Building comparison
head to head
Elite DangerousvsMount & Blade II: Bannerlord
Neither is meaningfully harder - they pose close to the same test. The widest gap is execution, and it is a single point.
Elite Dangerous
Optimization · Practiced Mastery
Galaxy-spanning space sim about flight and trade.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
Optimization · Pure Optimization
Sandbox medieval sim spanning personal swordplay up to running a kingdom's economy.
Elite Dangerous leans Optimization (Practiced Mastery); Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord leans Optimization (Pure Optimization).
Elite DangerousMount & Blade II: Bannerlord
Axis by axis
Execution6 vs 5
Elite Dangerous leans a little harder on execution, though the gap is small.
Elite Dangerous
Flight controls, docking, combat aim
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
Directional melee blocking and mounted combat
Reads2 vs 2
Same score on reads - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Elite Dangerous
Light PvP reads, mostly PvE
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
Multiplayer duels add some human prediction
Variance3 vs 3
Same score on variance - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Elite Dangerous
Procedural galaxy, mission variance
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
Procedural campaign politics and battles
Optimization8 vs 8
Same score on optimization - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Elite Dangerous
Ship build, trade routes, engineering grind
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
Economy, army composition, and kingdom management dominate
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.