



The tools available to create your character with feel similar to a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, leaving enough vagueness to its options that there is a real sense of ownership over your avatar. Despite its clear difference in budget from its contemporaries, Mount & Blade does an admirable job at giving the player the same amount of choice and agency in its world. Its first impression is never a good one, as the game notoriously looks ten years older than it already is. Thankfully, once you spend some time with Warband, you’ll come to notice how impressive it truly can be. Mount & Blade: Warband was originally launched for the PC in 2010 as the first expansion to TaleWorld’s Mount & Blade RPG. The problem, however, is that the game makes it impossible for newcomers to find the good beneath the ugly. While the series may have a love-it-or-hate-it reputation, there’s undoubtedly a lot to dig into here for anyone new to the series. Like many other great Western RPGs, Mount & Blade is a franchise that captures the same feeling of limitless possibility that is found in traditional tabletop roleplaying games.
