![mount and blade with fire and sword gameplay mount and blade with fire and sword gameplay](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WuH8gXiUoHY/maxresdefault.jpg)
As you are gathering your small army and trading wool between cities, Polish Warlords are capturing Swedish territory, and bandits and deserters roam the world trying to eke out a profit. It's a complex and ever-changing world, too. Strangely, for the dedicated, this serves only to encourage you to become enveloped in the Mount & Blade world. Beyond the basics of combat, nothing in Fire & Sword is explained to you and only a vague goal - to become a great leader - is suggested. After completing a couple simple tasks for them the trail of breadcrumbs disappears, and you're left in the middle of a world that vaguely resembles renaissance-era Northern Europe. Then you're taught the basics of riding a horse and told that it might be a good idea to help the local village. You lend a hand in beating back the bandits, learning the basics of both swordplay and the newly-introduced guns. The adventure begins with an encounter in a small town between some noblemen and a group of bandits. With Fire & Sword is based on a polish historical-fiction novel of the same name, and for the first time in the history of Mount & Blade, Taleworlds has attempted to weave a sort of structured storyline into the game. You were tasked with rising through the ranks of fictional aristocracies through cleverly trading goods, doing favors and, most importantly, murdering thousands of peasants, bandits and soldiers on the battlefields.Īround this time last year, Taleworlds released a standalone expansion called Mount & Blade: Warband, which added a couple new factions and a multiplayer mode to the game, and now the company has released another standalone expansion, Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword. It was a strange blend of real-time strategy, economic simulation, role-playing and first-person action that, although aesthetically nothing special, offered a uniquely addictive and challenging kind of fun. If I had to sum up Taleworld's original Mount & Blade, I would call it the ugliest game you need to play.