Early Access Review

An absolutely awesome game that's highly engrossing and a lot of fun ^^However, the game is very early access. Due to the popularity of the previous game and the demand for this game, they may have released it a lot earlier than most people would have liked. Although the devs seem to listen to suggestions, and are steadily improving a lot of aspects with regular updates, which may make the game better than if they waited until it was more finished before releasing it :)Single player is so much fun with so many different ways to play it.Become a merchant, a mercenary, a smuggler, a blacksmith, a lord/lady or even a King or Queen of a Kingdom.You can also lead or fight in armies/sieges, manage castles and cities, get married, have kids. There are 6 races you can play as with different perks, you can customise your male or female character then chose what life they had which affect your starting out skill levels.There are different difficulty levels. If you haven't played the previous game, I recommend starting out on very easy then when you get the hang of it, go to realistic. You also can't play this like the previous game, seen people who tried with hilarious results. One Warband player went charging into some cavalry, was killed in one hit and his dead body rag dolled off his horses xD Like in Kingdom Come Deliverance, you start the game off as a peasant and feel like a peasant.You also have an option to have lords perma die or not die. There are pros and cons to having it on or off. If it is on and you die in battle, like with the npc lords and ladies, there's a chance you be captured and a chance you will stay dead. If you do die and you have married and had a child, then you can carry on playing as as the child. (Currently a child takes 1,512 days to grow up to an 18 year old. A day not sped up takes 1 min 36 secs but if quickly waiting a day will take 10 seconds. There's 4 months in a year. So between a child will take between 40.32 hrs to 4.2 hrs real time to grow up atm.)When you start the game you create a clan which is your family and any one you have hired. When you get your clan level high enough, you can create your own kingdom (if you haven't joined an npc kingdom). Then you are essentially a King or Queen and can persuade/charm enemy clan leaders into becoming your vassas. Unless you have a dynasty of grown up children, you need vassals if you strive for world domination. Also with other lords/ladies you can use influence to create armies and have huge battles. Huge battles are fun, feels a bit like a Total war game but played from a first person perspective as a peasant/mercenary, lord or general.Multiplayer is fun but the vast majority of the people in it have possibly played the game for hundreds of hours.In multiplayer there is a captain mode where you strategically command troops and there is a 60 vs 60 siege battle of only real life players which is awesome. 60 vs 60 siege is so cool, you have real life players pushing the rams, managing the ballistas, throwing boulders at the invading forces, sometimes you might even see players holding their shield up to protect other players on their team. While I definitely recommend the game and while it is playable, it does have a long way to go.The vast majority of the negative reviews seem to be people who haven't got a good pc or were expecting a more finished, bug free and optimised game. So I suggest you look in the discussions and news for updates before deciding when you want to buy it.Also about the multiplayer Anti cheat:The anti cheat Battleye, I like that there's an anti cheat and that its not useless Denuvo, but I've avoided installing Battleye when playing Ark Survival Evoled. Its a highly invasive and from researching it, a minority of cases have had malicious problems since installing it. But because most players don't have a noticeable problem, people think its safe. I'm just not sure if it is actually safe (just highly invasive) or if it is smartly malicious, either way don't really want it on my computer. So will uninstall it when I'm not playing on multiplayer. Would kinda prefer For Honors/Vermintides 2s Easy Anti cheat as its less invasive and processor hungry)