Mount&Blade may have been a 2008 game but in play, it was reminiscent of a two-decade-old design. Since the design in question was the classic Sid Meier’s Pirates!, a design so timeless it’s been ported to multiple platforms over the years with only minor changes since its debut on the Commodore 64 in 1987, this was by no means a bad thing. As far as its development was concerned, however, Mount&Blade was a modern game since it would not have seen the light of day without the Internet.
Designed by Taleworlds, which was originally a husband-and-wife team from Turkey, the game was rejected by publisher after publisher before Taleworlds opted to let gamers themselves fund development by trying a downloadable beta and purchasing a licence for the finished product. This was very much a gamble for all concerned since Taleworlds could not be certain of getting sufficient funds to continue development while gamers who purchased a licence weren’t guaranteed of getting a finished product, good or otherwise.
Fortunately for everyone, the gamble paid off because gamers responded favourably to Mount&Blade’s outstanding mounted combat — no other game does a cavalry charge as well — and strong word-of-mouth eventually led Paradox Interactive to publish the title. Sales must have been sufficiently impressive to warrant a sequel.
In terms of features, Mount&Blade: Warband is everything the original could have been given enough time, money and support. The biggest feature is the inclusion of PvP but the single-player campaign includes major improvements as well. Mount&Blade’s biggest flaw was a weak endgame and Taleworld has thankfully remedied that with the sequel. Players can now attempt to form their own kingdom and vie with the established powers for dominion over the land of Calradia, and this provides a much-needed long-term goal to work towards.
In addition to that, Taleworld even included short-term goals in the form of Steam Achievements with the 1.130 patch. This will no doubt be welcomed by those gamers who crave condescending pats on the head from developers every now and then to reassure them they’re special. The downside is Mount&Blade: Warband now requires a persistent connection to Steam’s servers because the game will otherwise crash whenever an Achievement is unlocked.
While Taleworlds’ motives may have been more benevolent, the effect is identical to Ubisoft’s paranoid always-online DRM scheme whose primary purpose seems to be inconveniencing and antagonising legitimate owners with flaky online connections. And even with a dependable connection, players will experience problems with Mount&Blade: Warband when Steam’s servers are offline for maintenance.
Fortunately, there is a workaround for those who simply want to play the single-player campaign without an online connection. The trick is to disable Achievements and the easiest way of accomplishing this is to enable cheats. To do this, select the “Configure” option in Mount&Blade: Warband’s launcher:
Then check the “Enable Cheats” option in the “Game” tab:
Doing this means the player will not unlock any Steam Achievements while playing Mount&Blade: Warband, of course, but there, there, you’re special anyway. Here’s a special Achievement for you:
