Return to Bannerlord

I picked up Bannerlord when it first released in Early Access back in April 2020. You can read my initial impressions of the game here. Spin on a couple of years and I decided to return to Bannerlord to see how the game has improved since. The first thing that struck me was how very little appeared, at least on the surface, to have changed.

Everything was pretty much exactly how I remembered it and there didn’t seem to be anything that stood out as significant new features, mechanics or content. This wasn’t a great surprise, however, because Bannerlord was already fairly feature complete at its initial release.

The issues Bannerlord had at release were primarily technical in nature – many people reporting crashes or save corruptions. I didn’t experience these issues myself, but I did encounter a lot of bugs, most notably during sieges – troops getting stuck on scenery and terrain. Siege equipment that wasn’t functional. Terrible path finding for troops on walls as dozens of your soldiers would walk to their deaths off a narrow ledge.

The performance during sieges was also pretty terrible, often descending into a choppy mess when large numbers of troops clashed in the narrow spaces of a city or castle. In addition to the crashes, bugs and performance issues, Bannerlord was also lacking in a lot of small, quality of life type features revolving around the game UI.

So I guess the question is, has Bannerlord – which is still in Early Access – fixed and improved upon all of these issues? After putting another 30 or so hours into the game, I’d say the answer is a pretty solid yes. I’ve had no crashes in my time with the game. The performance is excellent, even during larger battles.

Sieges, at least from what I’ve played, are now entirely fixed and functional. And, although it’s hard to recall exactly what was and wasn’t a part of the UI before, it does seem like a lot of little quality of life improvements have been made.

And honestly, it’s hard to see why the game remains in Early Access at this point. Bannerlord is, as far as all the core content and features go, pretty much done, and all the bugs and technical issues appear to have been ironed out. If you’ve been waiting for the right time to jump in and try Bannerlord, then I’d be pretty happy recommending it in its current state, even though it still hasn’t officially released.

There really is nothing else quite like it – the combination of third / first person combat, real time strategy, world map politics / war strategy and RPG character systems all set in a ‘realistic’ fantasy world. Realistic as in – no magic or monsters.

It’s a game that’s easy to sink a lot of time into, with multiple cultures and Kingdoms to support or destroy. I’ve had a lot of fun returning to the game and I’m sure I’ll put a lot more hours into it going forward.