Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Review
A bohemian masterpiece!
When the first Kingdom Come Deliverance game came out, people were praising it and saying it was one of the best RPG games they have ever played. I was reluctant to try it out at first, but I eventually gave in to the hype... and I felt scammed, bamboozled, and hoodwinked! Unfortunately, my experience was awful: bugs left and right, the game was janky, and I couldn’t get into the combat because of the disjointed controls for people who played using a controller – the button placements were weird. Listen, I didn’t hate it, I was just disappointed. I couldn’t experience the reason this was so great. Even with my brother trying to convince me to try certain mods to fix things, I gave up on that and just did my best to push through it. There were some parts I enjoyed, but all together I just felt annoyed with the experience.
But after years of development from Warhorse Studios, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 was released, and I must apologize for hating the first game for so long! I couldn’t believe a second game was released, and I didn’t think it would be good based on my first experience - but boy, was I wrong. This game is amazing and it has shot up to one of my personal top 5 games of the year so much. Hell, it took me such a long time to even finish it because I was so immersed in the games’ world. Whether I’m putting my blacksmith skills to use forging weapons, stealing items for more groschen, or entering the sword‑fighting tournament for the 8th time, the game always pulls me in. I ended up playing for over 100 hours, and I know with the DLC I’m going to get dragged in for even longer.
Combat and traversal are way better than the first game, and what I enjoyed was the more you do something the better you get at that activity. If you fight a lot, you will see your stats improve. Weapons feel better and faster and doing certain combos just feels fluid even fighting unarmed. Things like using certain wrestling moves while unarmed, or positioning yourself when fighting multiple enemies and the satisfaction of parrying and doing an execution, everything just works now.
Riding on horseback is an upgrade. It’s less janky from the first game and a little braver. Pebbles (Henry’s horse) still is the best in terms of carrying capacity and your trusty dog, Mutt, while still janky he helps a lot in combat and searching for treasure/clues. The world is fun the way NPCs reacts to what you do: like if you’re causing trouble, trespassing in certain locations, or even when you haven’t bathed or covered in blood looking like a madman, they will say certain remarks like you stink or report you guards. Another thing that happens if you’re causing trouble is if your skill isn’t high enough or you’re too broke king it’s to the Pillory for you.
Discovering new towns feels natural like Skyrim, where you never know what to expect when traveling or what cool area you’ll be in. But this isn’t a fantasy RPG - there’s no dragons or goblins. Instead, there are bandits waiting to abuse you or to have a chat about how you’re going to give them all your stuff. They’ll have their wolves or dogs growling in the bushes while you get your weapon ready. You might also run into odd people while walking around, saying riddles to you or asking for help.
When I hit the major city of Kuttenberg, I was overwhelmed but excited about how many more things you can do. The amount of people walking around, multiple quests to do, taverns to check out - it was a wonder! And knowing you can see parts of it in real life is interesting. Checking the map to see how dense and detailed the map/world is, even underground in caves/mines, is very cool to explore but creepy if you get kind of lost.
Thankfully for this game, I only had a few things that I didn’t like. One of the negatives I have is that sometimes it can get annoying when some quests bug out, and I had to either restart the game or wait for a full-on patch. If I didn’t use reddit and check on the KCD2 community for certain workarounds, I would’ve been stressed. There would also be times where characters were floating around or getting me stuck in the stairways. Even in combat, telling your dog Mutt to attack someone sometimes didn’t work, because all he did was run around in a circle. It actually reminded me of how the dog from Fable 3 would act when it bugged out. Thankfully, none of those things deterred me from coming back to the game.
I almost forgot to talk about the character you play as – Henry. Seeing him grow as a character from being a peasant to being a page and squire to your best annoying friend in the game Sir Hans is really one to experience. In conversations and even in combat you see his confidence grow, and he still sticks to goofiness even in tense situations. He’s still hilarious with the convo choices you make, and the story is amazing seeing how he changes the tide of war. Everyone’s performance is top-tier. You can see the emotion and heart they put into each character. No wonder this game took a while to create, the passion behind it is obvious.
But in all, I recommend Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. I was shocked that KCD2 didn’t win one award during the Game Awards, but I understand – it had tough competition against Expedition 33 and other big games released last year. But I still wish it won at least the Best RPG category. Despite that, I feel like everyone should take the chance to try this game, from the charm of characters you meet to roaming the open world – it’s going to feel magical to experience this game. This is the perfect time as well to try it out since both games are on Xbox Game Pass. This game leaves a mark - one that lingers long after you put the controller down. Hans Capon says it best: “Audentes fortuna iuvat.” Fortune favors the brave, and this game celebrates every step you take in that spirit. 9/10.