Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is an action role-playing video game developed by TaleWorlds Entertainment. It is a prequel to Mount & Blade: Warband, a stand-alone expansion pack for the 2008 game Mount & Blade. Bannerlord takes place 210 years before its predecessor, with a setting inspired by the Migration Period. Bannerlord was announced in 2012 A Steam page for the game was created in late 2016; the following year, TaleWorlds began releasing weekly developer diaries detailing elements of the game. An early access version of the game was released on March 30, 2020.