Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Has Finally Become More of an RPG Three Years After Launch

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord released as a sequel to the cult-classic Mount & Blade in 2022, garnering similar success to the original thanks to the game’s unique and incredible open-world sandbox mechanics. Though the game has plenty of roleplaying opportunities, its RPG mechanics never quite held up compared to other medieval roleplaying games, with the game lauded more for its grand strategy and large-scale combat mechanics. That hasn’t stopped Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord from expanding on its RPG aspirations however, with future content listed in a new update promising to make the game more of a roleplaying experience than ever before.

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, a game all about rising from peasantry to kingship in an open-world medieval map, has to sacrifice narrative and roleplay elements in a lot of areas to accommodate for the game’s open-world nature. There’s already a lot to do in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, from managing castles and towns to trading and fighting in grand battles. The game’s developers, a relatively small team based out of Ankara, had no choice but to make cuts to content in order to achieve the scale the game needed to be, well, Mount & Blade. As such, the game feels underwhelming when it comes to immersion, especially the lack of narrative or satisfying character creation.

Now three years after launch, the developers seek to add more roleplay potential and immersion into the game, so players can do more than command armies and capture cities during their playthroughs. A major new mechanic being added to the game is a robust stealth system, something that’s more or less a staple in other RPGS.

As described in the update post:

“The enemy AI will now detect sound and motion, becoming alerted by your actions through progressive levels of cautiousness. To succeed, you will need to not only carefully consider your position and movement, but also your environment – utilizing the elevation, darkness of the night, and natural cover to achieve your goals covertly.”

The act of infiltrating bandit camps or rescuing prisoners is no longer just a straightforward battle. Players looking to roleplay more of a cunning or stealthy character now have the ability to use stealth mechanics and disguises to sneak through these areas.

Such a small addition goes a long way in the already expansive game of Bannerlord; I’m giddy just thinking about the roleplaying potential in sneaking my favorite companion out from a damp prison cell in Charas or stealthily taking down bandits with my wife in a scorching Aserai cave.

Even more immersive is the addition of random events. Similar to how things work in Crusader Kings III, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord will be adding narrative events that pop up randomly while on the campaign map. These events are shaped by the situation in Calradia and the state of your lands, and will directly affect your character’s traits and possibly have other outcomes depending on the decisions you make.

This really is the feature that could drastically change the roleplaying potential of Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. As the post says, “Ideally, this will not just offer a new avenue of character development but add further life to the world of Calradia.” This is something that really depends on how the developers choose to implement them; a wealth of events, with varying degrees of effect on your playthrough and even permanent consequences, can really add flavor and impressiveness to a game that can otherwise sometimes feel like nothing more than a game of numbers. If the system is implemented with just a few narrative events with little actual impact on the game, it can end up feeling like more of a distraction than a real roleplaying opportunity, so here’s hoping the developers really hone in on this upcoming feature.

While these features are still yet to come, it is nevertheless impressive that the developers of Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord are still trying to make it more of an immersive, roleplaying experience. With so much to do in the game already, the addition of some strong narrative mechanics and more roleplaying opportunities can make each playthrough in this open-world sandbox feel like a true medieval adventure.