REVIEW – At first glance, War Sails looks like the kind of add-on where the big news is simply “hey, now there’s an ocean”, but a few hours in it becomes clear that this expansion turns all of Calradia inside out. The world map has been reshaped, the Nord faction with its harsh, northern, almost viking flavor moves into the frozen edge of the continent, the economy has been reworked from top to bottom, your old saves are tossed overboard, and suddenly you feel like a freshly launched skiff trying to find a new rhythm. Bannerlord’s old, slightly clumsy charm has not gone anywhere; it just creaks, sways and slides along with the waves now, and if you enjoy massive medieval wars, chaotic sieges and a rough, yet incredibly entertaining simulation, it is hard to find a better excuse to start a brand new campaign.

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord has always been about building your own little dynasty on a huge, constantly simmering battlefield. Border skirmishes that look insignificant at first can turn into multi-hundred-strong clashes in a heartbeat, kingdoms crumble while others rise on their ruins, and the engine sometimes sounds like it might fall apart at any second, yet somehow it all fuses into a strangely gripping experience. War Sails pours a bucket of salt water onto that formula: the map is pulled apart and rearranged, northern landscapes are redrawn, new seas and narrow passages appear, and the Nord faction arrives in a way that makes it feel as if they had always belonged on those frozen shores. This is not a tiny DLC tacked onto the edge, but a major piece of surgery that gives the entire campaign a fresh pace and a new heartbeat.

Redrawn Calradia With New Seas

War Sails’ biggest move is that it does not simply bolt a new corner onto the edge of the map; it reshapes whole regions. The northern border stretches further out, new landmasses rise from the water, and the Nords settle into their smoky harbors and stark fortresses as if they had been waiting there all along. Sturgia is nudged a bit to the east so it does not feel like a straight viking knockoff, and in return you get more natural sea routes between Battania and Vlandia. The economic layer is completely refitted: cities migrate toward the shoreline, fresh trade hubs pop up, and the ports themselves can be explored, where you see ship frames being built and docks crammed with barrels, crates, beggars and sailors – the whole scene feels like a living, breathing backdrop instead of a painted stage.

On paper, the world gets more than twice as much water, yet the map still feels familiar. It is as if someone finally opened the floodgate Bannerlord had been hinting at for years without ever fully lifting it. The old land wars are still there, but now they are joined by an entirely new layer: naval battles that are spectacular, a bit awkward and delightfully brutal all at once – just clumsy enough to match the game’s honest, slightly raw style.

Chaotic Yet Enjoyable Naval Battles

Anyone who is used to the light, cinematic ship battles of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag will realize within minutes that War Sails plays by harsher rules. Ship combat on the water is slower, heavier and far less predictable. Movement is tied to the wind and the oars, so every turn feels like forcing a groaning giant to pivot instead of pulling off an instant arcade-style handbrake maneuver. Ballista shots can be devastating when you catch an enemy broadside, but ramming with the bow is wildly inconsistent: sometimes it registers as a massive hit, other times the game behaves as if you barely scratched the hull.

Most large engagements eventually collapse into brutal boarding fights. Decks fill up with soldiers piled on top of each other, grunting and pushing forward, often literally standing in line inside a narrow bow just to land a single clean strike on somebody. Because the battlefield is split across multiple ships, it is easy to spend long minutes hunting down the last one or two survivors hiding in some corner, while the HUD is not always eager to highlight them properly. The chaos, the wall of bodies and the tight spaces can absolutely be frustrating, but those same elements make the fighting feel like a filthy, vicious and completely unpredictable medieval sea massacre rather than a neat, sterile simulation.

Fleet Building And The New Age Of Pirates

The different ship types settle into your mind fairly quickly. The dromakion-style heavy galley armed with a ballista turns slowly but hits like a sledgehammer when it lines up a shot, the Nord drakkar is light, quick and stripped down, while the Vlandian roundships lumber along like floating fortresses. Upgrades are straightforward but satisfying: more damage, faster rowing, greater capacity, and extra sources of fire where your archers can ignite their arrows and turn enemy decks into blazing chaos.

The new, naval-focused questline is an excellent introduction to all of this. It is packed with strong characters, memorable exchanges and surprisingly cinematic set pieces: slipping through a blockade, ramming in with a fire ship for a seemingly suicidal attack, sneaking aboard a trade vessel while your crew distracts the guards. Pirates also take on a more concrete role. They patrol southern waters with crews of forty to sixty men, and their raids on merchants mean that sea routes can be both gold mines and bottomless money pits, depending on how well prepared you are and how much risk you are willing to take.

Economy, Losses And The Bigger Picture

Ship repairs are noticeably more expensive, and because you cannot casually pick off small looter bands mid-journey the way you can on land, upkeep costs weigh more heavily on your finances, especially in the early stages of a campaign. Pirates, on the other hand, are slower to clear out than regular bandits, so they remain as long-term threats in the regions they patrol. That makes those waters feel far more organic and “alive” than the slightly mechanical respawn patterns of land-based bandit camps.

All in all, War Sails delivers exactly what players have been quietly hoping for over the years: a new dimension that genuinely expands and reshapes Bannerlord’s world. Not every element works flawlessly – turning still grinds at times, hit detection can swing between overly strict and oddly forgiving, and the AI occasionally leaps headfirst into nonsense – but when everything clicks, the result is genuinely impressive. For anyone seeking monumental medieval warfare on both sea and land, this expansion breathes new life into the entire game, even if some individual features are handled with more depth or elegance in other titles.

-Gergely Herpai BadSector-

Developer: TaleWorlds Entertainment
Publisher: TaleWorlds Entertainment
Genre: Medieval sandbox strategy / role-playing game
Release Date (War Sails): 11 25, 2025