Medieval combat sim/RPG Mount & Blade will be getting a expansion later this year that will add 32-man multiplayer battles, upgraded graphics and more.
Considering Mount & Blade was in beta for near an eternity, it would only be nice to cut tiny developer TaleWorlds some slack when it comes to pushing out new content. After all, they can just let the active and large mod community churn out their 300 mods and just sick back and relax. But no, overworked slaves to the community they are, TaleWorlds has announced an expansion for Mount & Blade, dubbed Warband, that will add a number of significant features to the medieval action-RPG / sim.
The biggest addition is multiplayer, a feature requested by fans for some time now. Multiplayer will come in the form of 32-player Team Deathmatches, though TaleWorlds is also developing a multiplayer siege mode, where one team defends a castle and another tries to invade it. From the developer’s GDC demo last week, it sounds like the siege mode can support anywhere from full teams to just two players controlling armies of bots. Multiplayer will be totally customizable as well, so expect plenty of fan-made modes coming down the line.
“We have received a large amount of requests from players for multiplayer and when we had published the game we saw an opportunity to explore this as well as additional improvements that our gamers requested,” TaleWorlds producer Armagan Yavuz said. “I feel that the multiplayer mode adds tremendously to the game experience.”
Warband will also add faction rulers, a system that will allow “the player to gain followers even as a rebel and to become the ruler of their own faction and recruit Lords as their vassals.”
And though there are user-designed mods that enhance M&B‘s decidedly unimpressive graphics, Warband will significantly pretty up the game’s visuals with beefed-up HDR rendering, upgraded models and more.
TaleWorlds was in attendance at GDC last week to talk Mount & Blade and show off Warband. You can check out a video of their demo over here.
