They say seeing the world through the eyes of a child is the purest joy that anyone can experience and in Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord, that's absolutely true.

This might look like a mod, but it's not.

After the game launched in Early Access on Monday, players were delighted to discover that pressing 'R' on their keyboards during character creation allowed them, for some reason, to play through this extremely bloody, early medieval RPG as an infant child.

It seems this bug(?) was patched out of the game in the last few hours, which is a travesty quite frankly, but before it was... I managed to record my experience as the immortal baby lord of Calradia.

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Aside from the immediate elation that comes with being a toddler with the strength of a full grown man, there's also an incredible gameplay advantage to be had here. Let me talk to you about shields.

You can get some pretty massive shields in Bannerlord as it is, which if used correctly, will keep you safe from all but the most accurate of opponents. It's not uncommon to finish a battle with a dozen or more arrows embedded in your shield, like some kind of giant pincushion. Shields are great, they'll save your life, I can't recommend them enough. Get yourself a shield.

But what if your shield was the size of your entire, child-sized body? Well then, my friends, you'd be unstoppable.

Perhaps this is why Taleworlds decided to patch babies out of the game in the end. We've asked them if they'd like to comment on this and we'll let you know if we receive a response.

Until then, if there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that the Mount & Blade community will absolutely find their own way to make this happen again.

And until some clever modder figures that out, I'm delighted to say that my save file still works.