Death Stranding, the walking simulator about the sad Deliveroo man, is finally out on PC, allowing thousands of keyboard clackers to decode the complex metaphors embedded within such characters as “Mama”, a woman with a baby, and “Heartman”, a man with a pacemaker, played here by an aging and tired Danny Wallace. Look beyond the sub-textual nuance of such masterful creations, however, and you will find a half-decent delivery ‘em up. But is reliable postboy Sam Porter Bridges (a transporter who builds bridges) one of the 7 best couriers in PC games? You can find out by reading closely between the lines of this list.
]]>It's time to saddle up and ride out, for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord entered early access this morning. The long-awaited follow-up to Warband (one of the best RPGs, don't you know?) will once again send us out to ride around a sandbox medieval world, raising armies, politicking, laying siege, and charging around big battlefields with hundreds of soldiers throwing down. But if you'd rather wait for the full and finished game, it's expected to leave early access in "around a year." For now, onwards to the launch trailer!
]]>Horses, that’s this week’s topic. Big galloping buddies full of teeth and flies. Brush ‘em, ride ‘em, put ‘em in your videogame. The RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, will appreciate it because this episode the pod squad are talking about their favourite saddlepals from the fantastical realms of this bewildering industry. Horses. They’re like big cats.
]]>The Elder Scrolls games delight zero-to-hero fantasists by introducing you as a prisoner in every installment. Shackled on a ship, locked away in a keep, transported to the block on a prisoner’s cart. It’s a nice tradition, the reincarnation of the world-saving pluralist nobody, always in chains. But these games lack true resolve. They set you free immediately, after serving practically no time at all. And off you go to become the hero.
In Mount and Blade you spend days locked in a dungeon, getting kicked by guards.
]]>And as the dust settles over King's Landing (and your TV), the Game Of Thrones concludes until George R. R. Martin finishes writing his own take on the finale. Where does that leave a fan desperate for their next hit of medieval grimness and scheming? Fan-fiction, probably. Or, thanks to the wonders of modding, interactive self-insert fan-fiction!
Today I'm taking a look at two massive Game Of Thrones mods for medieval mercenary sim Mount & Blade: Warband that are vying for a prize greater than any uncomfortable-looking (and now rather warm) throne; your free time.
]]>We've already seen which games sold best on Steam last year, but a perhaps more meaningful insight into movin' and a-shakin' in PC-land is the games that people feel warmest and snuggliest about. To that end, Valve have announced the winners of the 2017 Steam Awards, a fully community-voted affair which names the most-loved games across categories including best post-launch support, most player agency, exceeding pre-release expectations and most head-messing-with. Vintage cartoon-themed reflex-tester Cuphead leads the charge with two gongs, but ol' Plunkbat and The Witcher series also do rather well - as do a host of other games from 2017's great and good.
Full winners and runners-up below, with links to our previous coverage of each game if you're so-minded. Plus: I reveal which game I'd have gone for in each category.
]]>The third death was probably the most painful. Not pain in the normal sense - I can’t feel what the little armoured swordsmen of Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord [official site] feel - but the pain of a shameful defeat. I’ve just had a go at TaleWorlds’ upcoming swordfighting-meets-strategy-meets-RPG at Gamescom. Sadly the singleplayer was off limits, but I did get to do some medieval multiplayer mauling. I was stabbed soundly and repeatedly, in case you were wondering, left to die in a pool of blood on the hot sand of a desert map. At this point I would just warp into another soldier. He too was often killed.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
There's some eras of warfare that seem impossible to recreate in a first-person shooter, and the idea of standing in rows and exchanging volleys with another group of gents also standing in rows seems like one of them. Yet, Napoleonic Wars [Steam page] is one of my favourite multiplayer shooter mods ever. See, while you're free to just hop online and join in chaotic public matches, you're much better served joining one of the many regiments that engage in historically-proper battles with loads of rules for what you can and can't do at any given time. Raised your rifle or spoken out of turn without the captain's orders? That's a lashin'.
]]>Why did the knight stop using the internet? Because he was sick of chainmail. Wee medieval joke to get you warmed up there. Melee: Battlegrounds is a 13th Century multiplayer warfare romp being developed by the folks that brought you the cRPG mod for Mount & Blade: Warband. Or at least, it was . Following a failed Kickstarter, the game fled into the forests of the Unknown. But now it has rallied under the funding of Northern Ireland Screen and has returned to the field of battle with a new name – Of Kings And Men [official site]. There are also some fresh details, including plans to create a persistent online world in which you can explore the countryside and be battered to death with a mace. Oh, and it’s coming to Early Access this month.
