Release Plans

August and September have been exciting months - Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord finally got its release date (October 25th), pre-orders opened for consoles and many of you came to say Hi at Gamescom and Pax.

Steam post image Gamescom2022

And while it is a major milestone for the game to come to consoles, our announcement made it clear that this won’t be the end of the journey. This is what we want to talk to you about today.

Road to Release

As the release date approaches, we are preparing a number of additional updates that many of you have been eagerly anticipating.

For one, we really cannot leave our lords and ladies without a banner any longer. You may have already seen how they look in the recent demo footage, but, just in case, we have attached a screenshot below.

Steam post image Banner formations

The banners in the game will be equippable items that players and AI heroes can use to benefit the formations they lead in battle. Alongside them we will also be introducing new crafting pieces with cloth attachments. These won’t just allow players to create weapons with an extra bit of flair - they will add to the overall visual experience as troops are reequipped to carry them as well.

And while these changes will spice up our existing scenes, we have also been hard at work on new ones. Soon each of our 53 towns will be unique and the pool for castles, battle terrains and smaller locations like hideouts will also continue to be expanded. Of course, the world map will see further improvements as well.

To add onto this, we are finalizing a fundamental overhaul of the agent AI movement system, which helps NPCs deal with difficult terrain (like in sieges) and notably improves issues with congestion. It does so through a range of physics adjustments, better situational understanding and manners (waiting on the allies ahead) and by shifting away from a binary, cardinal input and towards a partial, 360 degree one - think keyboard vs controller. Naturally, you, the player, will still be able to play with either.

Steam post image Siege tower assault

Now, looks and movement are important - but so is audio. Accordingly, we are quite happy to say that AI characters will soon receive the first iteration of voice overs for storyline dialogues and greetings. Conversations in general will also benefit from a range of new and updated facial expressions.

Voice over, Imperial mentor Arzagos

Beyond these, the recently shared custom servers, battle mode and multiplayer modding will continue to receive support. Much like them, the steam workshop is also being tested with a number of our community members. Thanks to that, it should become available to you in the near future.

Steam post image Multiplayer battle event on a custom server

Finally, many of you have asked about achievements - they as well as steam trading cards, backgrounds and emoticons are scheduled to arrive with the game’s release.

Post-Release

By this time all of the above should be in your hands and we look forward to your thoughts on these additions. Naturally, we are also quite excited to learn how you like the game on consoles.

Our intention at this point is to continue making improvements based on your feedback. Having said that, there are already plans for a number of specific features and tweaks that we can discuss with you now.

To begin with, we return to a classic - early in