Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord – War Sails Q&A Interview with TaleWorlds Entertainment

Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord is now more than three years removed from its 1.0 release in October 2022 (and five years removed from its early access launch), and developer TaleWorlds Entertainment is set to release the game's biggest expansion so far. War Sails adds naval combat to the game for the first time, brings back a beloved faction with the return of the Nords from the original Mount and Blade, adds a whole new biome to explore, new skills for players to master, and a slew of tweaks and changes to the base game with a free update.

Ahead of its launch, I got the chance to play some of the coming expansion and hear from the developers about everything coming in War Sails. I also got the chance to speak to Falk Engel, senior producer at TaleWorlds Entertainment on Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord and Gökçen Karaağaç, the team lead on the game's design team.

Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord - War Sails Q&A Interview

Firstly, I'd like to hear about the key upgrades to ship combat in War Sails, and the impact it has on the rest of the game.

Gökçen Karaağaç: I mean, the biggest, I guess, would be the ram [ramming ships] and the balistas, because they kind of open up new ways of ship destruction, but the primary method of ship destruction, as you can see in the gameplay, is fire. The other things that end up being more impactful are the campaign upgrades that get you to carry more troops or for your troops to have higher morale or your ship having a higher sea burton so you can handle the storms or simply travel faster, those upgrades end up having a bigger impact on your gameplay overall. Also, the other note to that is not all ships have access to all upgrades. Some ships are more customizable or more all-rounder ships, while others are more purpose-built. They make up for that [lack of customization] by being really specialized ships. They are really good at what they try to do.

Falk Engel: To add to that, there's also the option to increase your cargo holds, so that you can be more oriented in your upgrades towards travel and trade or more combat oriented.

Is it possible to do coordinated land and sea attacks from two different armies?

Gökçen Karaağaç: Not in the way you're asking, no. We don't have a hybrid combat system, where you can have some troops at sea and some troops at land interact, but we do have methods to land in the naval, especially when you are trying to conquer towns, especially coastal towns, you need to be ready for both naval and land battles, as the defenders might attack you on both sides, so there is that, but no hybrid missions.

Falk Engel: In terms of the campaign side of this, there is no way for you to directly tell another party or army to go somewhere and do something at that exact moment, but of course, as a player, you have the ability to observe what the other army is doing, and then coordinate with that action.

Will the skills of troops affect the ship that they're on during combat or is it only the captain's skill that matters?

Gökçen Karaağaç: It's only the captain's skill that matters; troops use their own skills. Apart from if they are a Mariner or not, if they are not, they kind of get hampered in their combat abilities, but their skills do not affect the ship's stats or abilities.

The three new skills that are being added, Mariner, Boatswain, and Shipmaster, are those replacing the old skills, or do players get an additional attribute?

Gökçen Karaağaç: You don't get additional attributes, but each of the skills kind of corresponds to two different attributes. I'm not certain at the moment, but it's like Vigor and Control is the Mariner, for example. Previously, each attribute, each skill was combined to a single attribute, but these new naval skills are touching two of the other ones. So, if you're already a good tactician and a decent warrior, if you use those attributes, you will be a good Mariner anyway. Not right away, but it will be easy for you to be a good Mariner.

What does the new Nord faction add to the game? Why did you want to bring the Nords back in?

Gökçen Karaağaç: I mean, there's definitely nostalgia. It is one of those factions, as a culture, that's easy to justify coming in. 'Oh, they were always up there, and now they've started to pick up their ships and come here.' So, story-wise it makes more sense to bring them back. That is one part of it; the other one is what they are bringing to the table, land battle-wise. They also give us room and reason to put more effort into infantry combat. They are bringing the heaviest and highest-tier level infantry in the game, which kind of crushes through almost every infantry, and whatever it can't crush it trades quite well into. Beyond that, of course, whatever the other factions get naval-wise, Nords can do it better, in almost every aspect. Except trade, they're kind of okay-ish in that one, so that's their gimmick.

Falk Engel: Aside from this - trade is a nice keyword - they do produce some trade items that you can engage with. When you go to their lands, they'll have different environments, biomes, architecture, etc. So there's just more to explore; they look quite interesting. When you go into their towns, you'll see that their housing is inspired by ships. They have this kind of unique layout on the map, where there's Nordvik, the large portion that is kind of interacting down with Sturgia, and then you have towards Vineland, this island area, where there's another town, and that's not something that we had before.

Gökçen Karaağaç: One unique aspect to them is that they're a lot less town-focused, but they have a lot more castles, so they have like four well-supplied towns, but most of their lords are just ruling over castles, so their economy is a bit more military focused in a sense and less...not as powerful as Aserai for example, but also not as fragile. They have a more safe economy, compared to other factions.

Will the politics of the game get any big changes with this new expansion?

