Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (2025)

This is one of those games that's nowhere near good but gets gloated all over the place to the point that makes me think the company that made this game spent 90% of their money on marketing and only 10% of it on actually producing a good game.

This game is awfully boring and the whole thing feels like doing chores. I've had more fun doing chores at home than playing this game. Also don't even get me started on side missions where every single side mission is the same. It's like doing the same chore 20 times over and over. Go to this location pick up this item and bring it back to this person while having extremely long and meaningless dialogue with 5 different people.

Listen, I don’t mind friction, there is an undeniable beauty to the tapestry of game mechanics KCD 2 proudly challenges you to master, each individual idea interwoven with every other the game has to offer. The problem with that approach to design is if there is any part of this game you just don’t find appealing, well that sucks for you. Every part of this game that I was interested in required me to do three other things that held no appeal to me. To explore this game’s vast open world requires food, and cobbler repair kits. To fight effectively requires a vast array of armors. To join a melee tournament requires 200 groschen, when I make an average of 10 groschen per sword I blacksmith. I don’t mind friction, but this just feels like a series of roadblocks. I’m just not having fun at all.

Damn shame, but I may have just outgrown RPGs. I donno

The second installment is truly in a league of its own. I honestly didn’t understand why Clair Obscur received so many awards last year. I tried it for about an hour, and it felt like just another formulaic JRPG built around grinding. Meanwhile, a relatively small studio from Prague delivered an absolute RPG powerhouse.

The feeling of riding through green fields with your horse and dog is unmatched. The sense of immersion is extraordinary. The story works, and the capital city is staggering in scale and detail. Even The Witcher set a high standard for memorable cities, but this goes beyond that. What they created here is genuinely breathtaking.

I now feel compelled to go back and play the first installment to experience the full story arc. This is blockbuster-level AAA quality at its best. The fact that it comes from a comparatively small, newer studio makes it even more impressive. You can feel the authenticity—its language, its rough edges, even its historical grounding. It feels rooted in a specific place and culture.

If I could, I would give it six stars. It’s that good.

After hearing some good things about it, I tried out the first Kingdom Come: Deliverance and it was a game that really clicked with me, so I was definetly looking forwards to trying out the sequel, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. I got the GOTY version for Christmas luckily. This is a long game & I've a lot to say about it.

So, the first thing you'll notice coming from the 1st game is the noticeable graphics upgrade. The first game was running off a Kickstarter budget and looked more like a mod of Oblivion when it came to textures and such. Now that KCD2 has a bigger budget, they could bring the graphics into the current gen. It really makes the medieval world pop & it feels like you're interacting with real people vs claymation versions of people. All of the characters got upgrades with Henry looking more dashing and the Rattay lords look a little older. There's a photo mode too that let's you catch really good screenshots. The only downside is there's no options to pose Hnery. The textures look much better with the only things I could really criticize is the chain mail shirts look like they are screen printed and you could see the neck seam on the female NPCs with low cut tops. They did bring most of the voice actors from the old game over, lots of NPCs sound like Capt. Bernard, but they did get a new voice actor for Father Godwin, thankfully.

The sequel is also much more stable than the original. I didn't come across as many bugs or quirks. There wasn't the short draw distances where NPCs would pop into existence and the music didn't cut out randomly after a few hours of play. And like the first game, the music is a standout here. It's what you'd expect from a medieval game, with lots of big orchestral pieces, Gregorian chants, and hurdy gurdy tavern tunes. I enjoyed every piece in the game and how they were used to accentuate story moments.

The KCD franchise has a reputation for being challenging. Not Dark Souls hard, but don't expect them to hold your hand. Like with KCD1, you can tell Warhorse has an old school design philosophy. You have to learn the game's systems and master them along with Henry to get anywhere in this game. There's a lot of skills, but they have streamlined some of them, to the game's benefit. Instead of having separate skills for pickpocketing & lockpicking, they've condensed them into 'Thievery', same with axes, clubs, and maces. It encouraged me to try related skills that I ignored in the first game, like pickpocketing. They've also kept the limited save system, but it does seem they've softened up. The alcohol you drink to save the game is more plentiful and isn't as expensive at stores. There's also a lot more checkpoint saves during quests. There was less instances where I would die and lose 2 hours of gameplay.

