Paradox is at it again. Ever want to impale someone through the visor with a lance, from an armored charger? Ever want to make your enemy bleed out from crossbow wounds? Ever want to get down on your knees over a prone enemy and stab them (yes, stab them) with a hammer? Ever play Mount & Blade: Warband and wish the graphics were better?
War of the Roses is imho the true sequel to Warband, in a way that WFaS never could be. Medieval setting. Better graphics. Enhanced multiplayer character customization. Historical fidelity (barring the occasional hammer-stabbing, which just makes it that much more awesome). Excellent melee combat system.
On the other hand, it's not just Warband with better graphics. From the articles, War of the Roses will be focused primarly on multiplayer, with a singleplayer campaign designed to "train players for the multiplayer experience" and give them "direct rewards to use in the multiplayer battles." I'm not sure how I feel about that. The Mount & Blade series seems to have made a shift, from no MP at all in M&B1 to WFaS, for which MP is almost the sole reason to purchase the game. Personally, I enjoy Warband more than either for the balance it strikes: it has good SP and MP both. It makes me uneasy to hear that War of the Roses will focus on MP and that the SP is described as a "campaign" rather than the open-ended sim Warband is.
Still, that said, MP does look like a lot of fun. And Mount & Blade 2 is in developement by the same devs that made Warband. So War of the Roses will probably be enough to keep me sated until then.
Gameinformer article
