Mount & Blade 2’s new War Sails DLC is the paradigm shift Bannerlord desperately needs
In a suprising turn of events, TaleWorlds Entertainment has announced the first full-featured expansion pack for Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord. Titled War Sails, this new DLC is supposed to introduce a whole new dimension of warfare to the sandbox strategy/RPG hybrid, but is it going to work out? Mount & Blade 2 has gone through a very long and arduous development process. It only launched in Steam Early Access back in March 2020, with a subsequent mild 1.0 release in October 2022, and there's not been much happening on that front ever since. With almost three years having gone by in a breeze, nobody really expected TaleWorlds to suddenly announce a huge new DLC, but here we are, with War Sails in tow. Though the Viking aesthetic commands the announcement trailer, there's much more to War Sails than just that, and it is poised to revitalize Bannerlord's tired old gameplay loop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fIAHUNsLg4 Can the War Sails DLC rejuvenate Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord? Bannerlord: War Sails is due to release on June 17, 2025, and its feature list is nothing if not impressive: The introduction of series-first naval warfare and maritime exploration. Map expansion featuring the Northern Kingdom and the Nord faction/race. Full integration with Bannerlord's base gameplay loop. 18 unique ship types. Nordic/Viking gear, weapons, and aesthetic items (hairstyles, beards, etc.). Mariner combat units. Mediterranean and Nordic music and soundscapes, depending on the region one is traveling through. Crucially, naval combat is supposed to be fully physics-driven, with the behavior of the sea and wind greatly affecting the vessels' performance in combat. Ramming will be a thing, too, with dynamic boarding parties and other related features coming into their own in close-quarters combat. Frankly, War Sails sounds much more promising and exhaustive than I'd have dared to expect from a Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord DLC. Make no mistake: this is a genuinely good game with a thriving modding community, it's just that it's a kind of a reinvention of the original Mount & Blade games rather than its own thing. War Sails is the first time we're seeing something genuinely novel and exciting from TaleWorlds, and though there's every chance the expansion pack ends up falling flat on its face, the alternative is that it finally elevates the game to a whole new level. Of course, War Sails' more-or-less imminent release means that all of our Mount & Blade 2 modlists are about to get broken. To that end, if you're looking to experience the game anew in mid-June with the DLC in tow, I recommend wiping your modlist clean and maybe even reinstalling the whole thing just to be safe. This may well be the Big Thing Mount & Blade 2 fans have been waiting for, so I've got my fingers crossed for TaleWorlds this time around. The post Mount & Blade 2’s new War Sails DLC is the paradigm shift Bannerlord desperately needs appeared first on Destructoid.
In a suprising turn of events, TaleWorlds Entertainment has announced the first full-featured expansion pack for Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord. Titled War Sails, this new DLC is supposed to introduce a whole new dimension of warfare to the sandbox strategy/RPG hybrid, but is it going to work out?
Mount & Blade 2 has gone through a very long and arduous development process. It only launched in Steam Early Access back in March 2020, with a subsequent mild 1.0 release in October 2022, and there's not been much happening on that front ever since. With almost three years having gone by in a breeze, nobody really expected TaleWorlds to suddenly announce a huge new DLC, but here we are, with War Sails in tow. Though the Viking aesthetic commands the announcement trailer, there's much more to War Sails than just that, and it is poised to revitalize Bannerlord's tired old gameplay loop.
Can the War Sails DLC rejuvenate Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord?
Bannerlord: War Sails is due to release on June 17, 2025, and its feature list is nothing if not impressive:
- The introduction of series-first naval warfare and maritime exploration.
- Map expansion featuring the Northern Kingdom and the Nord faction/race.
- Full integration with Bannerlord's base gameplay loop.
- 18 unique ship types.
- Nordic/Viking gear, weapons, and aesthetic items (hairstyles, beards, etc.).
- Mariner combat units.
- Mediterranean and Nordic music and soundscapes, depending on the region one is traveling through.
Crucially, naval combat is supposed to be fully physics-driven, with the behavior of the sea and wind greatly affecting the vessels' performance in combat. Ramming will be a thing, too, with dynamic boarding parties and other related features coming into their own in close-quarters combat.
Frankly, War Sails sounds much more promising and exhaustive than I'd have dared to expect from a Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord DLC. Make no mistake: this is a genuinely good game with a thriving modding community, it's just that it's a kind of a reinvention of the original Mount & Blade games rather than its own thing. War Sails is the first time we're seeing something genuinely novel and exciting from TaleWorlds, and though there's every chance the expansion pack ends up falling flat on its face, the alternative is that it finally elevates the game to a whole new level.
Of course, War Sails' more-or-less imminent release means that all of our Mount & Blade 2 modlists are about to get broken. To that end, if you're looking to experience the game anew in mid-June with the DLC in tow, I recommend wiping your modlist clean and maybe even reinstalling the whole thing just to be safe. This may well be the Big Thing Mount & Blade 2 fans have been waiting for, so I've got my fingers crossed for TaleWorlds this time around.
The post Mount & Blade 2’s new War Sails DLC is the paradigm shift Bannerlord desperately needs appeared first on Destructoid.