They've added some other quality of life improvements with the inventory system. You can now equip a torch without also unequiping your shield. There's a quick access menu that let's you have a few items on your belt to use without going into the inventory menu. And the biggest quality of life upgrade is the ability to have three saved loadouts. That way you can have one loadout for your armor, one for your sneaking clothes, and one for your social interaction clothes. The only downside is I would often be in my normal clothes for a mission to then throw me in a fight, and you can't change outfits during combat.

Another big thing that was changed was the combat. Where in the first game you could attack from 5 directions or stab with a sword, they've simplified it to attacking from either 3 directions or stabbing. It's not a terrible change, because the leg attacks were rarely used in the first game. There were also reworks to the masterstrike system that at first I thought would be too complicated to use in a heated swordfight, but when I took the time, it actually is one of the most effective moves in my arsenal and adds a fun strategic aspect to fights. Less useful is you can block a strike then riposte, but 95% the enemy automatically ripostes in response starting a chain of parrying that does nothing but burn your stamina. When fighting multiple enemies, you end up fighting the lock-on system too, because it's hard to unlock off an enemy, even if there's another one closer that's beating the shit outta you. They've also made bows more intuitive to use. There's still no crosshair, but you can use the tip of your arrow to aim better than in the first game. I actually used bows fairly often and could reliably hit stuff. Now the new hand cannons they introduced are hard to aim like the KCD1 bows, so I didn't use them.

Now the downside of all these systems is that you start not being good at anything, especially when it comes to combat. I'll admit, during the first few hours of this game, I was struggling, and if I wasn't a fan of this series & knew it would even out as I leveled up, I'd've bounced off this game. The game doesn't scale missions or the world to your level, so you can come across scenarios where you are fighting superior numbers and people with superior equipment. It's easy to get overwhelmed and killed over and over again when trying to travel anywhere. And after 2 swings, Henry is out of stamina, so bandits can just run gangbusters on him. It was when the game felt most unfair, because it seemed like the enemies immediately started as armored experts vs some low-level bandits to get used to the combat with first. And running from a fight is hard, because usually your stamina runs out before the bandits, & if you're on your horse, they will throw you off the minute they see a sword, so you can't ride away. You have to engage in a fight you can't win. I wouldn't blame someone for ditching this game within the first few hours. Once I got to about level 10 and some decent armor, I did start to have more fun with the game.

There's also still the immersive sim elements like sleeping, eating, and cleaning. Food isn't as shelf stable as the first game, but I didn't have issues with keeping fed. There's new animations for eating from pots and cleaning yourself. There's also new options to do your own laundry, smoke meats, or dry herbs. The alchemy mini game is pretty similar to the one from KCD1, but the new mini game I liked the most was the blacksmithing one. You get to do a simplified version of swordsmithing, unfortunately Henry doesn't craft armor.

Kingdom Come 1 was set in the sort of medieval backwards of Bohemia. KCD2 moves the story to a more influential parts of Bohemia with two regions to explore. The first map is the area around Trotsky Castle, a somewhat famous Czech castle. Outside of the castle, there's a few villages you visit and a few small fortresses. Part of what exacerbates the early game combat, is there's no real big towns like Rattay where you can buy decent armor, so you will have to scavenge most of your gear off fallen bandits. There's also a lot of canyons to explore that can lead to accidental deaths from falls. When you do get into the Castle, it's fun to explore.

Eventually you leave the Trotsky region to head to the Kuttenberg region. This is where the game makes good on something I mentioned wanting in the first game. There's a huge medieval city to explore in the city of Kuttenberg. It takes up a sizable portion of the map, but there' still other small towns and fortresses to explore. In Kuttenberg is all the craftsman who sell you better arms and armor. It was cool to explore through the city. It's full of life with street vendors hawking wares, taverns filled with patrons, and people walking about the streets. It really nailed that immersion, every time I walked in something wet in the street, I winced knowing that it was likely dumped out waste. This area is easier to traverse as there's no rock canyons, but I did find the city itself easier to walk vs ride a horse with all the winding streets.