]]>We already chose 13 of our favourite games in the current Summer Steam sale, but more games have been discounted since. So, based on the entirely correct hypothesis that you all have completed every single one of our first round games and are now thirsting for more, here are 18 more to throw your spare change at. Everyone on the RPS team has picked three stone-cold personal favourites, making for a grand old set of excellent PC games: here's what we chose and why.
]]>At the intersection of Total War, Crusader Kings and the Elder Scrolls, there is Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord [official site]. Incorporating siege warfare, with hundreds of characters on-screen at a time, as well as diplomacy, roleplaying and strategic simulation, it’s a living world in which the player can act on the periphery or work their way into a central role. At E3, I saw a siege play out, up close and personal, and it looked absolutely stunning. But it’s the machinery making the whole thing tick that impressed me more than the spectacle.
]]>Mount & Blade: Warband is an old game to be writing about. But despite its age and flaws it remains surprisingly popular among fans of medieval jousting and RPG politicking. And with a sequel somewhere on the horizon now is as good a time as any to revisit that world, which is exactly what Brendan has done. Read on, serf!
]]>Mount & Blade: Warband is one of my favourite games but I haven't played it for a long time. In part, that's because I've been waiting for the sequel, Bannerlord [official site], since it was announced four years ago. After over half a decade of development, details about the game have started to emerge and I spoke to Armagan Yavuz, CEO and Founder of developers TaleWorlds, to find out how the team are aiming to improve on the dynamic world of the original. We talked combat, historical influence, settlement management, co-operative possibilities, modding and AI.
]]>Caribbean! [official site] is basically 'Mount & Blade With Pirates!', built on the M&B: Warband engine and engaging in the usual open-world RPG faction warfare. But in their haste to leave Steam Early Access, developers Snowbird Games cut a lot of planned features so they could push it out. Turns out, players actually wanted some of those. Snowbird today announced they're revisiting Caribbean! and next month will release an improved, expanded, new standalone version named Blood & Gold: Caribbean! - which will be free to everyone who owns Caribbean! Exclamation mark!
]]>For the rest of this weekend Mount & Blade: Warband [official site] is free on Steam, finally bringing an answer to the question on everyone's lips: "What is free this weekend is it Mount & Blade?" It is! Along with all its expansions - Mount & Blade: Napoleonic Wars and Viking Conquest Reforged Edition are also both free. Imagine me bellowing this information to you like a television mattress salesmen.
]]>When Mount & Blade: Warband's [official site] pillaging add-on Viking Conquest launched in December, it was low on content and high on bugs. Developers Brytenwalda (named after the famous Warband Viking mod they made first) have been fixing it up since then, and today it's deemed done enough for a relaunch.
A big update has brought great gobs of new content, along with a new name: Viking Conquest Reforged Edition. It's a free update for folks who already own it, of course.
]]>"Avast me hearties! Shiver me timbers and prepare to be boarded," I might say, "as piratical mount 'em up Caribbean! [dev's site] has launched."
I wouldn't, though, because the common perceptions of pirates' speech is a bit wonky and what kind of a monster would spread myth as stone-cold fact? I mean, people who find it funny, sure. And saying "Arrrr!" is fun. Anyway, I would roll with similar facts: Caribbean! (exclamation mark and all) is built on the Mount & Blade engine, and does have Mount & Blade-y gameplay with extra guns and pirates and naval battles boshed in, and it is out. Arrrr!
]]>Roughly a week ago, the lads behind the Brytenwalda mod released the Viking Conquest DLC for Mount & Blade Warband. Replete with hundreds of cities to burn down and hundreds more people to bother, Viking Conquest promised a Dark Age Britain that is supposed to contain authentic scenes, scheming companions, bickering religious people, and... stuff.
]]>Oh, I know you're still awake. You didn't think old Alice would catch you keen to see blood, guts, and gore in the midnight movie, did you? Don't worry. Even this old maid was young once. I've split a skull or two in my time, I don't mind telling you. Come on, budge up. Let's have a look at this killing together. Melee: Battlegrounds is made by folks behind Mount & Blade: Warband's cRPG mod, don't you know? Ayup, they're turning to Kickstarter to fund their own standalone medieval multiplayer murderfest.
