Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord – Opt-In Alpha and Beta Branches Announced

TaleWorlds’ Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord released about two weeks ago and has already become the biggest Steam launch this year. Despite the positive acclaim, it does have its share of issues. To bring some more structure to its update process, the development team has announced two more branches for the game on Steam – opt-in alpha and beta.

While the beta branch features content that’s seen internal testing and will be available to players for “at least one week”, the alpha branch is purely for content that’s untested. The goal with the latter is to update it daily and allow for modders and “explorers” to be “as close to development as possible – even at the cost of stability.” Either branch is likely to impact one’s enjoyment of the game so keep that in mind.

TaleWorlds has released patch notes for the beta branch, some of which can be seen below. It includes several performance fixes for RAM and VRAM usage which is nice. Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord is expected to spend the next year or so in early access, though it could be longer depending on how fun the game is by the end. Stay tuned for more details on the alpha branch’s content in the coming weeks.

Beta Branch e1.1.0

Versions

• Native: e1.1.0
• SandboxCore: e1.1.0
• Sandbox: e1.1.0
• Storymode: e1.1.0
• CustomBattle: e1.1.0

Singleplayer

Crashes

• Fixed a rare formation AI exception.
• Fixed a crash that occurred when a mount without a rider heard an arrow.
• Fixed a crash that occurred at the end of the “Army of Poachers” quest when the AI tries to continue fighting.
• Fixed a crash that happens when a campaign is started for the second time without exiting the game.
• Fixed a crash that occurred when selecting the option to attack in the “Rival Gang Leader” quest after loading a game.
• Fixed a crash that occurred when AI characters tried to barter prisoners.
• Fixed a bug where talking to a companion in settlements during the main storyline would crash the game.
• Fixed a crash in main storyline conspiracy phase.

Performance

• Ram and VRAM usage is reduced and many leaks are fixed.
• Scene loading performance improvements.