One reason I really like the KCD series is it's commitment to history. I've not been an ardent student of medieval history, but this series has made me take an interest in the medieval history of eastern Europe. I read all of the codex entries provided in game and have looked up some of the history on my own time. The game does mix real history with popular perceptions of the period. The inhabitants of this world aren't all dirty peasants wearing potato sacks, they wear colorful garments and have a variety of jobs. But there is also a hint of pop culture medieval tropes in there, but the codex will often mention when the developers took liberty with the history, such as with Capon's age. I also learned from reviews of the 1st KCD that the game does skew a little bit in favor of Czech exceptionalism, which is to be expected from a Czech developer, but this entry tried to be more evenhanded, doing a bit of image rehabilitation for the Cumans.

Overall, I appreciate the historical authenticity KCD strives for. I think it's one thing they beat Assassin's Creed in. There's not some big pomp and circumstance when a historical person shows up and there's no fantasy elements where everyone is part of either an evil or good secret society. I'll mention it more in the story section, but the developers commitment to letting you play through is part of what really endears me to this game. In that, you are having meetings with people that often have ulterior motives, but your current goals align. Your meetings are about rallying troops and securing funding, not trying to find the ancient crystal to power up a magic spell. The enemy is a rival king who is bound by the game of politics, not evil lord Malabor of the Underworld.

Another aspect of the history I commend them for is the medieval people behave based off the social norms and stigmas of the time period, including to some extent Henry. I've stated one of my pet peeves is “historical characters with way too modern opinions” and Henry can question the church's rule and the noble's rights, but within reason that it feels natural to the setting. He isn't trying to persuade people to abandon monarchical rule or something. That also feeds into another aspect I noticed out this game's tone. I think it's partly due to the history, but I'd also guess it's because what the writers drew inspiration from. And I want to approach this carefully, because I realize this could devolve to “alpha male bullshit”, but that's not my intention. The tone has a dude bro feel to it, in that a lot of the guys sit around and bullshit about stunts they've pulled, girls they knew, & challenging them to dumb bets. It reminds me of those early 2000s dude bro comedies mixed with the machismo of a 90s medieval film. Henry is sling swords and slinging dick across medieval Bohemia, and I realize it's definitely a power fantasy, not in the Doomguy vein, but more in the James Bond style. Still, it was refreshing to see dudes acting like dudes in a game. Because when I think to other games where guys are interacting, it's usually a father & son interaction or professional. There's nothing that could be considered uncouth in their interactions. Where the conversations & relation between Henry and the other dudes feels more authentic.

You can tell this game was written by a bunch of dudes, which also means women are often regulated to their looks. The game does wobble on the fine line of good taste a few times. I can accept some of it because of the time period, but other times Henry can lay on the “Eh, you're a woman, you just need to look pretty and get married” a little too thick. It also looks like every woman in Bohemia got a boob job in between the two game. Even with those moments there are other times to where you see the friendship between Henry and Hans grow. They hassle each other, but when things get tough, they have those tough conversations and try to help each other like bros.

So, the story itself, skip to “With the main game” to avoid spoilers. It picks up immediately from the end of KCD with Henry & Hans tasked to deliver a letter to Von Bergow to enquire about his alliances to King Sigismund. Well, actually we start with a flash forward where we play as Father Godwin in the middle of a siege. Yes, while you play as Henry for 95% of the game, there's a few sections where you play as Godwin. His points mostly help to tie Hanush & Radzig back into the story and to set up cliffhangers or time skips for Henry's story. I'm not sure how much time passed between games, but apparently enough for Godwin to get fired from his preaching job. But yeah, we start with Henry & Hans heading into Trotsky with a security detail, but we get attacked at night by some bandits that kill everyone but Henry & Hans, who were bathing. Henry does fall off a cliff that gives him a concussion, the game's way to reset his skill back to one for this sequel. Dressed in beggar rags, the castle guards turn us away & Hans acts like a punk because he isn't being treated as a noble. It's a little odd because Hans had matured some by the end of KCD1, but this felt like he was going back to his early game KCD1 personality. He ends up running off on his own and Henry has to work as a blacksmith to earn some money. Eventually he ends up at a wedding for a local noble that leads to him getting arrested and sent to the castle. After some finnagling, Henry is able to join Von Bergow in a raid against the forces that attacked you at the start of the game. There's some more back and forth, but it turns out the bandits, led by Jan Zizka, are supporting King Wenceslas while Von Bergow plans to betray you and Hans. Henry ends up helping Zizka escape Von Bergow. This is also where we meet Katherine, one of the possible love interests A side quest in this area also sees Henry helping some traveling Roma with their issues. I know the first game got flack for only featuring white people, which given it was set in a backwater town in Bohemia, I can see why the developers made that choice. Since this game is in a more cosmopolitan part of Bohemia that would attract travelers, it makes sense to include them here, and they did it while keeping the history in mind.

