TaleWorlds has led an early cost into Gamescom with an announcement that Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord—first introduced (opens in new tab) when the world was younger and dinosaurs roamed the Earth—will lastly depart Early Entry on October 25. The announcement of the discharge date was even accompanied by a brand new trailer, showcasing the white-knuckle stress of medieval sieges, battles, and opening a small enterprise.
Should you’ve performed any Bannerlord whereas it has been in Early Entry, it does not look a lot totally different, however it will likely be unusual to stay in a world the place Mount & Blade 2 is definitely out, quite than in some liminal house between announcement and full launch. The sport was certainly one of my most-anticipated releases for practically the entire final decade, from its announcement in 2012 till it lastly received an Early Entry launch (opens in new tab) in March 2020. I do not know what I am going to do with myself now that it is a fully-realised factor.
Effectively, type of fully-realised. The announcement that the sport is leaving Early Entry does include the assertion that this is not “the tip of the street” for the sport, which can proceed “receiving updates within the months to come back”. Presumably, these updates shall be fewer in quantity and smaller in scope than the sort it obtained throughout Early Entry, or perhaps phrases simply do not imply something anymore.
The meat of the announcement is that the sport may also hit consoles on the identical time it leaves Early Entry, however we’re not enormously involved about that spherical these elements. Nonetheless, the announcement does say the devs have discovered “synergies” that they weren’t anticipating between the console and PC variations of the sport. They’re most likely speaking about improvement shortcuts, however who is aware of? Perhaps crossplay is in our future.
It isn’t the most important announcement to come back out of Gamescom to this point, however it’s the finish of an extended and winding saga that started an precise, literal decade in the past. We quite appreciated Bannerlord (opens in new tab) in its ramshackle, Early Entry kind right here at PCG, and as somebody who poured means an excessive amount of of his life into Mount & Blade: Warband I am excited for the sequel to attain its final-ish kind.