Mount & Blade was terrific fun immediately. You can muck in if you've signed up to either side. Rival kingdoms besiege one another's camps. Bannerlord has been in the works for most of that time, and the weird thing is, it's kind of done its own trick backwards.

'Why are other stabby games still rubbish?' I asked for years afterwards. 'Making combat with swords, axes, spears, and bows fun? Why is this novel?' I asked. I spent years absolutely baffled that barely anyone learned the lessons the original Mount & Blade taught on its release in 2008 (or indeed, several years earlier for a lot of us).

I don't enjoy having to qualify my praise for this one. Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, for all its teething problems, will probably be brilliant when it's finished. I have played exactly four million games, a number which is only possible when you learn to drop something you're playing without hesitation. The best thing I can say about this, the most eagerly awaited medieval ARPG of all time, is that I want to keep playing it.

Heads of cattle mount and blade warband