In the Kuttenberg region, Henry has a few tasks. He has to save Hans from a hostage situation and find John of Lichtenstein who was collecting intelligence. When helping with John, Henry learns about the Jews of Kuttenberg and has to help them escape a pogrom initiated by Von Bergow. It's a sobering mission where Henry learns about the hardships faced by the Jews in Bohemia. We also learn that the main contact with the Jewish community, Samuel, is sorta Henry's brother. He was Henry's stepfather's bastard. So they aren't blood related, but consider each other brothers. Henry also helps Zizka free a band of mercenaries and their leader, the Dry Devil. The mission structures were very much “We're getting the band back together”. By the end of these missions, you've got a motley band of rebels to fight Sigismund, including a priest, a robber baron, a Pole, a drunk archer, a noble's daughter, a Jew, an alehouse maid, a Muslim scholar, and a Frenchman, among others.

That is something I noticed about this game, in that it's much more light-hearted than the first game. There seems to be an emphasis to add in more humor. There's more little side quests with goofy premises and an overall swashbuckling adventure feel to KCD2. I imagine it's because the first game was set in a region that was very much ravaged by war and Henry was still grieving his dead parents, so a light-hearted tone would feel more out of place there.

Once we've got our band of misfits, we meet with Radzig, Hanush, & Margrave Jobst from the first game. Sir Divish of Talmberg doesn't appear in this game. And this is where the historical influence makes the writing interesting. You are working with all these nobles, and while Radzig & Hanush are shown to be interested in the 'greater good'. You get the feeling the other nobles are more fair-weather friends. The moment King Wenceslas is saved or the political situation turns too much out of their favor, they'll forget their past bonds and jump ship for a more lucrative side. With the nobles support, they organize an attack on Von Bergow's fortress, attempting to capture him. It's successful and he seems to turn coat against Sigismund and recommends stealing the king's silver, so he can't pay his soldiers. This gives us a bank heist mission where one team breaks into a church council with Godwin pretending to be an Italian Cardinal, and the other team tunneling into the vault via a mine shaft. You make it out with the silver, but are chased into Suchdol fortress where Sigismund's forces lay a siege. It was neat to experience a siege from the besieged side. You see as they try to preserve food and fight off countless attacks. Towards the end of the siege, the fortress is out of food, and I think in real life, they'd likely resort to eating their horses, which the game does mention that option, but everyone hand waves it off. There's a sobering moment where you play as Godwin having to give a service for the dead and being faced with the tired, sorrowful faces hoping you can provide answers for them. Finally, Henry escapes to get a message to Radzig and Jobst, who've been amassing an army, and there's a literal “here comes the cavalry” moment where Jobst's army rides in to save the Suchdol forces. Sigismund retreats back to Hungary and the story ends with everyone feeling they've finally achieved victory.

