Ok, so... Bannerlord is out, and while that would be, clearly, the best bet, it also is the only expensive one. XD

I've owned the original Mount & Blade since gog's giveaway of it years ago, but never tried it.

Recently, I've found myself sligjhtly frustrated with Cyberpunk 2077's more conventional CRPG structure clashing with it's open world sandbox side, and I'm more of a sandbox kind of guy.

It is my understanding that M&B is a more sandboxy open ended thing, so I think I may end up enjoying it. But I've seen people mentioning for a long time that Warband is actually leagues better than the original game.

But I see that there are a few other options there as well.

So, which one, or ones, would you guys recommend to me right now?


EDIT: For reference, I'm very much an Elder Scrolls fan and also enjoy light survival elements like those in No Man's Sky and Subnautica.

I've only ever played Warband myself, I understand it is just an overhaul of the original game with a lot more content. I am also a huge sandbox guy and greatly enjoyed the open ended structure of Warband myself. I think you could definitely dip your toe in Warband, given how much cheaper it is, and see what you think of the gameplay. From what I've seen of M&B II, it looks similar.

Warband, hands down. There is really no point to bother with original which is just inferior in every way. And that's without even mentioning mods support.

I see. Thanks for the inputs! :D


EDIT: Er... no Legacy Collection to get all of the old ones together here like on Steam? I mean... All of them together there is slightly cheaper than buying what I'm still missing from here. :(

My suggestion is to play the first game first. Just the simple vanilla experience, no mods or anything. If nothing else do that just to get used to the experience because otherwise you will never do it. I do not like the additions made to Warband and only use it for mods, literally just mods. I do still play the base Mount and Blade for fun even still. It is just the least cluttered experience of the series and it does a decent enough job teaching the basics of combat and the world. After that, if you want, you can play Warband. Personally, I would prefer to play either With Fire and Sword or Viking Conquests. They have their own problems but they do enough to change the experience that it does not just feel like a cluttered version of the base game.

Since you already have the base game it makes the most sense to try it out and see if you would even like the game before dropping more money on something "better" without really knowing if you'll like it.

If you do get Warband, then you may as well get some mods like Fires of War (Greco-Persian War, all of these should be on ModDb), Sands of Faith (Crusader States), and Perisno (fairly generic fantasy mod, but a good one. It adds elves, Amazons, marauding nomadic empires, dwarves, etc.).

While the original is ok, I'd agree on Warband. With mods you could play this a VERY long time.

Probably over three thousand hours in Mount & Blade with a handful of actually completed playthroughs and only around eight in Warband here.

Hum... and why is that? What in Warband kept you from playing as much? If you can point something out, of course.

Meanwhile, I'll dip my toes in the original, if nothing else, to get the general feeling, as suggested by AnimalMother117.

I've played around an hour of the original game and... it's not what I expected so far.

It's not a bad impression, but it seems to have some weird limitations that I don't know how will affect the game for me on the long run.

Anyway, I'll keep playing it little by little to see if it gets me hooked.

Once again, thanks everyone for the input. :)

Warband because Bannerlord is missing this.

No really get Bannerlord, I'm playing it at the moment and if your PC can run it it's the more fleshed out version, everything is improved, graphics (altough still not AAA, more like BB), gameplay is more streamlined with more things to do.
I easily put over 200 hours into these games so the money is worth it imo.
Personally I don't care much about mod support, I tried Floris and a few others on Warband and turned out I rather play vanilla and mods are out and being made for Bannerlord so this is only going to improve over time.

Why wouldn't you play them in order?

I played them in oder years ago, but.

First and second games are basically the same, but the second an improved polished and expanded engine. It could be perceived as standalone expansion

Being both similar but the second more feature complete, and considering that in these games the story is a background nothing relevant to be played in order, then Playing Warband first is reasonable.

And later The viikings expansion, and other fan made mods. As a sandbox for new worlds it is amazing. A game for years

Well... Bannerlord it's a bit on the expensive side for me right now. Maybe in a year or two.

I've watched a bit of early game tips on youtube for Warband, character creation an all, seems to me that it matches the original well enough for me to restart my game a bit better.

I will say that I wasn't expecting M&B to be so focused in creating an army. I was hoping it would allow me to play the solo hero badass type of character, at least for a longer time before trying out to hire followers.

I like to play this game when I want something simple and you can really only do one and a half things in the game; join a king and conquer Kalradia to unite the whole world or join a throne claimant, help make them the king and then conquer Kalradia.

Yeah, I was surprised at all the recruiting/army stuff as well.