]]>The Mount & Blade games offer more freedom than your average RPG, allowing players to live all kinds of different lives within their sprawling open worlds. The price for that freedom, and those densely populated siege battles, is that the games are more clumsy and basic in terms of animation, physics and model detail. While watching this impressive trailer for Viking Conquest, a new expansion for M&B: Warband, it occurred to me that the lack of polish has the effect of also making the game seem more believable.
Watch.
]]>Mount & Blade II is looking awfully fancy, but don't expect to play it any time soon. If you want more armies and more lands to conquer now, now now now, now now now now now now now, stop stamping your feet and pouting as more are coming "soon". While creators TaleWorlds are focused on the sequel, they've drafted another mod team to create another add-on for M&B: Warband.
Today they announced Viking Conquest, a Norse expansion coming from the folks behind Warband's Brytenwalda mod.
]]>Mount & Blade: Warband is so very PC Gaming. Whatever that term means, whichever disparate games it tries to bind together, M&B is It. Or That. Or one of Them. You know what I mean. An action-RPG where you also control and equip an army and ride horses and swing swords and it's sort of an RTS too and mods add everything from Skaven to Glaswegian gangs, oh, that's definitely a PC Game. It's a cracking game t'boot.
You can see for yourself, as a free weekend on Steam means all and sundry can play the full game until Sunday, and Warband's on sale too if you want to keep it afterwards.
]]>If I were riding into battle, I'd rather be atop something fearsome like a wolf or a lion than a pony. And I'd ideally be an eight-foot orc or undead skeleton too. It just seems like common sense. If you're also a sensible person, say, perhaps you'd fancy the newly-released Warsword Conquest mod, which fills Mount & Blade: Warband with races, places, and units from Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy setting. I understand the RPS Constitution means I'm obliged to say something excited about the Skaven* now but it's Friday and I know for a fact that the RPS Guard will have been in the pub for at least three hours now, so blow that.
]]>The concept of 'Mount & Blade with pirates and pirate ships' is probably enough to sell a fair few people on a game, but what if that's not enough? What if they need more? What if they demand razzmatazz? This problem calls for dramatic punctuation. Bang on an exclamation and bosh wallop, we have Caribbean! and the Internet falls over itself in excitement.
Snowbird's piratical sandbox action-RPG has now hit Steam Early Access in alpha at £10.99.
]]>Edit: added details on the Mount and Musket mod!
Napoleon was most likely of average height rather than being the tiniest man in the world and I'm sure that's been taken into consideration during the making of this expansion for Mount and Blade: Warband. Weapons, uniforms and even military musicians playing authentic songs of the period are all in place, as the hooves and hacking are somewhat eclipsed by boots and mortars. Taking in the final years of Napoleon's conquest, it's a multiplayer only affair, developed by the team behind this mod, that will be out later this spring. I've rounded up some documentary footage of the early 19th century below.
]]>Mount and Blade: Warband is about as fine a Mount and Blade game as I’ve played to date. I prefer it to With Fire and Sword but that may be partly because I’ve not really given the newer title a chance because I’m playing Warband with two lovely mods that I can’t imagine doing without. The first is the simplest of mods, all it takes is a rejigging of configuration files, so if you like flames to go with your swords, you’re in luck. The second is Prophesy of Pendor, which is far from simple and altogether brilliant.
]]>I'm not sure how we managed to miss this. I'm also not entirely sure that we mightn't have been better off continuing to miss this. Gangs of Glasgow is what happens if medieval warfare sim Mount & Blade was transposed to modern Glasgow, Scotland - or at least an exaggerated version of it where the extreme football hooliganism, rioting and assorted other urban violence is worse than it already is/was. On the one hand, bringing so much - from police cars to football stadiums - into a game about dudes with swords on horses is an amazing technical achievement. On the other... well, I don't know about you, but I'm making a face that tries to convey something I couldn't begin to describe accurately.
]]>More sites should interview mod-makers, I feel. If one of this week's picks is anything to go by, they can have some interesting things to say. Modding might not usually be quite as huge a process as making a full-on indie game, but as a modder you face your own unique problems, ones we don't always get to hear about. Maybe we should take note of that at RPS. Either way, read on for this week's roundup.