Along with the historical story, there's also Henry's personal journey we follow through the game. KCD1 ended with Henry not getting back his father's sword from Ishvan Toth. So, that's something that drives Henry in the early game, to the point everyone around him gets tired of hearing him go on about his father's sword. Luckily we don't have to wait the whole game before we can get to Toth. He is the 'boss' of the first area. With Henry fighting him in Trotsky Castle before throwing him out a window. It's a big moment when Henry is reunited his sword and Toth has a big villain speech where he pulls the old “We aren't so different, you and I” cliché. When Henry gets to Kuttenberg, he has to deal with Toth's partner Erik, who swears to kill Henry in revenge. That's a part of this game that definitely won't age well. They don't say it right out, but the relation between Toth & Erik is always questioned. In the first game, it seemed like they were secret lovers. That's still here in KCD2, but they add in this story that Toth was more like a surrogate father for Erik. There's this undercurrent of “Well, of course Toth is evil because he's gay.” I may be reading into it too much, but it feels like one part where the writing stumbles. It was also unclear kinda where Henry fits in the medieval hierarchy. Like he's a noble bastard, which was a smart choice gameplay wise, because it lets players experience both the noble and peasant side of the time period, but it does make Henry not feel like a part of either social class. Sir Radzig very much acknowledges Henry as his son, I know that doesn't make Henry a noble, but it does seem like he shouldn't be treated like any other commoner like his is sometimes.

And of course, Henry can find romance along the way. There are three main romance options in the game. The first is actually Hans Capon. I really liked Henry & Hans friendship and didn't want to do the cliche where any deep male friendship is actually because they are sexual interested in each other. Then there's Katherine, definitely the 'main' romance choice, and the one the game kinda pushes you towards. She's part of your merry band and often works collecting information for the group. She's receptive to Henry's flirts through the game, but she seems pretty business first for most the game, only at the end does she suddenly seem to return Henry's interest. It feels a bit forced and the chemistry between Henry & Katherine wasn't really there. The last romance option is Lady Rosa, the daughter of a noble who helps bankroll your group. She's a smart as a whip and a go-getter. She's interested in being more than a pretty face. She kinda challenges Henry and they do have good chemistry in their back & forth. Henry can also swear off all romance and stay loyal to Theresa.

With the main game, there were also three story DLCs. I'll try to be brief. The first one kicks off in the Trotsky region and see Henry helping an eccentric painter with a list of strange requests. These quests can be fetch questish, but some are more engaging. This DLC also lets you paint your shield to fit your vibe. The next DLC lets Henry go back to his roots and work as a blacksmith in the town of Kuttenberg. The main goal of this DLC is to rebuild a blacksmith shop, basically base customization, and to fix the clock in the town hall. The quests are mostly radiant quests to increase your blacksmithing prestige amongst the townfolk. There is a side story where Henry learns more about his stepdad's life as a young blacksmith that was kind of neat. While these two DLC were ones you could do in the main world at your own pace, the last DLC is more story focused and locks Henry away in a new location for the duration of it. It tasks Henry with helping a famous physician during his visit to the Sedletz Monastery. While there an illness spreads that has the head monk worried it's the plague. You have to find out what's causing the sickness while also discovering the other secrets going on at this monastery. It's a stealth and investigation heavy DLC. I really liked this DLC because it nailed the atemposhere of foreboding as you're in this monastery with the spectre of death overhead & where you aren't sure whose lying to you. It's a DLC, so I get it's not meant to be a long story, but I felt they started to rush the ending and wouldn't've mind another 2 hours to really flesh out the story.

All in all, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 hooked me like the first game did. The developers commitment to historical authenticity is on display and it scratches my itch to experience what it would be like to be someone living in different time periods. It's also spurred an interest in medieval history for me. The world looks great and the characters are all fun to interact with. The game starts with a really steep combat difficulty curve that I wouldn't blame people for dropping the game over, but it evens out by the late game. The challenge is enough to keep you engaged with the systems and use all the skills you can to get better. The music is a high point, nailing that grand movie orchestra feel. The DLC are worthy additions to the base game. If you enjoyed the first KCD, I'd highly recommend this game. If you enjoy medieval history or skill-based sword combat. I would recommend maybe starting with KCD1 before trying this game, because you may be a bit lost when it comes to story.

Kingdom Come Deliverence 2 - (PS5)

After so many mentions of this game in several podcast I had to try it out. Found it cheap on marketplace and had a go.

Never played the first game, just watched a recap on YouTube so I was on board on the story.

Game is developed by Warhorse Studios, based in the Czech Republic. This is a first-person medieval role-playing game focused on realism. It’s historically accurate and realistic, with both people and towns that existed back then.

