Mount & Blade

About

Mount & Blade is a role playing game game developed by Talewords,^[1] and has been released in various iterations for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and the Xbox.

Origin

The game started as family project of Armağan Yavuz and his wife İpek Yavuz.^[2] Early version was called Warrider and included storyline, fantasy elements and certain features that would later be removed. The game was released on Steam on September 16th, 2008.^[3]

Overview

The game takes place in fictional medieval land named Calradia. The player is free to choose his/her appearance, biography and skills. Gameplay wise, the player controls their character on the global map and is free to go wherever they want and do whatever they want. The world around the player changes dynamically: nations fight with each other, capturing cities and castles; peasants sell goods in towns; bandits raid villages. The player is free to choose one of 5 available factions to join: Kingdom of Swadia, Kingdom of Rhodoks, Kingdom of Nords, Kingdom of Vaegirs and Khergit Khanate.

Reception

Game received generally positive reviews. On Metacritic,^[4] the game has a score of 72/100. It's also received an 86/100 user score and 91% positive reviews on Steam.^[3] Users laud the innovative combat system, fresh gameplay and formed modding community.

Warband

A stand-alone sequel called Mount & Blade: Warband was released on Steam on March 31st, 2010. It added multiplayer, a new faction (Sarranid Sultanate), and the possibility to create your own kingdom.^[5]

Multiplayer

Multiplayer had a 64 player cap on release. However later it was increased to 200 and then to 240. Players could buy equipment before entering the battle. There are various game modes:

Siege – One team defends a castle with a flag inside, and the other team tries to capture it.
* Battle – Two teams fight each other, and the last team standing wins.
* Death Match – Every man for himself, and the player with the most kills wins.
* Team Death Match – Like Death Match, but team on team action.
* Duel – Duel people.
* Capture the flag – Get the flag and bring it to your base. You can't capture it while mounted. Team with most points wins.
* Invasion – Co-op game mode where players fight waves of AI soldiers.
* Conquest – Capture points and defend your own base. The team that reaches max points first or captures all enemy points and slaughters all remaining enemies wins.
* Search and destroy – Protect two structures from the enemy.
* Commander battle – Each player controls regiment of soldiers. When the player dies he/she starts to control one of their own troops.

Warband reception

Expansion recieved 78/100 from critics and 87/100 from players on Metacritic. On Steam, Warband has 97% positive reviews. People enjoyed multiplayer with 200 player cap, which is high for multiplayer game. Modding community grown in numbers and provided more mods.^[6]

Inside Jokes

• King Harlaus – The Kingdom of Swadia ruler, King Harlaus is notorious for holding a lot of feasts. He makes feasts even when his lands under attack, leaving land defenseless.
• Butter – Came from Floris module, where villages were full of butter when being looted due to bug.
• Cowardly rhodoks – Started from the fact that some people thought that Rhodoks are the best faction and some people countered their points by saying that they good only behind the walls.
• Ludus – Duel server. When a player has an issue with another, he says "1v1 me Ludus."
• Naked Greatsword Warrior – you can be naked and top tier 2 handed weapon can kill with 1 strike when it has enough speed. But greatsword is great, which is undebatable, so the legend begun.
• Catchphrases – there are several examples of catchphrases which became inside jokes in the community. in this game. Those phrases include, "It's almost harvesting season," "That's a nice head you have on your shoulders," "I will drink from your skull," "Away with you, vile beggar," and some others.
• Blee – Came from Napoleonic Wars DLC. You have ability to give orders and some of them are voiced. When you give order to shoot as Russian soldier it sounds like "blee." However, actually they are saying "пли"("plee"), which means "shoot".
• God shits on the Kaiser – also came from Napoleonic Wars DLC. Prussian soldiers have chance to yeall "Gott schutze den Kaiser", which translates as "God save the king", but people heard it as "God shits on the Kaiser."

Bannerlord Prequel

Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord is set in the fictional medieval continent of Calradia and is a prequel to Mount and Blade: Warband set 200 years before during the decline of the Calradic Empire. The game is set to be released for early access worldwide on March 31st, 2020.

Search Interest

External References