]]>I woke up to Fredrik Wester's twitter about the Waterloo event for Mount & Blade. Which is actually based around a load of people playing Mount & Blade: Warband with the Mount & Musket mod, which sounds like the sort of thing we should encourage. Also, linking to the last post, it strikes me that the most RPS mod in the world would be someone modding Zoats into Mount & Blade. We have thrown down the gauntlet. Do not fail us, Internet.
]]>Lookit! Despite RPS selling out buying in, things Carry On As Before. Like our Mount & Blade: Warband warband, complete with our own server, voice comms and everything! It was the second of our 'proper' Training Knights last night and once again our 64 player server was impressively full. EG may have taken our ads responsibilities, but they'll never take our freeee-dooom!
Once again a huge thanks to everyone who showed up. It's one thing to get a bunch of chaps to show up to an event, another to get them to come back again. Ta awfully. Report below.
]]>You may already be aware that we've started running an RPS Warband, er warband. After a successful induction earlier in the week, Thursday evening saw the first of what I hope will set the trend for our Training Knights, the turnout was formidable, the bloodshed biblical, the organisational chaos... inevitable. Full details after the jump.
]]>RPS needs: YOU! We have a new Mount & Blade: Warband dedicated server, and last night brave folk took to its fields to do bloody murder on their fellow man for the first time. Find out what happened, and how you too can get involved, below.
]]>Gird up your loins noble squires, I'm issuing a call to arms! The multiplayer regions of horse 'n' biff game Mount & Blade: Warband are just begging for a band of RPS' merriest men (and women) to take to the field and win the favour of comely maidens (and... mendens?) Yes, that's right, we're looking to set up an RPS Warband warband, and we need your help. More details below.
]]>We mentioned it was released earlier this week, but Mount & Blade: Warband now has a trial version (Or here). It's basically the full game, which you can advance your mounted, bladed one up to level 7. After that, you'll need to pay to unlock the full version. Honestly, if you've never played Mount & Blade, this is an ideal chance to start with its Horsey-Horsey Elite-meets-Rohan-isms, and a fine thing to spend your Easter weekend on which doesn't involve eating your bodyweight of chocolate Jesus. Trial here and launch trailer follows...
]]>Just a quick post about this, I think. Previous MUCH CELEBRATED RPS GAME Mount & Blade's expandalone was released today. Mount & Blade: Warband's primary attraction is its focusing on multiplayer, allowing 64 players to bash the flax of out of one another, but there's much more which is worth of comment. Graphical upgrade is promising, but additions to let you rule a faction and force people to become your vassals is pretty neat. But best is doing what I like to call "the Quinns option", where you can hitch up with a lady by romancing her with poetry. Sexy poetry! Or you can be a right bastard and do it for political gain. Anyway, launch trailer follows and you can buy from places on the electric internet. Time for a yelp, I think: yay!
]]>Own horsey-fighty RPG Mount & Blade? That means you can go and try out the open beta version of upcoming expansion Warband for free. Right now. Go! Go here! Experience better graphics and multiplayer! Become a king, kinda! Get married! Help the developers by reporting any bugs you find! Have a nice day!
]]>Mount & Blade is going multiplayer and the beta is in progress as we type. We've taken a look at the very specific ramifications for that knight being another actual living person in the unforgiving horse and sword game we love so much. Will you be joining the Warband? Let's find out.
]]>Here's a certainty to go along with death and taxes: there are going to be RPS community battles on Mount & Blade Warband. Oh baby, are we going to get our horse on. If you click below and check out the trailer for GamesCom, you can see why: detailed Medievalism and mounted combat. Not much more information at present, other than to say it's got an overhauled graphics engine, 64-player fighting, and the ever-lavish single player campaign. And we're going to play the crap out of it.
I'll be the dude with the axe.
]]>Emerging from a cloud of dust of E3 is the sound of horse-feet. Hooves. That's the word, hooves. Sorry - it's early. As you'll hopefully be aware, RPS-fave Mount & Blade is getting an expansion. In terms of features they revealed at E3, we're talking about fancier graphics with redone models and - er - graphic effects I can't be bothered listing and now 64 player multiplayer (with game modes including team death match and the iggy-pop-inspired Search & Destroy. Worth noting it's more than just a MP expansion too - the SP will have the ability to become a faction ruler and force people to become your vassals, in a manner akin to how Jim rules RPS. Also, Soldier Morale, adding proper cowards. Run! Run from my horse feet. Er... gameplay trailer beneath the cut.
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