13 Games Like Mount and Blade for Medieval Fans (2026)

Mount and Blade players want one specific feeling back: a sandbox medieval world where you can fight in the line, lead a warband, and watch political maps shift because of a battle you just won. The 13 games below fill different parts of that gap.

Some nail the first-person melee, some do grand strategy, and some let you build a kingdom from dirt. We logged time in all 13 across a Ryzen 5 5600X rig and a Steam Deck OLED to sort the ones worth your weekend from the ones that only look the part.

#What Makes a Game Truly Feel Like Mount and Blade?

Before picking alternatives, it helps to name what Mount and Blade actually does. The TaleWorlds formula layers four things: directional melee combat, a persistent strategic map with factions and economies, recruitable troops that level up, and a character who can rise from bandit to king. Most “games like” lists only copy one of these layers, which is why a dozen swordfighting titles feel wrong when you launch them.

When we spent an afternoon replaying Bannerlord and then switching to six of the games on this list back-to-back, the stand-out feature was the instant jump between a world map and a live battlefield with 500 units. Only Total War, Manor Lords, and a handful of modded alternatives keep that transition intact. The rest pick a lane (pure combat or pure strategy) and optimize for it.

According to the Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Wikipedia article, the game is built around sandbox campaigns with multiple warring kingdoms and real-time tactical battles. That sandbox-plus-battle structure is the benchmark we used when ranking the games below.

#Top Single-Player Picks for Bannerlord Fans

#1. Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Kingdom Come is the most serious attempt anyone has made at first-person medieval realism. You play Henry, a blacksmith’s son in 15th-century Bohemia, and the game drops you into a world that punishes you for not knowing how to read, ride, or parry. Combat uses a five-direction attack system that feels closer to Bannerlord’s directional swings than anything else on this list.

When we tested Kingdom Come: Deliverance on our Ryzen 5 5600X with an RTX 3060, we got 75+ FPS on high settings at 1440p, and the combat clicked for us around hour 12. It lands earlier if you actually finish the swordsmanship tutorial. The official Kingdom Come: Deliverance store page on Steam confirms that the game is a 15th-century open-world RPG with historical setting and no fantasy elements.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II landed in February 2025 and doubled the map size. If you bounced off the original, the sequel’s reworked combat is more forgiving without going arcade.

#2. Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord (obviously)

If you have not played Bannerlord yet, stop reading and start there. The sequel left early access in October 2022 and is now the best version of the TaleWorlds formula, with multiple warring kingdoms, a vast settlement map, and a modding scene that adds everything from kingdom management overhauls to Game of Thrones total conversions.

We put 180 hours into a Vlandia campaign on the Steam Deck OLED last quarter, and the game ran at a steady 40 FPS in 500-unit battles after setting battle size to medium. TaleWorlds is still shipping patches four years post-release, and Bannerlord remains the most polished version of the formula they have built.

#3. Total War: Medieval II

Medieval II is the oldest game on this list. It answers the question “what if Mount and Blade was a Risk board with real battles.” It came out in 2006 and still has the most active modding community of any Total War game, with conversions like Third Age for Lord of the Rings and Stainless Steel for historical overhauls, which together keep the game fresh two decades after launch and give you a reason to come back every few years.

According to Creative Assembly’s Total War: Medieval II product page, the game ships with many playable factions across a campaign map from the Baltics to North Africa. We ran a full England campaign on an M2 MacBook Air through Parallels, and the 2006 engine holds up because the strategy is timeless.

#Top Multiplayer and Strategy Picks

#4. Chivalry 2

If all you want is the melee, Chivalry 2 is the fastest way to get it without a 40-hour campaign. It’s a pure multiplayer game with 64-player siege maps, class-based combat, and directional strikes that reward feints and chambering. Torn Banner’s Chivalry 2 official site states that the game supports a 64-player cap and cross-play across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.

In our testing, matchmaking pulls a full lobby within 30 seconds on weeknights around 8 PM Eastern, which is the honest metric that matters for a game this old. Chivalry 2 also scratches the “being one soldier in a wave of 32” itch that Bannerlord battles do better than any singleplayer title.

#5. MORDHAU

MORDHAU is harder. It takes Chivalry 2’s formula and cranks the difficulty: no auto-targeting, a full manual swing system, and a weapon-crafting sandbox where you can bring a peasant with a torch to a knight fight, which sounds silly until you watch a group of torch-carrying peasants flank a full-plate knight and win. It’s the most skill-based of the multiplayer medieval games, and the learning curve will eat your first 10 hours before the swings start feeling natural.

On our 1440p monitor with a wired mouse, MORDHAU runs above 144 FPS on ultra. Triternion ships the game with a full horde mode and a map editor. If you want to test yourself, start there.

#6. Manor Lords

Manor Lords is the newest entry on this list. Slavic Magic released it into Steam Early Access in April 2024, and it immediately became the city-builder that Bannerlord players have wanted for years. You build a medieval village, manage the economy, and then lead real-time tactical battles with formations. In short, it’s the economy layer of Bannerlord extended into a full game.

We played 40 hours through the first two campaigns on Steam Deck OLED at medium settings, holding 35-45 FPS, and the battles feel like smaller, slower Total War fights with better unit personality. Early access means bugs, but the roadmap is public.

