Mount and Blade 2 shows off official mod tools in a new dev update, and they look awesome

Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord mods have been around since the game first released on Early Access back in—wait did Bannerlord seriously only release four months ago? It feels like it's been forever. Holy hell that feels surreal for some reason. Anyway, mods. So, yeah, players have been hacking and modding Bannerlord for a long time now, but I'm predicting that scene is going to explode with cool stuff pretty soon because its official mod tools are just weeks away.

Today, Taleworlds showcased what to expect with a new developer update video breaking down its suite of official mod tools, and they look extensive in all the right ways. You can watch the video above to see them in action, but when the update launches at the end of August, players will get access to a terrain editor, scene editor, atmosphere editor, mesh editor, material editor—it's basically like having access to a full game engine like Unity only without needing to code.

What this means is that players will finally be able to create custom locations and maps, which is one of the first steps to building some of the total conversion mods that made Warband, the previous game, so much fun.

If you're not interested in modding, however, the video might still have some features that'll be exciting for you. Beyond the new tools, Taleworlds teased some cool improvements to combat. For example, players can now brace a spear, essentially holding it in place so that anything that runs into it at a high enough speed will take damage—making spear walls an effective tactic. The formation AI is also seemingly much better, so units will act more effectively when swapping between different battlefield formations.

This update should be coming sometime at the end of August, so you'll have to wait a little bit longer.

Steven Messner

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.