Hands-on | Mount & Blade: Warband

Format: PC | Genre: RPG | Publisher: Paradox Interactive | Developer: TaleWorlds | ETA: 02/04/10

Across all game types, a lightweight but functional equipment system allows you to kit out your character – on-foot, with-arrows or on-horse – with armour and weapons prior to each game. You’ve a set amount of money – which ups as you survive rounds – to spend on balancing your equipment list, so opting for heavier armour leaves less to spend on weaponry, and so forth. Finding the right mix to suit your class and playing style is tricky, and in the couple of hours we spent playing I didn’t come anywhere close – but it should provide a compelling reason to experiment with different options.

TAKEN FOR A RIDE
I have my reservations, though, about the ways in which the combat mechanics will fair in a fast-paced online world. Mount & Blade’s fighting has always been tense and twitchy, but in a very specific way: it’s swords without the sorcery, and fairly realistic in its approach. With a large number of players darting around a small battleground, caution gets quickly thrown to the wind, and the careful battling of Mount & Blade’s singleplayer format begins to fall apart.

Straight-forward deathmatch is momentary fun, but I’m sure I spent just as much time waiting to respawn as I did playing the game. Just a couple of sword slashes are enough to bring you crashing to the ground, and with so many people involved in the fight, it’s difficult to build any real momentum. Team deathmatch suffers from the same problems, but with the added difficulty of identifying whom you’re actually supposed to be felling: unsurprisingly, there’s no red and blue outfits here.

Staying on horseback seems to be the best way of staying alive, but mounted combat remains fiddly, and it’s difficult to rack up a substantial number of kills when galloping at speed. As an archer, there’s rarely enough time to consider power and trajectory in the way you’ve been trained by Mount & Blade in singleplayer. On foot, as a swordsman, is more functional, but it’s still a strange sight to see hordes of medieval warriors bunny-hopping and strafing around the battleground.

“LOL,” typed a player into the chat window at one point, as I flailed around on horseback. “I nearly team-killed you ’cause you rode into me.” And that’s kind of it, right there. One guy struggling to manage mounted combat at the high tempo of the multiplayer field, and another panicking and stabbing wildly (and missing, thankfully) with a sword.

The consolation, of course, is that such issues are only at their most problematic during the straight-up deathmatch modes, and I can’t see those becoming the most popular. There’s still some time left until release, too, and with an ongoing private beta session attempting to iron out the creases, there’s a chance Warband’s multiplayer could fulfil its promises yet.

There’s no denying the appeal of large-scale medieval combat with friends, either. In that sense, Warband already stands in a field of its own, desperate to be crowned king of its niche market. April 2nd is your call to arms. By Lewis Denby

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