‘Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’ Is a Complex Yet Frustrating Medieval Simulator

Imagine The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim if all the magic and flying dragons were taken out. It would lose its fantasy flair and the player would just be a person walking around in an European-influenced setting. With no dragons around, the land is suddenly more peaceful without the fear of fire-breathing creatures coming out of nowhere to kill you. 

That sounds boring on paper, but 2018’s Kingdom Come: Deliverance managed to be gripping with its memorable story and side quests. They turned what was otherwise a realistic medieval simulator in a plain setting into a land filled to the brim with lore. With Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, developer Warhorse Studios doubled down on what made the first game so beloved, while also doubling its scale and tackling some quality-of-life issues.

Generally, its mechanics and commitment to said realism often clashed with the enjoyment of the game, as players needed to micromanage hunger and sleep meters, often disrupting the flow of the game, but it offered an otherwise engaging and unique medieval experience that players couldn’t find anywhere else.

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Despite its popularity, the first game also stirred up some controversy due to the developer’s claims of “historical accuracy,” which in this particular context meant its medieval setting didn’t bother to include any kind of ethnic diversity — bucking a progressive trend that most other AAA studios have embraced. Within the video game industry, there’s been reactionary movements against including minorities and marginalized groups, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s lack of non-white characters caused a certain type of audience to rally around the game because its world and inhabitants are majority white. 

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 doesn’t really rectify those concerns. That’s not to say that these games have malicious racism — they don’t. But regardless of whatever intentions the developers had with the game’s historical context ultimately didn’t impact the game’s emotional story and elaborate gameplay mechanics.

With that in mind, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 won’t change the minds of its predecessor’s detractors, but it’s a much smoother experience this time around thanks to the lack of bugs and glitches that plagued the first game.

Going Medieval

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 takes place directly after the events of the first game with the return of Henry of Skalitz as its protagonist. He and his friend Hans Capon must travel across Bohemia to deliver a message to a political ally in order to avoid a war and potential power struggle on the throne. In the first game, Henry’s personal rags to riches story felt appropriate for its more modest scope. But in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, the stakes are higher, filled with shifting alliances and political intrigue. 

Deep Silver

It’s an engrossing story that concludes conflicts from the first game, with Henry finally avenging his family and proving that he’s worthy of respect despite his lower-class origins. Along the way, Henry encounters new enemies and familiar allies, with the dynamic between Henry and Hans being fun and comedic, a welcome change in tone to the game’s unforgiving setting. Henry’s upbringing and tribulations from the first game make him much more humble, and conflicts with Hans’ spoiled royal childhood. Like true friends, they bicker with each other before going their separate ways, only to somehow meet up again when shit hits the fan and make up.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is an absolutely massive game, expanding beyond its predecessor with two open world regions this time. For a medieval open world, it’s surprisingly packed with story-rich side quests. Many developers have recently scaled back their open-worlds due to the inability to fill them with meaningful content, but there’s no shortage of that in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. One memorable quest involves Henry seeking out a missing father, fighting off wolves, and then painstakingly carrying the father on his shoulder while he drunkenly changes his mind about where he wants to be dropped off at.

I ran Henry in the pitch black night on an empty stomach, which made his fist fight against the wolves exponentially harder, but he still pulled through with a sliver of health left. Quests like these make it easy to appreciate how much effort went into building out the open-world and bringing it to life.

Deep Silver

While the game looks fine, the biggest improvement over the first one is the amount of polish. There weren’t any game breaking glitches that tanked the experience or blocked overall story progression.

As real as it gets

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s commitment to realism can be seen throughout its complex gameplay systems. Players have to fill his hunger and sleep meters, which in turn can impact his combat prowess. The survival mechanics may turn players away and sometimes even stifle your current approach, but situations like these force improvisation and is part of the fun.

In direct sequels with returning protagonists, it’s common to see them get nerfed (meaning: reduced in ability) to a weakened state in the game’s intro. In games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, where the protagonist is at an all-powerful peak following the events of the previous story, the narrative requires Link to lose everything (including an arm) and start back at square one. 

It’s a frequently used shorthand merging both story and gameplay that gives an in-universe reason for players’ need to progress, even when they already did so in a previous game. At the very beginning of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Henry and Hans’ group gets ambushed and murdered while they’re both away for a swim, forcing them to retreat in only their underpants. Now, they basically have to start over, with no one believing that they’re messengers sent by royalty. But it was fun building Henry up again. 

Deep Silver

At the start of his new journey, Henry has very little money, so players have several options to survive. For example, Henry can trespass on private property and sneak in a nap in a stranger’s bed or eat from their pot of stew at the risk of getting caught by the homeowner and driven out of town.

