My best friend was a huge fan of Mount & Blade: Warband, so when we noticed that Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord was available on Xbox Game Pass streaming, we were stoked. It felt like the perfect nostalgia‑meets‑modern‑tech moment: two old friends, a cloud‑streamed sequel, and the hope of recreating those chaotic battles against swarms of bots.
Unfortunately, the reality didn’t match the anticipation.
Bannerlord: Beautiful, But Not Built for Us
We love co‑op. Specifically, we love being on the same team and fighting hordes of AI enemies together. As far as we could tell, Bannerlord doesn’t support that on Xbox Game Pass streaming. We could join custom servers, but they were empty — and worse, they didn’t have bots. There was no obvious way for us to set up our own server.
There are mods that enable multiplayer campaigns, but of course none of that works in cloud streaming.
It’s a shame, because the game looked gorgeous. The mechanics felt improved. The world felt alive. But without a way to play together, we couldn’t see a path to making it fun.
Commandos: Origins — A Trend I Really Dislike
Next we tried Commandos: Origins, another streamable title that supports keyboard and mouse. It looked promising… until we discovered that you need to play some initial levels solo before you can start a co‑op session.
This is a trend in modern gaming that I absolutely detest.
It’s already hard enough to coordinate time with a friend. When you finally manage it, the last thing you want is friction — “play these tutorials first,” “unlock co‑op after mission three,” “complete onboarding before joining a friend.” Developers often justify this as a way to “improve multiplayer quality,” but when you’re playing with a friend, half the joy is figuring out the mechanics together.
GTA V was the worst example of this. The opening mission you had to do was long and boring. And in one instance when we were all in a room together we all had to watch each player do it. Sometimes we’d have to change our accouts or reinstall the game and once again the individual had to do the entire opening mission before they could actually dive into the real game. It was aggravating.
We exited quickly. The game still looks fun, and I imagine we’ll return to it eventually. But for our first real gaming session in over five years, we wanted something we could jump into instantly.
Age of Empires II — Controller-Only?
We thought we’d fall back on Age of Empires II as a nostalgia play. But the Game Pass version is built for a controller. I’ve always been skeptical of RTS games that require a controller — it feels like trying to paint with oven mitts on. We backed out almost immediately.
Age of Mythology: Retold — A Brief, Chaotic Adventure
We finally landed on Age of Mythology: Retold, which streams with mouse and keyboard support. We think of it (positively) as an Age of Empires clone, and it was the first game of the night that actually let us play together without hurdles.
It took me a while to get my bearings. I made the mistake of changing my default “Player” to Odin, thinking my love of the Marvel Thor movies would give me some intuitive understanding of the mythology. Instead, it just meant the mechanics were completely different. My “gatherers” couldn’t build most structures — I needed a different unit for that. The birds I tried to hunt for food turned out to be scouts. It was a comedy of errors.
There were some hiccups too: halfway through, my keyboard stopped scrolling the map. And then multiple giants attacked us. With no real army to defend ourselves, we were wiped out quickly.
We lasted 32 minutes. But those 32 minutes were fun.
Final Thoughts
Dipping my toes back into gaming with friends reminded me how much I value games that let you jump straight into co‑op without barriers. Bannerlord looked beautiful but wasn’t playable the way we wanted. Commandos: Origins put unnecessary friction in front of co‑op. Age of Empires II wasn’t suited to streaming. But Age of Mythology — even with its chaos — gave us exactly what we needed: a shared world, a shared defeat, and a shared laugh.