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The series often veers into life sim territory, and this is doubly true for Bannerlord.
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Whatever you're doing, it's part of your job, but Mount & Blade is also concerned with what you do when you're not on the clock. The further you get into Mount & Blade, however, the more it starts to feel like another pair of sandboxes: Dwarf Fortress and Crusader Kings 2. In Elite I'm a space trucker, but in Bannerlord I'm a king's vassal, besieging fortresses in my boss's name. You don't need to engage with every single system straight away, and can instead dip in and out, just browsing, or focus on the thing that gives you pleasure most. Once you get over the initial shock of that massive map and all those menus, Mount & Blade quickly becomes leisurely and pressure free for as long as you want it to be.
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