Sands of Faith Mod is a free-to-use game utility from thewanderingknight. This custom add-on lets you relive The Crusades, religious wars during the Middle Ages, on the role-playing action game Mount & Blade: Warband. This total conversion mod brings you to a massive map that recreates the Levantine region, accompanied by various factions such as The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Knights Templar.

In creating this period piece, the Sands of Faith Mod reworks specific gameplay mechanics to better capture the realities of the time. Other era-specific works for Warband include Europe 1200 or the Gangs of Glasgow Remastered.

Retake the Holy City

Sands of Faith Mod focuses on The Crusades, a series of religious wars waged over the possession of holy sites including the city of Jerusalem. Essentially a war between Christians and Muslims, it features players from the Middle East and from Europe. This sets up the premise of this mod, and lets you play with or against factions such as Antioch, the Ayyubid Sultanate, or the various organizations of Knights.

It uses a customized diplomacy system, different from the one in the base game. Starting the game as a Freelancer lets you join factions, although some options require meeting prerequisites in order to unlock. Of course, it contains a massive amount of content materials. From unit skins, building designs, to animations and cutscenes, the developers tailored everything to create a unique experience accurate to the era.

As such, expect this game to be quite demanding for the system. For starters, it requires over 1 GB of storage to run. Even then, players report the mod lagging or crashing because of the resources it uses. As a workaround, players can change the graphics settings to lower options or reduce corpses in the game. This problem is made worse during town sieges, which considerably uses more resources.

A challenging historical mod

In the Sands of Faith Mod, you get to experience the tension and adventure of being in The Crusades. Whether as a warrior or as a lord, or both, you can explore how the various factions operate and see the world from their perspective. Overall, this mod offers a challenging experience, both in and out of the game. Still, it’s highly recommended.