PC Gamer - UK (2022-02)

I

n the 400-something
hours I’ve clocked in
the Mount and Blade
games, I’ve rarely
bumped the difficulty
above easy. It only provides a
handful of bonuses: reduced
damage, decreased troop upkeep, a
speed boost on the overworld map.
But as those bonuses interact with
all of Mount and Blade’s systems,
they cascade until your character
has a gravity that pulls the game off
its axis and into chaos. It’s a rare
image of protagonism, with you
playing the monster.

It would be terrifying to share a
world with a player character. You’d
be coexisting with someone who
literally operates under a different set
of rules, casually warping reality as
easily as they breathe. They act in
ways that you can’t, and the world
reacts in ways it won’t for you. For no
discernible reason, the universe has
chosen them as its sole fascination.
In plenty of cases, there’s
in-universe justification to paint over
the existential horror: the main
character’s the chosen one of some
divine entity, went to the best secret
agent school, or has a dragon’s soul in
there somewhere. But games where
your character’s theoretically just as
mundane as anyone else can turn into
a kind of morbid spectacle.
Imagine you’re the Vlandian
noble from my recent Bannerlord
campaign. For the last month, you’ve
heard rumours of a stranger who
appeared as if from nowhere. With
only a dozen gathered peasants,
they’ve stamped out the region’s
banditry, carting in apprehended
highwaymen for the city ransom
brokers twice a day. Now they stand

before you, offering their services as

a mercenary in your king’s war effort.

You can’t be blamed for what follows.

You see only a probably-filthy

vigilante; how could you know

they’re just one cavalry lance’s worth

of mercenary wages away from being

a regicidal apex predator?

Within a month of sealing their

contract, you have cause for concern.

The first time you fight alongside the

stranger, you watch bewildered as

they wade into the fray, shrugging off

blows that should be fatal. Death

casually overlooks those who fight

under their command – in weeks,

their pitchfork-wielding companions

become an elite fighting force,

leaping through upgrade tiers and

hundreds of weapon skill points.

Your peers share strange stories:

how even merchants in enemy

holdings seem incapable of refusing

every blunted axe the stranger offers

to barter for fresh provisions.

Another lord swears he watched

them leave their own horse mid-

battle to leap into the saddle of the

Imperial cavalryman they’d just

skewered, only to see “how much

higher its handling rating was”.

When the king grants the stranger

vassalage and the realm’s poorest fief

as a token for their wartime

contributions, your fellows among

the nobility reassure themselves,

insisting he’ll have no further cause

to entertain the upstart’s ambition.

Within weeks, you watch with

horror as the stranger conquers the

coastal city of Ortysia with only 200

soldiers, besting a fortified garrison

four times their number. As the city’s

new lord, they linger only long

enough to appoint someone to tend

its affairs in their absence.

KINGDOM RUSH

Years pass. You can’t remember how

many wars have followed the

Western Empire’s fall. Some of its

lords sit beside you at Vlandia’s court,

while your closest countrymen kneel

to other crowns – fealty is a fickle

thing, when the only thing between

you and the cost of rebuilding your

holdings and armies is a certain

warrior’s attention span.

Meanwhile, despite the newly-

declared war against Battania, they’ve

ridden off to the far side of the

Calradian continent. Their warband

followed, robbing Vlandia of its most

capable defenders just so they could

see how they look with one of those

cool helmets the Khuzaits sell.

On their return journey, they

happen across the Battanian king’s

party in the field, prompting the

stranger’s realisation that they’ve

never seen what happens when they

behead a monarch. It’s just the latest

terror in a world where the stranger’s

victories are an inevitability. You take

solace, at least, in the fact that it

hasn’t occurred to them to declare

their own kingdom. You have no way

of knowing they need just a few more

battles’ worth of renown to do so.

NEED TO KNOW

RELEASE
March 30, 2020

PUBLISHER
In-house

DEVELOPER

TaleWorlds Entertainment

LINK

bit.ly/31fFNQ3

BANNERLORE

Study of a pillaging

protagonist

DEATH CASUALLY OVERLOOKS

THOSE WHO FIGHT UNDER

THEIR COMMAND

1

Hungry, loot-

appraising gaze.

2

Axe paid for with

dozens of tons of

stolen butter.

3

Shield with custom

bad Sonic fanart

heraldry (not shown).

4

Hauberk won with

uncanny bludgeoning

talent in melee tourney.

5

Steadfast equine

comrade, inevitable

arrow magnet.

1

2

3

5 4

EXTRA LIFE

NOW PLAYING I UPDATE I MOD SPOTLIGHT I HOW TO I DIARY I WHY I LOVE (^) I REINSTALL I M U S T P L A Y
LEFT: (^) Vlandian militia
begin to charge.
Off-screen, their
enemies calculate
their gear’s sell price.