Turkish indie developer TaleWorlds Entertainment became famous with the release of Mount & Blade, a surprise hit that exceeded all expectations.
Now, the expanded team is working on the highly anticipated sequel: Mount & Blade II Bannerlord. The game was featured in E3 2016's PC Gaming Show, where TaleWorlds demonstrated the new siege system for the first time.
This has been majorly improved since the first game in the series, which will please those fans who gave their feedback on this feature. Gamers will now be able to choose different tactics and control their approach by positioning troops and weapons exactly where they desire; according to the developers, this will allow for a much more involved experience.
The siege demonstrated below had about 500 units in total, but TaleWorlds is confident that bigger sieges will be featured in the game without performance issues. Another significant improvement introduced by Mount & Blade II Bannerlord is the enhanced Artificial Intelligence (AI).
TaleWorlds promised "massive strides" with the AI so that the soldiers can now take smarter actions on the battlefield. For example, if you manage to open a breach in the castle the enemy commander NPC will try to close that breach.
Castle defenses are destructible and the AI will make the defenders retreat should the walls be lost to the attackers. An important note is that sounds aren't final yet in the video below, so take that into account.
Mount and Blade II Bannerlord takes place circa 200 years before its predecessor, during the decline of the fictional Calradian Empire (modeled after the Roman Empire). As such, the weapons, armor and architecture are modeled after those available during the 600-1100 A.D.
The game should be available via Early Access later this year on PC, with the full release scheduled for some time in 2017.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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