Swords will clash, arrows will fly, and hopefully, you won’t lose and be captured. Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord has updated to 1.7 and that comes with a slew of bug fixes and features for the sandbox action-role-playing game. Developed and published by TaleWorlds Interactive, Bannerlord drops the player into a medieval sandbox, full of different cultures, wars, and characters.

In the singleplayer mode, you can choose your way in the world by doing quests and building up your mercenary party, fighting battles and siding with any of the distinct factions, or wandering around the map selling horses and buying businesses to make it rich. As you grow your character, level them up, and build a dangerous fighting force, you can even lay the foundations for your own Kingdom to rule! Interacting with other parties on the overworld map will lead you into a battle where you directly control your own character and position your small army as you see fit.

With this new update comes some intriguing upgrades to the way the game sets up these battles. The newly added battle terrain system will logically pick one of the battle scenes based on where you are on the overland map.  Find yourself catching an enemy group near a bridge or river, and you’ll load into a battle map that has those same features, whether covered in grass, snow, or sand. With the addition of 23 new battle scenes, bringing the total number up to 72, there are plenty of well-crafted scenes to fight in. After you load in, a new battle feature gives you the chance to place your soldiers into different subgroups and give them pre-battle orders. Placing these subgroups around the deployment zone and putting them into formations will give you an edge before battle commences. During the battle, there is now the option to slow down time when giving your unit groups orders, allowing a slight reprieve from the hecticness of combat.

Along with 6 new siege maps, siege AI has also been reworked, with intense fights to the death on the walls and individual units making better use of siege equipment like towers, ladders, and battering rams. Past versions saw superior armies flee after losing a few soldiers running towards the wall and had the feature of single characters clogging up ladders, causing their allies to be picked off by archers or catapults on the walls.

For multiplayer fans, this update also adds in the ultimate trash-talking game mode. Duals are just as they sound, a one-on-one fight to see who is the winner over three rounds. A highly requested feature, this will set you up with a matching kit of weaponry and have two players duke it out to see who is the best fighter. An in-server scoreboard also encourages bragging rights amongst those fighting and those observing.

While Bannerlord remains in Early Access on Steam for the foreseeable future, it’s good to see frequent updates by the team at TaleWorlds and their response to player feedback.  Keep an eye out for future updates as the game continues to develop towards its finished version!