# Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Dev Update & Beta WS v1.2.0 / BL v1.4.0

- Product: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/mount-blade-ii-bannerlord)
- Vendor: TaleWorlds Entertainment
- Date: 2026-04-09
- Original notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/261550/view/540008597092827273
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/mount-blade-ii-bannerlord/releases/2026-04-09-dev-update-beta-ws-v1.2.0-bl-v1.4.0

What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog.

Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'.

---

- **added** — Add offensive naval patrol behavior for lords to pursue strategic goals at sea
- **added** — Add seaborne village raids with new coastal village scenes and disembarkation mechanics
- **added** — Add naval clan roles to expand naval gameplay options
- **added** — Add new vessels and greater item variety for naval gameplay
- **added** — Add ability for naval parties to interact with coastal and river villages without disembarking
- **changed** — Increase AI score adjustments to make lords undertake longer nautical journeys
- **changed** — Shift lord naval activity from primarily hunting pirates near their own coastline toward interaction with other factions
- **changed** — Improve alliances and trade agreements to be more responsive to world factors and better integrated with related mechanics
- **changed** — Shift alliances away from a default everyone opts into toward something that responds to actual threats
- **changed** — Adjust micro wars and prolonged inactive wars to ensure conflicts impact the world in meaningful ways
- **changed** — Improve stealth mission gameplay to be more challenging and responsive while rewarding players who remain undetected
- **changed** — Update troops sent to clear hideouts to take into account related skills
- **changed** — Improve mission experience by resolving issues that unnecessarily prolong engagements
- **changed** — Improve atmospheres, performance, and AI for the mission experience

##

Greetings Warriors of Calradia,

The past year has been an exciting journey, marked by the release of War Sails, our expansion for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. Alongside it came substantial additions to the base game, such as alliances, trade agreements, stealth gameplay, deserters & patrols, random events, improved visuals, and more.

You have since given us a lot of feedback on both — what's working and what isn't. This update is aimed at a number of these topics. In addition to the regular patch notes, you will find a segment that discusses our current priorities, the goals of this patch, as well as some insight into what’s yet to come.

##### War Sails

Our immediate focus remains on the War Sails expansion. While many important issues were addressed by the initial patches, we still want to close gaps in the experience so that you can better enjoy naval combat and the strategic and role-playing opportunities of seafaring.

##### Lord Sea Presence, Naval Patrols & Seaborne Village Raids

The availability and variety of encounters at sea are key aspects in this regard. While pirates, convoys, and fishers are already plentiful, it is currently too difficult to consistently locate the fleets of nobles, who tend to offer larger, more challenging naval engagements.

Tweaks such as increasing the map viewing distance can help - but don’t address the broader issue. Simply put, our lords are not setting sail frequently enough, and when they do, it is often short-lived.

To improve upon this, today’s release includes AI score adjustments that increase the likelihood of longer nautical journeys and, more notably, a new offensive naval patrol behavior that lays the groundwork for lords to pursue some of their strategic goals entirely at sea.

For now, this means that they patrol enemy town and village ports to intercept fishers, convoys, and fleets. Based on initial observations, the change doesn’t just increase the naval presence of lords but also shifts their activity from primarily hunting pirates near their own coastline toward a more meaningful interaction with other factions.

During the beta period, we will expand on this by allowing naval parties to interact with coastal and river villages without disembarking. Lords will thus be able to resupply in more locations while avoiding pathfinding costs that may otherwise prevent them from continuing their journey at sea.

The bigger addition coming during the beta, however, are seaborne village raids. They will not only add to the lord sea presence and strategic naval activity but also offer an entirely new mission experience. Unlike land raids, attackers will approach the coast and disembark their ships as defenders scramble to mount a defense. To support this, we have created a range of new scenes for coastal villages. We intend to further expand this pool after the feature's release as well. On the campaign side, seaborne raids allow attackers to more easily evade responding lords and introduce a new consideration to fleet management, as they can only be conducted with shallow draft ships. Consequently, large ships with holds are not the answer to everything.

##### Content Variety, Gameplay Feel & Future Content Patches

Increasing the overall variety of content is another important goal for us. While the current update is focused on the addition of patrols and seaborne raids, new vessels, and greater item variety, we will still pursue further naval feature integration (such as the naval clan roles in this release) and feature additions to expand the range of possible naval gameplay in future content patches.

Alongside this, we will continue to improve the existing features and content of War Sails. This concerns broad topics such as the visuals of the new world map and faction balance, as well as many individual tweaks aimed at the fun factor of naval gameplay.

For missions, this currently entails creating a tighter, more consistent experience by resolving issues that un

_[Truncated at 4000 characters — full notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/261550/view/540008597092827273]_