T w e n t y S i d e d

In Mount and Blade, you play an upwardly mobile and clinically indestructible side of medieval beefsteak. It’s a power trip of a game; through determination and self-actualization alone, you swizzle armies around you like cotton candy and personally slay the population of a modest kingdom. If you desire it, and play for long enough, it is an absolute guarantee that you can become the king of the world. Obviously, it was only a matter of time before someone adapted this franchise around celebrated works of Polish-language historical literature. Enter Mount and Blade: With Fire and Sword.

Very little has mechanically changed, but these changes have insidious effects on the greater experience. For example, there’s bullets. There’s rows of guys firing bullets. There’s rows of guys on horsebacks firing bullets at you. And the important thing, the crucial thing, is that you can’t duel the bullets.

Fans of the franchise who were used to exterminating entire castles of pseudovikings with nothing more than a caffeinated blocking reflex and a good fast battleaxe were quickly discovering just what 17th century Poland thinks of heroes. And many of them, it must be said, questioned the appeal of a mass combat game where you often die immediately and unavoidably. From a strategic viewpoint, it’s not unlike playing regular Mount and Blade during a thunderstorm.

Or so they think! Join me now as I relate to you my secret to success as an Eastern European warrior-poet: a terrible fear of being shot.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Master of Firin’ Sword CH1: The Art of Powerdice”

Rutskarn is a writer, author, wordsmith, text producer, article deviser, prose architect, and accredited language-talker. If you enjoy his contributions to this site you could always back his Patreon.