I think it is...a nerfed version of Brytenwalda. So...first...and no, I'm not going to talk of the crashes or anything.
But, it is lacking a lot of Brytewalda.
The good...story mode is actually pretty cool. I love the naval battles, they make a lot more sense than the Total War ones that confuse the hell out of me. It seems more in-depth and...that is about it.
The downside? No freelancer, which should be part of the base game already but it isn't. If bannerlord doesn't include it, I'll wait for a mod that does before I even think of buying it. You don't get to buy/prepare land like in Brytenwalda. You don't barely get any 2 handed stuff like in Brytenwalda. And definitely no 2 handed axes...which okay I'm not historically knowledged on vikings during the era...so maybe they didn't use 2 handed axes? Maybe that is Hollywood making things up about vikings going in with axes. Seems lame though. There is A LOT less factions than Brytenwalda...and why no Sweden? Sweden was huge back then as far as I know...the map is also uglier than the one in Brytenwalda and the graphics in general are uglier than Brytenwalda.
Unlike Brytenwalda, you can't do farming either. You have little in the way of "RP" stuff in general.
Maybe its an early access thing? They didn't say that anywhere when I bought it. But...
I played 6 hours and went back to Brytenwalda and A New Dawn. Both vastly superior. Oh well, maybe that 13 USD I paid will pay off later...not like I actually PAID because I got 15 dollars out of glitched gems someone gave me...(and before anyone says something, I didn't even realize one could glitch gems or I'd have just not sold them. Figured someone bought a bunch and was feeling friendly (hey it happens)
In any case...even if it had no crashes or anything...Brytenwalda, 1257 ad and A New Dawn are both way better and more fun to play. If it was an early access thing, it should have been more obvious.