Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is a hard-ass game, no matter how you choose to approach it. It's a hard game to play, to get a footing in and to stick with in its early hours. It's hard, too, in how it refuses to readily explain its myriad of interlocking mechanics and systems, or to help in many of the ways we've (perhaps regrettably) become accustomed to as modern RPG players. It takes a big time commitment to get anywhere in Warhorses' epic sequel and, we guess, fans of the first game wouldn't have it any other way.
Would we personally still be playing it if it wasn't for our review? We're not sure, if we (or at least this writer) are being entirely honest. But that doesn't mean it isn't a fantastic RPG. It absolutely is, as is proven by the score at the bottom of this article. It's just that, as much as we love it, it's almost too much of a commitment to remain a viable option for our own spare gaming time - and we reckon that will be a factor for many of those who dip their toes into this massive time-sink of a game.

If you're gonna get involved in Henry of Skalitz's latest adventure, prepare to be challenged in ways that very few contemporary RPGs manage to challenge their players, is the long and short of it. Prepare to dig deep out of necessity, and to commit lots and lots of time to shaping your version of Henry into the sort of protagonist who can survive a day in 15th Century Bavaria. If you're up it, Warhorse has served up a medieval sandbox that sets new mechanical standards for the RPG genre, most especially in just how doggedly it sticks to its own rules to create a world of real consequence.
Honestly, we really do feel it's imperative you understand just how time-consuming and punitive this game is first, though, at risk of harping on. It took us roughly double-digit hours just to figure out how to own a horse. Getting to a proficient level of fighting requires actual training and serious commitment to what can be a very punishing combat system. There are skill-checks on this stuff along the way, too; tough duels you'll need to win to progress certain missions, horse races against ace jockeys who give no quarter.
Indeed, every mission, be it main or side, that you undertake in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, has the potential to sweep you up and away for far longer than expected, because along the way you'll fail, you'll lose key NPCs to death (some even accidents!), you'll make the wrong conversational choices and blow things disastrously, and then move on in a world slightly altered, on a path that's shifted subtly. Oh, and you'll get arrested. Lots of times.

You'll do crimes and pay the price for underestimating RPG mechanics that are watching you at all times. You better believe it. You'll get robbed, lost, sidetracked by a mission to find a legendary sword (about as fairytale as this one gets), or maybe, like us, you'll spend three solid in-game days crouch-walking around inside a huge castle in your underpants, just so you can level up your stealth skills whilst learning to lockpick (incredibly difficult!).
It's one of those ones, this. A proper rarity. A game to get truly lost in. An RPG to replay ad-nauseum thanks to staggeringly deep mechanics that somehow hold together while we act like cretins, and a representation of medieval Europe that's a joy to spend time in given how real it all feels...how incredibly mundane and un-fantastical it is. Indeed, one of the biggest selling points of the first game was the lack of dragons and dwarves, elves and electric magic bolts. In this game there's horses**t everywhere. People tell you to F-off for looking at them, and if you're dirty (you need to wash often), you're in for a day of walking around and getting insulted by people who don't want to smell your stink. Have you been rolling in poo again, Henry? What's wrong with you? Take this seriously and have a bath, FFS.

Narratively, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 sees Henry go up against the Holy Roman Emperor Sigusmund in the aftermath of the civil war from the first game (we won't be spoiling any more of the fun of the story here), and although Henry is much more skilled now than he was at the start of part one, there's still a ton for him to learn. The combat has its own weighty and laborious feel and flow - many will bounce off it, we're sure - and digging in to learn combos and train in movement sees you begin to branch out, to develop new skills that sometimes even bleed into other useful aspects of your overall character. It's an incredibly malleable system, and one that's earned a place in our hearts for allowing us to create a vile and smelly Henry who loves nothing more than to dig up graves at night whilst hammering bags of dried poppies.
"Practice makes perfect" really is at the heart of everything in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, in fact. Whether it's using your bow, a longsword, axe, shield, pike...you name it, there's a learning curve, some combos to nail the timings on and strategy to be applied when facing opponents who come at you with everything they've got. At first it feels almost alien, especially if you've not struggled through all this in the first game. But as you add moves - shield blocks, ripostes, knee strikes and so forth, you begin to find the rhythm in it. Movement and inputs feel sluggish for a reason starting out and, with practice, there are some very enjoyable and challenging duels to face throughout the game's story.

