Mount and Blade Warband

Mount and Blade Warband is an exceptionally well-crafted game, and the historical accuracies make playing feel strange. Not because playing as these historical entities itself is strange, but because the act of doing many things within the game feel strange. Fighting feels unnatural, yet this is also an accurate statement of what fighting would feel like. Swinging unbalanced weapons was a slow and awkward experience, a swing from a Claymore, if it made solid contact, would crush a target upon impact, but oftentimes the weapon itself would simply be misdirected or miss its intended target entirely.

Arrows and other ranged weapons were also deadly projectiles, simply because of the sickness they might induce, and contact in the head would certainly kill you. There was no real chance a doctor might magically save you from head trauma, after all. Horses steer in slow, arcing motions that prevent you from ever having too much control. This is really the heart of what makes the Mount and Blade series so fantastic. A feeling of having control, yet at the same time, the control itself is awkward.

Control is what the player is seeking, control of those around them, of the enemies they face, mastery over the skillset set before them. But Mount and Blade usurps the player’s ability to feel in control. The morale of a troop or squad may simply not be with you. Maybe it’s because you’re a mercenary, maybe it’s because you’re a woman. Maybe it’s because you haven’t killed enough people yet. There are simply too many ways to be out of control, and yet much of that lack of control is what makes the game exciting.

More and more, I’ve begun to find that games that intrigue me the most are games where I’m uniquely out of power. I cannot exercise concise control, so instead I can only be satisfied by taking control of the small things that are allowed to me. Mount and Blade Warband is one of a few successful attempts. There is a sort of rending that occurs, where you never feel totally comfortable, and instead are constantly wondering.

Perhaps that is why the game itself has such a nomadic feeling, where moving from place to place is a joyous experience all its own. Each new space is one in which you lack control. It is a space felt through experimentation, oftentimes at great loss. The awkwardness of some conversations, of some actions that are available, is refreshing in a game that takes on a somewhat standard role-playing idea, and spins it on a top. Or perhaps it simply exposes it, a life closer to the human condition.

A grand adventure is not what I seek when I play videogames anymore. A human one is more than enough.

Recommended: Yes