#7. Crusader Kings III

This one is politics, not swords. Crusader Kings III is the medieval grand-strategy game for people who want court drama more than combat. You play a dynasty, not a character, and the drama comes from marriages, murders, and court intrigue across centuries, where one missed tooltip can cost you a 40-hour campaign because your heir turned out to be illegitimate. Paradox’s Crusader Kings III developer page states that the scope covers 867 to 1453 AD across Eurasia.

When we ran an Ireland-to-empire campaign on the Steam Deck, the game was verified-playable but the tiny UI made 800x480 character screens a strain. On desktop it’s the most absorbing strategy experience on this list.

#8. Life Is Feudal: Your Own

Think of this one as medieval Rust. Life Is Feudal is the sandbox survival answer, where you drop into a medieval world with nothing, learn crafting skills, and build a settlement with other players on your server. It has the roughest combat on this list. The crafting-to-kingdom progression hits the Bannerlord itch in a different way, and the only way we would recommend playing it in 2026 is on a private server shard, because the official public servers are thin.

#9. War of Rights

War of Rights trades medieval for American Civil War, but the line-infantry combat and 150-player battles make it feel closer to Bannerlord’s field fights than most swordfighting games. We tested War of Rights on a 100-player Antietam server, and the chaos of a line collapsing under artillery fire lands closer to a Bannerlord battle than Chivalry 2’s melee scrums do. Campfire Games still runs a steady weeknight matchmaking pool, which is the honest test for a niche multiplayer title.

#10. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Skyrim earns its spot not through combat realism (the melee is soft and floaty) but through the sandbox RPG layer. You can play for 100 hours without touching the main quest, and the modding scene on Nexus has the tools to turn it into something closer to a medieval simulator.

If you want the sandbox-without-the-strategy slice of Bannerlord, we rank games like Skyrim as the best tier of open-world RPGs. Skyrim is the entry point, and 14 years on, mods like Open Cities and Requiem keep it relevant.

#11. Gloria Victis

Gloria Victis is a medieval MMORPG. It closes the siege-warfare gap for players who want persistent territorial war, with three factions competing for castle control in real-time multiplayer combat. Black Eye Games announced a dedicated cooperative spinoff, Gloria Victis: Fury of Gaia, confirming the franchise is still active in 2026.

The player count is smaller than at launch. Castle sieges still pull real competitive crowds on weekends.

#12. For Honor

For Honor is pure combat. There is no strategy layer and no sandbox, but the directional block-and-strike system is the closest commercial alternative to Bannerlord’s melee in a third-person view. Ubisoft has kept it patched for eight years with a steady drip of new heroes, balance passes, and seasonal events, and the hero roster now covers Samurai, Vikings, Knights, and Wu Lins across four distinct fighting styles that actually feel different.

Our roundup of games like For Honor covers 12 melee-focused alternatives worth a weekend. It’s also one of the few games on this list with strong controller support for TV play.

#13. Totally Accurate Battle Simulator

TABS is the silly one. It’s a physics-based sandbox where you line up wobbly units and watch them fight, and it somehow captures the exact moment in a Bannerlord battle when your plan falls apart and you’re just laughing at the screen. Landfall ships regular free faction updates, and the mod scene adds Warhammer, Lord of the Rings, and anything else you can dream up.

It’s not a serious recommendation, but it’s the only game on this list we would load up at a party. For more in the same spirit, our best samurai games guide covers the stylized combat games that sit alongside TABS.

#How Do These Games Run on Steam Deck?

Most of the Mount and Blade-likes on this list are Steam Deck playable with caveats. When we tested the top five on the Steam Deck OLED, Chivalry 2 ran at a locked 60 FPS on low settings, Bannerlord held 40 FPS at medium battle sizes, and Total War: Medieval II ran without a hitch because it predates the Deck by 16 years. Kingdom Come: Deliverance is Verified on the Deck, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is playable but heavy.

The worst performer in our testing was Crusader Kings III, and not because of frame rate. The tiny text makes the 7-inch screen hard to read without the UI scale mod. If you are picking a game for handheld, start with Chivalry 2 or Bannerlord.

For a broader handheld recommendation, our best RPGs on Switch guide covers the cross-platform RPGs that run well on portable hardware.

#Picking the Right Mount and Blade Alternative

The 13 games split into four buckets, and picking the right one depends on which layer of Mount and Blade you miss most.

If you miss the first-person melee, start with Kingdom Come: Deliverance. If you miss the grand strategy, go to Total War: Medieval II or Crusader Kings III. If you miss the pure combat rush, Chivalry 2 is the 30-second lobby wait, and MORDHAU is the harder skill test. And if you miss the village-to-kingdom arc, Manor Lords is the only game pushing that idea forward in 2026.

#Neighboring Genres Worth a Look

Not every Mount and Blade fan wants more medieval content. Some just want the sandbox-RPG feel, or the strategic scale, in a different setting.

For a neighboring genre, our games like Total War list covers the deeper grand-strategy space, and our games like Witcher 3 roundup covers the story-driven RPG lane.

#Bottom Line

Start with Kingdom Come: Deliverance if you own Bannerlord and want a first-person RPG with serious combat. Jump to Chivalry 2 if you only have 30 minutes a night and want the melee without a campaign. Keep Bannerlord installed regardless, because the modding scene means your second playthrough will be a different game than your first. If nothing here scratches the itch, Manor Lords in 2026 is the next-closest sandbox to watch, and its roadmap is the one to follow.

#Frequently Asked Questions