Even mundane tasks have intricate steps to complete and mini-games, such as alchemy, blacksmithing, and even pickpocketing that flesh out their systems. In many RPGs, players can select an item or weapon to make, and if they have the proper materials, it just materializes out of thin air. Not in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. As a blacksmith himself, Henry strenuously goes through the entire process, including heating metal, shaping it into form, and then quenching it off in a barrel of cool water. Players even have to learn to hit the metal evenly, and understand when to reheat it so that the material doesn’t break. 

Henry also has a recipe book with step-by-step instructions on how to create different potions and remedies, which involve manually grinding to collect herbs. There’s a satisfying rhythm to these tasks, and the game makes even the most laborious chores feel worthwhile.

The pickpocketing mini-game was surprisingly the most fun. Henry has to remain undetected while rummaging through a person’s pockets before the player sees a menu detailing the items they have. The longer he remains undetected, the more time you have in the menu to select to steal. However, if Henry gets caught by the victim or a witness, then the guard will come and reprimand him.

Deep Silver

This is where Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s save system comes into play. Like many of its other mechanics, the save system also has an emphasis on “realism,” for better or worse. In the first game, saving one’s data could be done in only three ways: sleeping in a bed, drinking a Savior Schnapps potion, and triggering an autosave during pivotal points in the story or a quest. It was incredibly inconvenient not being able to save your progress at any point, which ended up being one of, if not the most, frustrating part of the game.

Eventually, a “Save and Quit” option was added as an update, and thankfully, this was carried over to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. This creates a single save slot that players can continually keep reloading into. Henry gets caught trying to steal? No worries, just reload the save. Want to try and take on a bandit camp but don’t want to risk dying? Just save right in front of it. Sure, this option disrupts the immersion and lets you “save scum” (cheat the game by quitting out of undesirable scenarios), but losing an hour of progress if the game crashes or something else bad happens is even worse.

Fighting with steel

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s combat system is mostly the same as the previous game’s, which is much slower and more methodical than most action RPGs. Instead of mindlessly slashing away at sponge-like foes, there’s a real weight to the combat. Players have to outsmart opponents with only four directional inputs and strike when they’re most vulnerable. By carefully watching which direction opponents raise their weapons or shields, the combat almost feels like a performance. Blocking and stamina management play huge roles too, making sure that there’s some back-and-forth tension between Henry and his opponents. With no special tricks up Henry’s sleeves, like magic or flashy attacks, there’s an authentic sense of depth and skill to every movement.

Deep Silver

Skill progression is also complex but easy to understand. Henry’s stats level up by simply performing actions that correspond with them in real life. For example, combat increases his strength and vitality by running around. There’s even a skill tree for drinking alcohol, and one of the unlockable perks allows Henry to be 20-percent quieter when drunk. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 prides itself in realism, but these little instances of gamification give it personality.

The equipment and inventory screens are confusing to scroll through, though. There’s a lot that goes into armor: Henry first has to put on a mail coif before adding on any other sort of head protection, as well as wear a pair of leggings under his leg armor. The UI is sometimes difficult to read, especially with the font size being so small. These little details are impressive, but the constant flipping between screens gets tiresome after a while. Being bogged down in menus means spending less time in the world itself.

Even when battles or side quests weren’t going smoothly, nothing in the game ever felt like a waste of time. There were times where I’d trek back and forth between defeating bandits and the local tailor so I could sell the gear I looted off of them for money. While carrying all of that equipment encumbered Henry to the point where he couldn’t sprint, he at least gained a few Vitality levels.

Deep Silver

Nothing in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 comes quickly. Even going from place to place requires time and effort. It’s reminiscent of Dragon’s Dogma 2, where the friction between the player and the in-game systems is part of the overall experience. Whereas Capcom’s action RPG is archaically and annoyingly old school, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 avoids similar pitfalls by including an easily accessible fast travel system. It might seem antithetical given the game’s other painstakingly realistic aspirations, but it helps alleviate those feelings of frustration that will crop up when being forced to repeatedly hoof it across the expansive world. When using fast travel, Henry moves around the map like a board game piece, and can sometimes encounter emergent scenarios like a townsperson being harassed by bandits, giving him a choice whether or not he likes to engage.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is not an easy game by any means. Its dedication to realism will have players experience what it’s like to live in medieval times, not the most pleasant era to be in. It’s dragged down by some cumbersome micromanagement, as well as clunky combat and controls. But that’s part of its appeal. When progress runs smoothly, it feels like Henry is on top of the world, but when things go awry, it feels like the end of it. The game is a period piece that unabashedly knows what it wants to be — basically the first game but better. Add an riveting and sentimental story on top of it, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is equally compelling as it is frustrating.