Mount&Blade - Warband Officially Announced

Placing the horse long after the cart, Paradox has officially announced the Mount & Blade expansion, Warband.  Here's the PR they sent over:

Multiplayer expansion to the critically acclaimed medieval combat game debuts at GDC

GDC San Francisco, March 27th 2009 – Following on from the recent announcement that a Multiplayer expansion was in development for the widely lauded Mount&Blade, Paradox Interactive have today revealed the first detailed information for the newly titled Mount&Blade: Warband.

Demonstrated publicly for the first time at GDC in San Francisco by the development team at Taleworlds, the expansion introduces a number of features that players have specifically requested and which will vastly improve the gameplay experience.

The key features revealed:
• Multiplayer – previously announced, the ability for up to 32 players to play simultaneously on a single map in Team Death-Match style battles
• Faction Rulers – A new in-depth system allowing the player to gain followers even as a rebel and to become the ruler of their own faction and recruit Lords as their vassalals
• Accessibility – Improved and additional detailed game information for players.
• Improved Graphics and optimisation – The introduction of state-of-the-art rendering technologies including HDR (High Dynamic Range), as well as significant improvement in the level of detail on characters, armour and weapons
• Increased interactivity - New interactivity implemented in the environments that the AI will recognize and adapt to, directly impacting the Siege mode

Commenting on the development of Mount&Blade: Warband, Armagan Yavuz, Producer at Taleworlds Entertainment said, “As a development team, we are used to short development circles, fast feedback from our users and the ability to have our gamers in the development loop. That is why we decided to create this expansion. We have received a large amount of requests from players for multiplayer and when we had published the game we saw an opportunity to explore this as well as additional improvements that our gamers requested. I feel that the multiplayer mode adds tremendously to the game experience.”

A summary of additional features includes customizable quick battles, extended diplomatic options and new weapons, armor and animations. Other aspects introduced in Mount&Blade: Warband are improvements to the combat system with more physically accurate horse archery, a variation in horse sizes, and more options when embarking on sieges.

Mount&Blade: Warband is scheduled for release in Q3 2009.

To watch a game presentation from a press event earlier this year, please click here;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K16bIpGnd1o