You continue the story about Henry in the 15th-century Bohemia. It starts off when you have a mission to deliver a letter, together with your companion Sir Hans Capon and others. Henry and Sir Hans manage escape a brutal assault in just their underwear, while all the others don’t. From there your journey begins, without clothes, food and weapons. And what a journey it is!

It’s a bit slow paced and there is a lot of dialogue, but I really enjoy it! I read that the manuscript includes 2 million words, and the recorded dialogue of the main character Henry is over 500 hours. The dialogue is fun and so well written! Many memorable characters and missions.

You learn by doing, so if you shoot arrows you progress in that skill. Pickpocketing progress you’re thievery-skill and so on.

When progressing, you also get perk points which I did not notice until 30 hours in 🤣🙈 at that time I had 50 perk points to put into my character!

Another detail I like is when you steal something belonging to a person in a town. If you’re seen wearing that item people recognize that and calls you out in public to be a thief and guards come for you. You need to take baths when you get dirty or bloody. If you don’t it will affects your charisma and people will make comments about you. So many small details like this they make the game both realistic and great.

The combat is tricky and hard in the beginning. I had so much problem at first but when i got hang of it, it was fantastic.

Many more things can be said but to summarize it. KCD2 is a masterpiece of medieval realism. The story, the acting, and the game world all together make it a fantastic game. Definitely a 5/5 for me!

Rating: 🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲

I manage to soldier on and finish the first one... but the trouble is, this just doesn't feel that different to me from what I recall of the first. IT has the same pros and cons, and no singular aspect of the gameplay is different enough. (Some of the minigames are better I think? And hunting is a bit more challenging) A lot of the things that annoyed me in the first are still present here: (timed combat strikes, fighting multiple enemies, weird/difficult in game economy, fetch quests/vague objectives, impatient timed questgivers, waiting/saving mechanics, etc.)

Story and cutscenes seem to be better, but boy is it distraction city with all these side quests...

This game like the first, was a real chore to get going and actually not be useless in combat. Building up your character and training things is really taxing and time consuming (Hunting in the woods and sneaking around people in town at night was the route i went) and gets pretty repetitive. (But it's also really satisfying to do a lot of things, like win a fight, or score a lot of meat on a hunt... Or get really good at the blacksmithing minigame --which is awesome!)

It was fun for a while but just about every component of the game feels lifted from the first. I would have to play them back-to-back to really compare and tell you what was different or what markedly improved. Considering the first was probably >90 hours for me, I feel torn between soldiering through this one as well and just having enough and giving up. I've also been playing it through a streaming service so i cannot cheat or install mods to get through it faster (which, might encourage me to stick with it if that was an option, because most of this is stuff like grinding for meat and evading enemies unless you recently saved or feel confident about it, making basic gameplay and advances take significantly more time)

Goodbye for now, Henry of Skalitz. I might revisit you in -console, your story interests me.

3/5

I can't really remember much of this one. It's been in my shelved list for probably close to 5 months now. I think that itself says something. I recall enjoying bits and pieces - getting stronger, getting stronger and better looking gear, some of the writing. But the overall feeling I have thinking about trying to finish it now is that it's just too damn long, without enough of a hook for me to get back into it. I think I'm in the minority with that view though. Bon voyage.

This is exactly what I wanted from the sequel to the first game. It feels like a big improvement over the previous entry in almost every way. Mind you, it's still full of jank. But it's an endearing and fun kind of jank. If you didn't like the first game, this sequel likely won't sell you on the franchise. It's significantly more refined. The writing is great. They polished the combat. It runs very smooth (there is still jank here). Yet the fundamentals of the original are still here.

No longer are you caught on small ledges or subtle changes to the terrain. Movement feels smooth and fluid. This alone is a great improvement that's hard to explain unless you played the first game. Even a 6 inch wall or incline in the terrain would cause your momentum to grind to a halt in the first game. No longer! They thankfully removed the collision detection from most shrubs and smaller plants, which previously made walking through the forest kind of annoying. They also added plenty of quality of life changes, such as pushing left alt to follow a NPC or holding E to follow a trail. It makes a big difference given how much time in the game is spent traveling.

