Mount & Blade II finally sets sail — War Sails looks brutal, but I’ve got questions

Bannerlord’s Big Sea Change, Minus the Hype

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is finally going naval. TaleWorlds dropped new gameplay for War Sails, a $24.99/€24.99 expansion launching November 26 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC-and yeah, ships actually catch fire, sails burn to cinders, and hulls sink under stormy waves. That’s new territory for the series, and it could reshape how Bannerlord’s sandbox plays. But like any big Bannerlord addition, the dream hinges on AI brains, controller feel, and whether the studio can keep the chaos readable when hundreds of soldiers start boarding in the dark with thunder cracking overhead.

Key Takeaways

• Naval combat is fully integrated: wind and water physics, ramming, boarding, tearing sails and oars, plus weather and storms.
• New Nords faction and a northern sea region expand the map with islands, rivers, and open waters to patrol, blockade, and raid.
• Twenty ship types with upgrades and siege engines, plus custom naval battles for quick-hit skirmishes without a campaign.
• Launches with a major free update to the base game-watch what’s paywalled versus what’s in the patch notes.
• Price is mid-tier fair if the campaign integration, AI pathfinding, and console performance hold up.

Breaking Down the War Sails Pitch

The new footage showcases a night-time river brawl: Khuzaits defending against a Nord fleet under a furious thunderstorm. The Khuzait lineup is oddly specific (and that’s exactly why it feels real): 3 Qalquk and 1 Dromakion heavy ships, 3 Sambuk mediums, and a single Eastern Galley as the light screen. Heavy hulls mount fire pots as ballistae; when those connect, you watch sails go up like tinder and crews scramble. On the Nord side, it’s 6 Drakkar brutes, with a Longship and a Light Longship in support-a classic hammer-and-anvil Viking vibe. Lanterns swing, decks get slick, and when a hull finally gives, it actually slips under. It’s the first time Bannerlord has bothered to model sinking instead of just limping ships to a “defeated” state.

Feature-wise, this isn’t just a bolt-on skirmish mode. War Sails layers a naval campaign loop on top of the sandbox: build and upgrade fleets, fit siege engines, ram prows, swap sails, and maintain supply lines while storms and attrition chew at careless captains. The map expands north with seas and islands, and TaleWorlds says trade, warfare, and diplomacy adapt to this new maritime reality. If blockading ports actually throttles economies and chokepoints matter, that’s the kind of systemic change Bannerlord thrives on.

There’s also a toys-in-the-sandbox mode: custom naval battles on river, coastal, or open sea maps. Pick your hero, faction, ships, crew, time of day, even wind and season. That’s perfect for players who just want to recreate The Long Night with fire arrows without managing a war economy. And yes, the Nords arrive with the style kit you’d expect—banners, tattoos, axes, new armor sets—plus companions and naval skills.

Why This Matters Now

I’ve sunk an embarrassing number of hours into Warband’s Viking Conquest and Bannerlord’s mod soup, and naval combat has always been the white whale—tempting, clunky, never quite official. War Sails is TaleWorlds finally planting a flag on the ocean and saying, “This is part of the core game.” With Bannerlord maturing since its 2020 Early Access debut and 1.0 in 2022, this is the right time to add a new pillar that gives veterans fresh campaign routes and reasons to start over.

The Nord faction also scratches a familiar itch without feeling like a retread. Drakkars and longships fit the fantasy, but the footage leans into Bannerlord’s scale—multiple ship classes, formation maneuvering in tight rivers, and emergent chaos when a burning mast snaps during a boarding attempt. If you’re the player who lives for “one more flank” moments, picture timing a ram to shatter oars, pinwheel the enemy hull, and green-light a boarding when the wind shifts. That’s the kind of “only in Bannerlord” story generator the series is built on.

The Questions That Will Make or Break It

• AI and pathfinding: River combat is a stress test. Will fleets avoid rock walls and friendly collisions? Can boarding AI handle moving decks without rubber-banding troops into the sea?
• Controller feel: Sailing with wind angles, managing crew orders, and aiming siege engines is a lot. If stick controls are fiddly on PS5 and Series X|S, that’s a deal-breaker for console captains.
• Campaign integration: Do AI factions build navies and actually blockade ports? Will sea raids change the strategic map, or is the ocean just a flashy highway between land battles?
• Performance: Fire, storms, physics, and hundreds of soldiers on floating platforms is a GPU party. How stable are frame rates on consoles when three ships ignite at once?
• Free update vs DLC: TaleWorlds promises a “major free update” alongside launch. Which systems (economy tweaks, pathfinding, UI improvements) land for everyone, and which are gated behind War Sails?
• Multiplayer: Bannerlord has MP, but the announcement doesn’t trumpet naval multiplayer. If this is single-player only at launch, note that before you buy it for clan nights.

Value Check: Is $24.99 a Good Ask?

On paper, yes. You’re getting a new faction, an expanded map with a northern sea, a suite of 20 ships with meaningful differences, a naval skill line and gear, custom battles, and a campaign layer that could genuinely reshape the sandbox. That’s in the same ballpark as Warband’s meaty add-ons back in the day. If the free update also polishes the base game for all players, War Sails starts to look like a proper expansion rather than a one-note feature pack.

My advice: if you’re already mid-campaign and happy, wait for patch notes and first-week impressions—especially on console. If you’ve been itching for a fresh start and the idea of starving a kingdom with naval blockades sounds delicious, War Sails might be the push to reroll. Modders will have a field day either way, but an official, supported naval layer is the kind of foundation mods can actually build on without duct tape.

TL;DR

War Sails finally brings real naval warfare to Bannerlord—burning sails, sinking hulls, and a Nord invasion of the sandbox—on November 26 for $24.99/€24.99. It looks fantastic and ambitious, but the verdict hinges on AI, controls, and console performance. If TaleWorlds nails those, this is Bannerlord’s most meaningful upgrade since 1.0.