New Mount&Blade!

Modern PC games tend to be bereft of any startling innovation. It’s to be expected, given the large budgets now in existence – but it’s still lamentable. For truly innovative games you have to look outside the already established areas. I guess you can’t get more outsider than Mount&Blade, because not only are its creators not from the established game industry, they’re not even from the United States. Yes, Mount&Blade is actually from Turkey. The development team started off with just one dude and his wife, but now there’s a handful of other people attached, most of them also from Turks. It’s a really neat medieval RPG with an emphasis on historical veracity. The setting is in a fictional land, but the weapons and armour are all fairly accurate recreations of actual medieval items.

When you begin the game you’re plopped in as a virtual nobody in the middle of a gigantic civil war. There’s several different factions, from the pseudo-Viking Nords to the Khergit horse archers. Keep in mind, though, that it’s probably best to hold off choosing a faction until later. Depending on your choices as you create your character, you can either be the son or daughter of a minor noble, the adventurous heir of a merchant family, or an unknown adventurer. These correspond somewhat to difficulty levels, as the one from the noble family starts off with some acceptable equipment and an already established name. To get the full experience, though, I suggest you start off as a nobody. If you’re playing the game right you’ll eventually get called to the nobility anyway. You start off with very little money, so it’s best to earn some either by competing in the arena or buying up goods in one town and carting it to another to sell for a profit. It’s your basic mercantilist system, where if you buy more of an item the prices go up, and if you sell more the prices go down. Once you have enough money you can also buy some good equipment, assuming you haven’t already looted some from the enemies you’ve defeated.

It’s in battle that Mount&Blade really shines. It’s in a third person view, something like a more realistic version of the action in the Dynasty Warriors, or an expanded and actually enjoyable version of the combat in Oblivion. You can choose swords, lances, axes, bows, crossbows, and a whole host of other weapons. You can choose to be on foot or mounted, with or without a shield, with a large band under your command or a small one (or none at all), and all these different choices have their advantages and disadvantages. The violence is rather muted but blood does spurt and there’s something kind of gory about seeing an arrow sticking out somebody’s face.

The newest version is 0.890 and it adds a whole host of new features. The only downside is that there’s also a bunch of new bugs, but the development team is working on them as we speak and will probably release a newer, less-buggy version soon. You can download the game from the Mount&Blade website but the download section still only leads to a previous version. To get the latest, go to here. The downloaded game stops upgrading at level 6; you need to purchase a serial key to go beyond. I’d definitely suggest doing so since the price goes up as the game gets closer to full release, plus you can feel smug knowing you’re helping fund the development of a really cool game.

Update (Sept. 27): Versions 0.891 got released quite recently, followed quickly by 0.892. The Mount&Blade website still only has 0.808 available for download so go here if you want the latest version. I also notice that some people are coming to this page while looking for cracks for Mount&Blade – tough luck, I ain’t giving any. Although I don’t doubt that there’s cracks and CD keys available out there I still bought mine fair and square. It’s a small indie developer and the price is really quite reasonable. For only $22 you get the full unlocked version and it’s still cheaper than the $29 it will eventually cost and it’s better than most of these PC games with million dollar budgets. Really, it’s a great deal. I can understand people not wanting to buy a lemon but that’s why the trial version is available for download.