Combat still feels janky. I never found combos to be reliable to execute since enemies have a tendency to just block and parry you mid combo, which seems to break up the combo since you need to react to it. Also sometimes while trying to change my aim, my targeting gets completely dislodged from the enemy. Which was kind of annoying especially if I get hit during this moment. There are some long stealth sequences that can be a bit annoying. Such as your escape from Trotsky. Where the designers clearly had a specific path for you to follow in mind (you get railroaded by absurd enemy pathing).

Graphics are a big step up in quality with far lower pop-in textures occurring. There are some stuttering with models (in cut scenes), where sometimes they seem to skip some frames, but overall performance is good. I did have some graphical bugs such as it was raining, then a cut scene inside a home began with the rain effect still happening. Looking very surreal having it rain inside a home. Silly but far from a game breaking bug.

The game having you start at level 5 in all skills also helps to smooth at the earlier game. To be fair, the first game you were a literal peasant, so it made sense why you would suck at everything. But the game does a good job setting you up as established, yet you get injured severely, which explains why you aren't in your prime like the end of the first game. Some examples of early game angst from the first game would be how using a bow before level 5 in archery resulted in you hurting yourself unless you wore bracers. This penalty is no longer relevant since you start at level 5. Other skills had different penalties prior to level 5.

I like the set up. Starting in a battle fully leveled up, then jumping to where the previous game ended. Having it end with an ambush and you being gravely wounded. Explaining your decrease in power. I also like how you show up to the castle you need to deliver a message to and have a chamber pot dumped on you and you are mocked because you look like roaming murder hobos. It honestly makes sense that a lord would deny you entry being in nothing but undergarments and covered in shit. So it's an interesting set up, where you need to figure out a way to cloth yourself, get money and somehow get invited to a wedding to meet a lord you need to talk to. It results in an open format with lots of choice early on.

Another nice immersive change is how some quests need to be acted on quickly or they are failed. If I guy says meet me outside, and you bugger off, it makes sense they assume you ghosted on them and they just move along with the quest. It still has a good sense of humor, strong characterization and writing like the first game. Even the little details, such as a gregarious demeanor from a random goon adds a lot of flavor to an otherwise generic character with little to no dialogue. This happens a lot.

The game feels like Red Dead Redemption. Both in its shifts of tone but also in it's immersive open world. Like the predecessor, this game is firmly more a sim than an action RPG. The systems do feel more refined this time around and the games performance is drastically improved. There are more moments similar to the monastery questline from the first game where you are in an enclosed space with multiple quests that function like a mini-sandbox. A strength and improvement in my opinion, in terms of quest design. For example, you have the previously mentioned wedding quest where you have multiple quests and characters you can interact with (even getting to the wedding is an interesting questline where you side with either a blacksmith or miller). It took me more than 20 hours before I even made it to the wedding which is effectively the first major quest. I just did a bunch of side content that was enjoyable. What was most surprising for me was how varied and good the side content was in this game. Most open world games of the length lack this depth. They often rely on copy and pasted content to pad out the run time. Here each side quest (for the most part, not all are great) feels like effort was put in to tell a story, have an interesting scenario or at least have an interesting character. Which kept me both engaged and always going out of my way to do the next side quest.

Some of the best moments in the game are the organic random interaction either between NPCs or with you and random NPCs. Outside the Hole in the Wall there is almost always a random brawl that will happen right outside. Which is often hilarious to watch and surprisingly varied. Multiple times I had random drunk bozos accost me late at night to tell me about how excited they were to be Dads! Then another person tried to convert me to Christianity. There are lots of these random encounters that make the world feel real. There is plenty of jank as previously mentioned but it's really easy to overlook it.

It's interesting how when in a dialogue the world continues around you. One time, a drunken patron awkwardly stood inches away from my face, while drunkenly swaying side to side while I had a full conversation with someone else. Was pretty uncanny, but funny! Still it does result in more organic feeling conversations unlike Bethesda's bug eyed stares and frozen postures.

This is an easy recommend for me. It's janky. Firmly not for everyone. But if this all sounds appealing to you, give it a shot. It's a breath of fresh air to see a studio commit to their vision and not make any attempt to pander to the broadest audience possible. It makes for an engaging and memorable experience. Though with a heavy dose of jank. For me, this was a flawed masterpiece and I will definitely check out the next game this studio makes.

