Gameplay Today - Because You're Always Gaming

The old saying goes, “Never bring a knife to a gunfight.” Well, Paradox Software - the creators of Mount and Blade: With Fire & Sword - must have taken this adage as a challenge. Take the established Mount and Blade formula and add guns to the mix and you will be surprised that although the game’s equation may have changed, the variable for extreme fun has not been removed.

Mount and Blade: With Fire and Sword takes a different direction than Warband or Vanilla M&B by making the storyline fringe off of actual eastern European history rather than having factions based on fantasy. These are actual real historical factions each with a stake in the world around them. The story itself is based on a 19^th century Polish historical novel titled With Fire and Sword. In the game, you begin in Poland and from there you must decide for yourself what to do next. Another change comes in the character creation section of the game. Rather than picking your beginning stats via a story, everyone starts out relatively the same in the game minus the few stat points you decide at the beginning. I can see why this may make things easier for new players to jump right in and be balanced, but it is a slight bit disappointing that I cannot decide my own past. What you can most certainly still decide is your future. The game’s combat, political intrigue, fighting and conquering systems are still top notch. From the chunk I have played in this still incredibly long story mode, I have seen many of the previous title’s ideas streamlined and improved upon as well as a marked increase in graphical quality.

Firearms are a new introduction to the game. You would think this would completely make all other weapons useless, but from what I have seen, mounted archers and knights still have their use. Some of the most fun I had online was on a map in which enemies spawned so close it was a chaotic scramble to kill the surrounding knights with great-swords while avoiding bullets of friends and foes alike. It felt like I was in a movie or one of those massive battles from a Total War series zoomed in. I am sure many people have said this before, but the feeling you get when someone is rushing at you with a massive axe and you shoot him in the face with a flintlock pistol is very satisfying. Guns, although extremely powerful, are not terribly imbalanced. They have long reload times that are easily interrupted and shorter range than most bows and crossbows.

One new feature in multiplayer that I really appreciated was the ability to use your gold to purchase NPC allies to follow you around on the field of battle. If you are a musketeer, you can have a cohort of 6 or so musketeers and use the ‘f’ commands to have them get into whatever position you please and choose for them to fire at tactical times. The game’s multiplayer is still fun although there are a lot less people online than in Warband which should change over time as the game has just been released.

If you enjoyed any of the Mount and Blade series, this is a game you should not miss. It has all the stuff you love with a few minor changes and some really interesting historical information. If you enjoy strategy games with interesting combat systems, you should love this. Finally, if you are interested in history or economics this game can be an interesting peephole into life in the 17^th century.