Gökçen Karaağaç: We already introduced some in the Beta branch and in the base game update, and we are going to improve upon it. We're going to improve on the alliances and how we conduct them, but inner kingdom-wise, there are new policies that are both naval-related, for the base game as well, that inspire some different roleplaying opportunities as well as some new strategies.

Falk Engel: And maybe even beyond this, I mean, war is an extension of politics. The design team, Gökçen and others, have spent quite a bit of effort on improving the way in which factions consider wars, whether they're making progress, if this war is sensible, distance, the exposure in terms of the settlements and so forth, so even if that's not an outright addition, it changes the politics.

While this expansion and naval combat are single-player only, there's also a big update releasing alongside War Sails for all players. Are there any multiplayer improvements coming in this new update?

Falk Engel: There are some improvements that are included, they are not the focus, and I think we should be clear on that to not mislead anyone. You've seen, as part of the beta, significant visual improvements that we've done through the atmosphere, and I think that's something that we're looking to take to the multiplayer as well. We're also looking at potentially including a new multiplayer team. With regards to what the future holds, that's something we're not discussing at the moment.

So, no word on future DLC plans beyond War Sails?

Falk Engel: Yes, that as well. Essentially, our approach tends to be that we want to be very sure about what we're doing before we bring it to players, because we don't see the benefit in creating false hope.

Is cross-play functionality potentially on the horizon for Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord?

Falk Engel: I don't want to say something wrong, I mean, I think I can say that there's no active work on that right now. We have to consider some aspects of it, like there are some aspects of it that are internal, the challenges associated with such a change. But there's also just the simple, 'would it actually add to the player experience to have cross-play,' 'is it fun to play the game on controller versus someone who's on a mouse and keyboard. Especially with our multiplayer community, which is extremely, I mean, -

Gökçen Karaağaç: Dedicated [laughs]

Falk Engel: Dedicated, yeah [laughs], I mean, I can't beat them. I don't think I would do better with a controller.

I noticed in the notes about the big update coming for all players alongside War Sails' release includes "expanded modding capabilities," can you go into what that means? Is there anything modders should look out for in this update?

Falk Engel: There is a long list of things that are part of the patch notes. I think one of the most buzzword-y things related to modding is the ability to crouch and use weapons at the same time. You know, anything with muskets, those kinds of mods, [modders] are really excited about, and I think are already interacting with as part of the beta. The [live] release itself, I don't think we'll see substantial additions there because we've already shared the vast majority of what we have done in the beta. Our modding community tends to engage with that early on so that their mods are ready when we push it live. When it comes to War Sails in and of itself, of course the support for naval gameplay, for pathfinding across the sea on the world map, for using ships. I think there are probably already some mods that have some level of seafaring, but if they have an interest in the DLC, I think that will both expand the capabilities that they have in that regard, as well as the existing content that they can co-opt or utilize in their mods as well.

Gökçen Karaağaç: Part of this effort on our end for modding capabilities is kind of to compensate for the changes coming into the base game. For example, even the way the water is rendered is changed, and we want to make sure that it is an easy effort for people who make their own world map to switch to the new system. So, some of these efforts also coincide with the new work we are kind of creating for our modders, to build up and continue supporting their creations.

Is there still work being done on the Claimants that were shown a few years ago?

Falk Engel: So, we can't comment on the Claimants themselves at this point, but we can maybe say that there are some features that relate to them that we are still working on. I think we might have mentioned some of them previously. They do relate to other topics people care about such as making trades or valuables, but we don't want to talk about features that may still take quite a bit of time, because the moment that we make them more tangible, people tend to get very excited and then potentially very disappointed that it takes that amount of time before they get the answers.

Is support for DLSS Frame Generation still on its way? Can you provide an update on when it might arrive?

Falk Engel: I can't give you an update now, I will check with the engine team and get back to you.

Switching to consoles, are there any plans to take advantage of the more powerful hardware in PS5 Pro?

Falk Engel: We don't have anything specific to mention on that currently. We can say, of course, that the work on the DLC has seen a lot of optimization in terms of memory, in terms of performance and so forth, which will also benefit consoles, both in the base game as well as the DLC.

Do you have anything else you'd like to say to the community?

Falk Engel: As always, our heartfelt gratitude for the long journey we've walked together and the support that people have given us over the years. It's awesome to see that people are still very excited. Personally, I come from the community, so it's always kind of fun to still have that engagement for a lot of our developers. It's great to see people talk about the DLC, talk about the game, give us feedback, and share their excitement for what's coming, and it will be very cool to see how they enjoy the DLC.

Gökçen Karaağaç: Have fun, enjoy the game, do not sail a ship that you can't afford to lose.

Thank you so much for your time.

This interview was edited for clarity.

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