Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword reviewed on PC by Graham Clifford. Game supplied for review by Paradox Interactive

Mount & Blade was a game that heavily divided opinion among audiences. It gathered a rather lukewarm reception from the critics, but developer Talewords didn’t seem too fazed by this and has released two major expansions. Warband was the first which added minor improvements to its predecessor, but gave its fan base the multiplayer component they had been crying out for since the launch of the original game. Despite little innovation it was well received by the community. Now Taleworlds is back with the second expansion Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword which adds muskets within a 17th century Eastern European setting. One problem that arises with the latest expansion is the issue of evolution over revolution. Is moving into new era with radical technological differences a step forward? Or does the core game need tightening before moving on with the series? I firmly believe it’s the latter as Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword simply has too many flaws that date back to the original title.

Anyone who has played Mount & Blade or the expansion Warband will feel right at home in the single player campaign. The first major change is the setting. Gone is the fictitious world of Calradia replaced by Eastern Europe in the post medieval/early imperial era. The new setting is merely a cosmetic change as all the options available to your character remain. You can run errands for lords and nobles, join a faction and champion them, ransack or trade with villages and create a faction of your own. Again very little is changed from previous instalments in the series and with little change we see little improvement. Some criticisms I had with the original remain such as the disastrous questing system. Many quests are dull and repetitive while others can become next to impossible to complete if certain circumstances arise. It’s especially cruel when those circumstances are outside your control.

A classic example of these foibles came in my first major quest in which I was tasked with delivering a message from one lord to another. The details of the message were unknown. No reason given, just deliver this to Y. So I take the letter from X to deliver to Y. I do so with little effort. Y gives me the task of delivering a message to X. I do so and do so again and again and again. It doesn’t stop and even when you switch lords they still task you with the same repetitive quest. There’s no mission of grave importance or one of any depth. No daring rescue, assassination or investigation into the murder of a noble. Also, mission success can depend on the movements of armies and lords and most lords can be missing for days from their lands so you may have to spend a while hoping they return or you will have to set out to track them down. This wouldn’t be a complaint if there was some form of quest marker to aid in the search, but sadly there isn’t.

It’s very easy to feel like a impregnable fortress on the battlefield and it’s not due to your godlike skill, but rather the lacklustre AI you encounter. The enemy is unable to effectively engage you in combat and you can drop body after body as their sluggish, predictable movements make duels a foregone conclusion. Sometimes your health might be low and as you charge a musketeer he switches to melee when you get about 15ft in front of him. Surely, with a fully reloaded musket and a badly wounded enemy slowly making his way towards you a close range a shot should be attempted at least. Sadly, all musketeers seem to disagree and are rather too eager to engage in melee rather than play to their strengths.

Your own troops suffer the same fate and the basic tactics you can issue do little to aid their efforts. Your troops can hold their ground, charge, use only melee or only ranged weapons if you so choose. It’s all basic stuff that really doesn’t affect the outcome of the battle. Tight formations see some men bump off each other constantly becoming stuck to the point they take no part in the battle unless the entire army is told to charge. Some basic formations would be welcomed along with some improved army management.

Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword has changed the way your soldiers are upgraded. Previously, when your soldiers achieved enough experience to level up they automatically received better armour and weapons. Unfortunately, this has changed as in With Fire & Sword each unit can be customised individually with weapons and armour similar to your own hero. While some would welcome more control over the men that follow them it only causes unnecessary tedious micromanagement. Not only that, but it costs obscene amounts money that can only be afforded if one grinds for hours on end.

Despite my reservations with the campaign map the battles are still immensely thrilling if flawed. Charging in, clashing shields and striking your enemy down is the highlight of the game. The fighting mechanics are still the best around. Blocking is not simply a matter of a holding down a button but needs to be timed correctly. Fighting is not just confined to the ground as you can ride into battle on your trusty steed. Combat on horse involves creating an angle of attack and by timing your strike. It’s immensely satisfying to knock other riders off their horse at full speed or hunt down and slaughter retreating enemies.

Taking your skills online can eliminate the problem of weak AI and it’s immensely fun. With Fire and Sword contains the new Captain mode. This is essentially a team deathmatch where you control an army of bots and pit them against others. When using muskets online you have to be extra careful as your opponent usually exploits the time it takes to reload. If he or she spots you getting off a shot, then you can be assured that they will be descending upon you quickly so pick your shots carefully.

Graphical prowess is definitely not a trait you could associate with Mount & Blade. Those who have played the original will notice that With Fire and Sword has slight graphical improvements, but nothing that is immediately noticeable. Character models are clunky and towns and villages are dull and uninspiring. Brown and grey are the colours of choice for most of them. With so little inspiration in your surroundings instant travelling around these locations is the default action you choose when approaching the gates.

Animations are quite poor too. The reload animations for the pistol and musket are horrible. It seems to be a flailing of arms in and around the gun with no fine detail whatsoever. You get the hand gestures for putting in the gunpowder; bullet and using the ramrod, but even up close and on full settings these items do not exist. This takes away from the immersion at times, but after a few hours you hardly take notice of it. Sword combat animations remain solid. They don’t standout in any particular way, but they are nowhere near as poor and the musket animations.

One with think that with the invention of firearms the battlefield would become noisy place, but With Fire and Sword has your best interests at heart with muskets giving off a pathetic cough instead of a deafening boom. With the musket in hand you feel like the battlefields harbinger of death, but one would be forgiven for tossing away the musket in favour of some cold steel. The sound of sword and shield clashing is certainly more engaging than standing on a hill making pechew-pechew noises. Even the puff of smoke that comes out is minimalistic. In fact, sound effects are unchanged from the first Mount & Blade. That’s not necessarily a negative point, but Mount & Blade was never strong in that area to begin with.

Voice acting is still non-existent which in turn hampers the world in which the game is set. Hard to really feel attached to characters you meet along the way. I thought reading endless amounts of text in games ended in the mid-nineties, but sadly that’s not the case. I’d even settle for awful cheesy voice acting at this stage as most characters have a lot to say and trying to find out important information can be a challenge.

If you’re new to the Mount & Blade series then the novelty of the combat should last you a few days, but With Fire and Sword will let down veterans of the series. With very little added, and in some cases certain features missing, it’s hard to recommend. What has been added has been covered in mods for previous instalments and done better I might add. With Fire and Sword should have been a game that cleaned up the flaws that have plagued the series and tightened up on the existing gameplay. Unfortunately we’re left with content that is easily available for free through mods for Warband and Mount & Blade.