Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord gets free patch alongside War Sails DLC that's so big, the 17,000 word update run more than twice the length of Age of Empires 2's 'legendarily long' patch notes

Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord's War Sails expansion landed on the base game's unassuming shores earlier today, adding fully simulated naval battles to Taleworld's medieval RPG. Yet even if you're not interested in crewing a longship with a raiding party to terrorise the coastlines, there's plenty of reason to consider diving back into Mount & Blade 2. War Sails' launch coincides with a truly enormous patch for the base game, one that sneaks in a hoard of additional mechanics to play with.

According to Taleworlds, the headline updates are the addition of alliances and trade agreements that will afford additional nuance to inter-kingdom diplomacy, and reworked war, peace and tribute decision scoring designed to produce "more logical declarations and outcomes." However, Taleworlds has buried the lede here, because the real headline is that Mount and Blade 2 is Thief now.

Yes, Taleworlds has introduced a fully functioning stealth system, letting you adopt a sneaky approach to prison breaks, hostile town infiltrations and "new" hideout scenes. "Guards react to light, sounds and movement while you sneak," Taleworlds writes in a Steam post accompanying the update," adding that the system allows players to "create distractions, eliminate targets quietly, and hide bodies."

Evasion is accompanied by a disguise system that allows players to "scout and operate in hostile towns," though you'll still have to be careful not to raise the suspicions of guards. So Mount & Blade 2 isn't just Thief now, it's Hitman also. In any other game, a fully functioning stealth system would comprise an update in its entirety. But Bannerlord's 1.3.4 patch goes way beyond this.

Battles may now result in deserters and survivors forming roaming bands so that wars have "additional consequences." There are random narrative events for long journeys that can have positive or negative effects. A new Fast Mode has been added that speeds up the game clock, thereby making "multi-generation dynasties and succession easier to explore." And that's not the half of it. You now parley with enemies, exert more control over caravan trade routes, recruit nobles as supporters, fight enemies with slings, take control of other troops in battles after being knocked out, and fire and reload while crouched with numerous ranged weapons.

Taleworlds has also overhauled army and party AI, including more specific improvements to melee, ranged, and cavalry behaviours, and introduced a snazzy main menu that gives me Dragon Age: Inquisition vibes. This, I should stress, is a good thing, as Inquisition's menu was fantastic.

Basically, it's a massive update. Out of curiosity, I pasted the patch notes into a Word document, and they came to more than 17,000 words. That's more than twice the length of Age of Empires 2's "legendarily long" patch notes from earlier this year, making the details of this Bannerlord patch, I dunno, mythically long? Fabulously long? Homerically long? Bloody long, in any case.

And that's before you get into the changes brought by the War Sails DLC. We haven't had a chance to get hands on with War Sails, but resident Mount & Blade expert Fraser Brown liked the look of what he saw in its gameplay showcase. " It's a glorious mess of screaming sailors, fatal projectiles, and mighty warships being transformed into splinters, their precious cargo of eager warriors left to flail around in the cold water," he wrote back in October.

If you're yet to sample Bannerlord's emergent roleplaying charms, it's worth noting the base game is currently available on Steam at half price. War Sails, meanwhile, has a 10% launch discount for players on the fence about picking up the expansion. Both discounts end on December 10.