# Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Beta Patch Notes - WS v1.3.0 / BL v1.5.0

- Product: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/mount-blade-ii-bannerlord)
- Vendor: TaleWorlds Entertainment
- Date: 2026-08-19
- Original notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/261550/view/667248424192573480
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/mount-blade-ii-bannerlord/releases/2026-08-19-beta-patch-notes-ws-v1.3.0-bl-v1.5.0

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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'.

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- **added** — Allow players to choose whether to start a Sandbox game with a ship or play the regular game start
- **added** — Add ferry feature to enable smaller player parties to reach areas of the map that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to access without a ship
- **added** — Add naval random events to offer players more experiences that don't require a strong fleet
- **added** — Implement battle sites and wreckage system to add visibility to battles occurring outside the player's immediate vision range
- **added** — Add mooring feature to allow players to store ships they cannot effectively crew instead of selling them
- **added** — Add port points to coastal castles for embarkation and disembarkation
- **added** — Introduce advanced starting options for Sandbox games including player start options, campaign scenarios, and modifiers
- **added** — Add campaign scenarios that provide tailored but partially randomized world states for increased replayability
- **added** — Integrate Fast Mode directly into the game rather than the launcher, making it accessible on consoles
- **added** — Enable players to cut boarding ropes in missions
- **changed** — Adjust pirate spawns to include smaller parties that players can engage earlier in the game
- **changed** — Increase land and sea travel speeds by 15 percent
- **changed** — Improve naval party decision making
- **changed** — Improve map visuals
- **changed** — Improve storytelling and narrative elements

Greetings Warriors of Calradia,

Our last content patch focused on the sandbox simulation. It made diplomacy more responsive and encouraged our lords to pursue meaningful wars, create larger armies, go to sea, harass convoys and raid villages. It also included the new seaborne raid, additional ships and equipment as well as many tweaks to gameplay, visuals and performance.

Today’s beta release puts more emphasis on player activities. The segment prior to the patch notes discusses our motivations for some of these changes.

**War Sails

**While seafaring offers new opportunities for merchants and warriors alike, it requires substantial progress to not only acquire a ship, but also hire a crew that can fend for themselves. This is sensible from a balance perspective, but gates much of the naval content. We wanted to improve upon this without deeply changing the early game that many players enjoy.

The most direct solution the beta introduces is - additional player choice. At the beginning of every Sandbox game, you will be able to choose if you want to enter Calradia with a ship to your name or play the regular game start.

However, even if you opt for the latter, the patch includes a number of changes that should make progression both smoother and more flexible. For one, we added the ferry feature so that smaller player parties can reach (and escape) areas of the map that would otherwise be hard or impossible to get to without a ship. Given player feedback, we also increased land and sea travel speeds by 15% so that you will generally be faster to progress (and recover).

Once you do have a vessel of your own, you will find the pirate spawns adjusted to include smaller parties that you can engage earlier into the game. Similarly, part of the reason for why we introduced naval random events as well as the battle sites and wreckage system is to offer players more experiences that don’t require a strong fleet. Having said that, they should increase the variety of naval gameplay regardless of progression and allow players to organically witness more of what is happening in the world.

The mooring feature, in turn, opens up additional options for aspiring captains as their fleet grows. You will be able to store instead of sell ships that you cannot effectively crew yet. You also won’t need to risk your entire fleet in every naval battle. Instead, you can specialize and only bring what fits your current play style - be that trading, raiding or naval combat.

Finally, we added port points to coastal castles. While more locations to embark and disembark should make sea travel more accessible in general, the larger motivation is offering additional opportunities for armies to clash at sea. Given that most army encounters occur around sieges, naval blockades on castles will contribute to that.

While the beta includes other changes such as improved map visuals, better naval party decision making, storyline tweaks and the ability for players to cut boarding ropes in missions, our focus with this patch is on naval content access, progress and variety. Especially the variety and frequency of what you can experience at sea will remain an important topic for War Sails going forward.

**Base Game

**As we explored starting with a ship for War Sails, it quickly became clear that this was also an opportunity for the base game. Not the ship, mind you, but advanced starting options.

These are split into three categories - each with their own goals.

The player start options allow experienced players to access later game content more quickly and begin a game with a particular character role (such as king, vassal or merchant). For new players, this will also serve as an additional form of progression since you need to unlock most of the roles in regular gameplay before you can start with them.

The campaign scenarios, on the other hand, are always available. Their primary purpose is to increase replayability through the introduction of tailored bu

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