pool of stuff you can do, it feels way slower to unlock the more fun aspects of the game (like laying siege to your enemy’s cities).

And, as we may expect, the game is riddled with bugs. Thankfully nothing that has outright crashed the game, but some frustrating tidbits here and there. The Family Feud quest gives you a named follower you’re supposed to escort to another village to confront an NPC and defend them from thugs. Well, most the time that NPC won’t notice they’re following you so you never get the quest prompt, and thus the thugs never attack. This means you fail the quest in 3 days after it expires because its unplayable. Fun! I’ve also noticed sometimes entire kingdoms will surrender to someone they’re at war with- this once led to a situation where one kingdom snowballed into tripling its size in a matter of one month in game. Within 2-3 months it was waging wars with 20,000 soldiers against the remaining ~2,000 something solder kingdoms would then instantly concede their land to them. I’m not really sure what this one is about, or if its even a bug! It could just be in game diplomacy being a bit untuned leading to such an escalation.

But, all that aside, and honestly the least important gripe I have about the game, but one that exists all the same: Women. What are they even? No seriously, I haven’t left my house in so many years, and it just became acceptable what with the quarantine and- oh god. Stop judging me!...

Jokes aside, what happened? There was some pretty blatant sexism in previous titles- what you would expect from a medieval era game. I enjoyed having to work at every little gain, just because of gender setting me back and these dumb lords not understanding I was their tactical superior. I recall vividly in Warband being treated differently when playing a female character, essentially playing the game on hard mode just to obtain land titles and even the respect of my peers. Now half the quests and dialogue refer to you as HE or HIM regardless of gender and there's seemingly no difference between playing either gender. Bit of an immersion bubble pop!

But, all of that aside we are left with Bannerlord. After 8 years in development, this is where Mount and Blade has gone. Overall? It’s still a solid title, and improvement from warband, albeit a step back in some regards. If you’re able to tolerate the grind and the bugs, feel free to buy the game! Otherwise, I highly implore you to hold off on buying this title until it’s out of early access, and a more polished piece of work.

I give Bannerlord a solid Fork / Spoon. Thanks for reading :)

You know, I've been playing Age of Empires as a series for nearly 3 decades now. Through highs and lows, several fish tanks on fire, and even the death of ensemble. But, you know what? All of those sacrifices along the way were worth it as we now are blessed by 4k Wololo's. It only took 20 years for the technology to catch up with this masterpiece, but god dang you know it was worth the weight.

With the slick new graphics, a handful of QoL improvements and even a new campaign to help players get into the multiplayer play style, I think AoE2 Definitive Edition is a new high for the series. I look forward to Age3 in the coming year with how well they handled this remake, as well as Age4 beyond that. But for now, we have this absolute gem to tide us over.