
	Platform PC Genre Action RPG Publisher Paradox Interactive Developer TaleWorlds ETA Q2 2011
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Mount and Blade: With Fire and Sword

Over the last few years, the Mount and Blade games have been gathering quite the dedicated following with the sheer depth of options players had at their fingertips in a RPG experience. Now the series developers are stepping away from its medieval roots, if only slightly, to bring us With Fire and Sword, taking place in the 17th century, an era that saw the advent of firearms on the battlefield, bringing a mix of new and old technologies to warfare.

Taking place in Eastern Europe, players enter a time when Poland, Moscow, the Cossacks, Sweden, and the Crimean Khanate are at war, and one must decide which side they will help in this conflict. Right from the get go players are going to be faced with all sorts of choices, with this being a theme that carries throughout the game. One will need to decide what faction they will join, which will create a vastly different experience than joining another. For instance, helping Moscow will make for a very different game than, say, aligning one's self with the Swedes.

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While fighting for these factions, players will also be able to recruit mercenaries to help them out. This opens the door to yet more options, as these units will be highly customizable. Players will be able to choose what kind of equipment they wear, what kind of weapons they use, and so forth. Some of these choices will be quite useful in shaping how one tackles combat, while others are there purely for aesthetic reasons, giving the player full control of how their mercenaries look.

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Just like Warband, there will be multiplayer options in With Sword and Fire. There will still be deathmatch modes, but a new layer has been added with something called Captain Mode where players can buy bot units that can have orders issued to them, and help in the fight against the other team. All the while, the servers are expected to sustain quite a large number of players at once. With that we should see an interesting mix of players hacking, and shooting at each other, while having their npc units assist in the fray, which could make for some fairly large-scale battles.

Assuming the game remains on schedule, we shouldn't be too far off from With Sword and Fire's release. The Mount and Blade series has done quite well for itself thus far, it'll be interesting to see how this step forward in time plays out for it.

Mr. Nash
March 5, 2011