Mount & Blade: Warband Preview

WorthPlaying has conjured up a quick preview of Mount & Blade: Warband, presumably based on the expansion's showing at last week's GDC.
The original Mount & Blade featured tons of combat, mainly divided into field battles and castle sieges. The expansion, Warband, will bring all of that back and then some, as it looks to make the battles bigger and better than ever. Even more interesting for fans, the upgrade will allow for some massive multiplayer action, with up to 32 warriors duking it out to see who's the best of the best. If your weapons of choice are of the sword and mace variety, then you'll likely be in heaven as you ride merrily through the fields, slaughtering all who dare stand against you.

The original game allowed players quite a bit of upward mobility, rising from a lowly soldier to a duke with a fiefdom and army, but strangely enough, it capped ambitions there and never allowed players to vie for the role of king. In a way, it made sense, since your character was meant to be loyal to his king, but players still groaned because no matter how good they were, there was still a glass ceiling. Now that ceiling has been shattered, as Taleworlds is letting gamers strike out on their own, pledging allegiance to no one and potentially ruling a kingdom.