Tras los eventos del primer juego, Henry, junto con Hans Capón y una delegación de enviados, viaja hasta una cerca región para llevar una misiva a un noble poderoso, a fin de que ponga sus tropas y recursos en la empresa de rescatar al rey Wenceslao. Sin embargo, nada nunca es fácil y lo que es en apariencia una misión sencilla, se convertirá en una odisea inenarrable.

Si hubiese que describir este juego, una forma correcta y esencial de hacerlo sería decir que es lo que el primer juego de la saga debería haber sido. El planteamiento del gameplay es muy similar, compartiendo gran parte de las mecánicas, sistema de combate, estadísticas y sensación de juego. Sin embargo, las similitudes se detienen ahí, ya que todo el resto de los aspectos que conforman un juego han sido mejorados infinitamente respecto al primero y han llegado a un punto de calidad notable dentro de la industria.

El primer aspecto evidente son los gráficos. Kingdom Come I era un juego resultón para su época, aunque ha envejecido mal, pero salió con un rendimiento inaceptable, doblegando a las más poderosas tarjetas del momento y siendo, incluso con la potencia gráfica de hoy en día, un hueso duro de roer. En comparación, esta segunda parte es mucho mejor gráficamente, artísticamente y no solo eso, si no que rinde y funciona a un nivel espectacular. Las más modestas graficas lo pueden mover con una soltura envidiable y si se juega en una más potente, el juego luce y funciona de forma espectacular. Solo este apartado ya hace que sea una experiencia muy buena.

Además, carece de bugs, habiendo muy pocos en comparación con lo grande e intrincado del mundo. Esto es notable ya que las misiones tienen siempre varias formas de resolverse e incluso misiones pasadas afectan a acontecimientos futuros, de una forma parecida a lo que ocurre en Baldur's Gate III, lo cual en un mundo tan grande como este es algo a destacar.

El sistema de combate es muy similar a la primera parte pero ha sido refinado y rediseñado para que funcione mejor y por tanto es mucho menos frustrante y más disfrutable, haciendo que combatir sea una opción aceptable, incluso contra grupos de enemigos.

La historia y los personajes también han mejorado muchísimo y brillan con luz propia. Es un juego emocionante, en todos los sentidos de la palabra, que te hará reflexionar, llorar, alegrarte y meterte en la piel y vidas de los personajes, con un doblaje al español ciertamente soberbio.

La única pega del titulo es la curva de dificultad, que se está intentando solucionar en diversos parches y que originalmente pecaba de ser muy difícil al principio y excesivamente fácil por el medio y sobre todo al final.

En resumen, una gran segunda parte, posible candidato al juego del año y una demostración de que el talento y el amor a los videojuegos siempre ganan a la mera ansia de dinero.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 ofrece algo que se ha vuelto cada vez menos frecuente en los videojuegos de los últimos años: un mundo profundamente inmersivo que invita a la exploración pausada. Nada de sprints por una checklist en el mapa. La experiencia general es sobresaliente, con una narrativa más elaborada y fluida que logra superar algunos de los puntos débiles de la entrega anterior.

No obstante, el juego no está exento de críticas. El sistema de combate resulta excesivamente plano y, con el tiempo, los enfrentamientos se vuelven triviales, perdiendo el desafío inicial. Su mecánica basada en la fijación de objetivos puede generar situaciones frustrantes debido a su comportamiento errático, lo que en ciertos momentos compromete la inmersión del jugador. Además, aunque el título ofrece múltiples desenlaces y diferentes enfoques para resolver las misiones, en su scripting se percibe cierta rigidez, lo que puede derivar en situaciones que rompen la coherencia de la experiencia cuando el jugador no actua como los desarrolladores preveen.

A pesar de estos aspectos mejorables, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 se consolida como una entrega sobresaliente. Su cuidado por los detalles y su capacidad para sumergir al jugador en su mundo lo convierten en una obra con mucha personalidad, capaz de ofrecer una experiencia única dentro del género.