warband posts

The new Mount&Blade expansion, Warband, is definitely one of our more anticipated games. An expansion to an open-world, densely layered game like Mount&Blade is always welcome, especially if it includes new multiplayer options. TaleWorlds has announced that they are now accepting beta applications for the closed Mount&Blade: Warband beta, and if you want a taste of what will no doubt be an excellent expansion to an excellent game, sign up!

The beta, much like all other betas, requires a name, email address, and location. However, you can also input a valid Mount&Blade serial, and this will give you priority over random people just signing up. After all, this expansion is for Mount&Blade owners! If you are near a multiplayer server location, you will also get higher priority. Beyond that, it is completely random.

Several months ago Paradox Interactive announced plans for a multiplayer expansion to their acclaimed RPG Mount and Blade. This week during E3 2009 the publisher revealed more plans for the expansion, titled Mount and Blade Warband.

While no release date was mentioned for the expansion (developed by Taleworlds), Paradox did say that player support for Mount and Blade Warband has expanded from 32 players to a whopping 64 players. In addition the expansion will include a graphical update to the game including a revamp of the majority of the models and support for new visual effects such as "HDR, FSAA, depth of field, soft particles and tone Mapping."

It's rare indeed to see something one has never seen before. Sometimes this is due to inattention; one can only keep abreast of so many developments in a day, after all. Sometimes the ratio of tried-and-true gameplay to genuinely novel is overwhelmingly in favor of the over-iterated. For whatever, reason, I missed out on Mount & Blade the first time around, and that's a shame, but I'll have the chance to atone when their new expansion, Warband, comes out later this year. Regardless of your experience with this title, I found it completely fresh and invigorating, and if you'll keep reading, I'll tell you why.



Alternatively, you can check out the two GDC video presentations (also available in HD) at the end of this article.