DarthVarkor

I got 246 hours clocked in (even created a sword for the game a few weeks ago) so here are my two cents:

In a nutshell, I love it. An interesting thing is that you learn to play the game at the same rate as your character.

The playable character, Henry, is just the young son of the village's blacksmith and hasn't done much of his young adulthood apart from drinking and getting into trouble. So you, the player, and Henry, will have to learn to fight (among other things). You, to get accustomed to the initially challenging combat system, and Henry, fighting at all. Same applied to basically all other skills. It's hard at first, but after a bit of practicing, you'll get gud.

The story is pretty good and there are enough side quests to keep you entertained for hours and hours. The game is pretty stable now and most bugs have been corrected. Be aware though that the game still has a bit of a jankiness to it. The animations aren't all always top notch and dialogues barely have any animations or even facial expressions, which is a shame, especially nowadays. But you get used to it quickly.

So yeah, I'd say give it a try. I've been playing Bannerlord a lot since Monday and I can tell you that for now it's just a barely graphically enhanced version of Warband. Most actual new features are missing from the early access, so if you're not in a hurry to play it, I'd advise you to wait a bit more (or grab it now to get the 20% off and wait for a few updates).

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It's an interesting game. How much you get out of it really depends on your personal preferences. Give it a try, but be aware that the start is a slow boil. It's probably an hour or more before you see the actual title roll and the game proper begins.

Oh yeah, I think I put about 3 hours into it last time. I remember the slow start, but I think I got to the part where you join a town guard or something? Definitely seems like an interesting game though. I really like the idea of the slow progression as your character learns how to fight, too. (Think I spent most of those three hours getting my ass handed to me repeatedly.)

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I've been playing Bannerlord a lot since Monday and I can tell you that for now it's just a barely graphically enhanced version of Warband. Most actual new features are missing from the early access, so if you're not in a hurry to play it, I'd advise you to wait a bit more (or grab it now to get the 20% off and wait for a few updates).

Yeah, after looking into it a bit that's what I've heard, too. Apparently it's not very well optimized at the moment either? I've read about people with high end rigs getting about 30FPS max during the heat of combat. Think I might wait until about Summer-time when some patches come in (and I assume the Steam Summer Sale will at least match the current discount offer.)

Sounds like I'll be giving KCD a try then once this I get this film done, thanks for your input guys! 

I would personally recommend it if you are interested even a little in actual history and want to try to live the closest approximation of "Fighting in the Middle Ages". The Developers take great pains to ensure that every detail is accurate according to official record right down to the characters themselves. 

The graphics as many have probably are mentioned are among the best in recent years, and at times can look remarkably close to real life. 

The only gripe or at the very least hesitation I would have in recommending it is the combat. If you like the flow of first-person swordfighting from something like Skyrim, you should feel right at home but it certainly takes some getting used to. The AI is also capable of adapting, so the only "Cheese" moves you can do are Perfect Block and Ripposte (Master Strike), but if you do them too much combat just gets repetitive.

Also (From what I can tell) It has some pretty decent Graphical pre-requisites, so you need a good rig to play it if you hope to have a good framerate.