The same goes for cooking food, for conversing with vendors, for using alchemy to create health potions and poisons, blacksmithing, drying food and more besides. Cooking requires you read a book and go get ingredients. You need to use a timer to boil things, for crying out loud. Making a sword requires you to actually get a suitable piece of metal, heat it in the furnace, move it to the anvil and hammer it out methodically in a little game of banging to the beat (or whistle) that you can actually get really good at. Heck, you even get to dip the sword in some water at the end. It's quite in-depth, and with everything taking place in first person, slowly and methodically...it's incredibly engrossing, really.
Horse-riding, hunting, looking after your dog, drinking, barehanded boxing, sneaking around, stabbing folk, nicking things, lying like a bastard, murderizing innocent people; all of these things have corresponding sections in your character menus (which look every bit as swish as the glorious in-game map) and you can get better at all of them in various ways. Drink a ton of beer and you'll start to reap the benefits of drinking a ton of beer, for example (it helps you get a more healing night's sleep, amongst other things), or ride around the map jumping fences and doing fancy three-point turns on your horse and you'll soon begin to see the benefits as a jockey of some prowess.

All of this melds with clever overworld systems that see crimes remembered long-term - locals won't forget your face in a hurry! - and severe punishments meted out for any and all noted infractions of the rules of 15th century society. The world map isn't huge, by any means, but it's deep, it's got hidden secrets that don't shine or sparkle or try to attract you to them. It rewards players who want to inhabit it fully, who are willing to take risks and go off the beaten track to explore (and die). There are some doozies of treasure spots to stumble upon, too, and these are made all the more rewarding thanks to loot, armour, swords and even early versions of guns that you'll want to either brandish or sell. The more you sell, the better prices you'll make, of course, and it all helps when the best gear can often be of vital importance given the ferocious difficulty of scraps at times.
Conversations with NPCs are well acted and fully-voiced across the board, and side missions here also follow The Witcher 3's lead in how left-field they can sometimes seem, in how they intertwine at points, and in how you can discover them by chance, leading to crossovers between side activities and main missions that feel organic. None of this is entirely original, the rules and laws have all been done before somewhere or other, but here they feel enforced with a clarity, strictness and overall cleverness that make for an incredibly engrossing time. We should also note that this game is unexpectedly very, very funny in its dialogue. There is an ignorance to some of this medieval patter that just really tickles our funny bones, and the writers and actors should be commended for how well they've nailed the vibe.

Bavaria circa 1403, as it turns out, is a truly atmospheric and chaotic medieval playground that, once you start to click with it, once you get a footing and can hold your own a little, is almost impossible to step back from...you just have to get to that point of comfort first. It took us a good 20 hours to start feeling competent enough in combat to take on multiple opponents, to race against folk on our horse for bets, or to raid a large building for every bit of valuable gear before selling it all to a fence. Another ten hours in, and we were stealing and selling fancy horses, getting embroiled in shady networks and spending even more time crouch-walking around and choking people out, because our Henry is actually a descendant of Sam Fisher, on his mother's side.
The strict adherence to the laws and rules of the world, the unbending way in which they are enforced (unless you're a smooth-talker), whilst giving it all so much immediacy and tension from moment to moment, can also prove to be the game's biggest negative at times too, though. It's very hard to make progress in the narrative in places, especially when you hit upon some big story sequence that sees you need to fight a bunch of enemies topped by a boss-of-sorts. We had to step back at times, go away and train, get better and come back. That's the whole ethos, we get it, but in practice you need to find the real world time to do it. This game is hardcore to a fault. In fact, we were surprised to find it even has fast travel.

Those who enjoyed Kingdom Come Deliverance, who stuck with it through significant early teething problems, already know all of this, it's more of the punitive same, now even more well-realised. The combat is tough as nails, but an improvement on its predecessor. It looks and performs better, the story builds into something more epic overall, and the world feels more alive, in its people and their routines (you can follow them to breakfast and work if you like) and in its animals, lush forests and open fields. Yeah, you're pretty much guaranteed to be in heaven if you enjoyed part one, really.
Even with regards to the various controversies that surrounded the first game's politics and outlook, there has been notable improvement this time out. There's a more varied cast, it's definitely more inclusive (which shouldn't be a point of merit, but here we are), and it feels as though some folk may have learned a few important lessons in the past couple of years. We'd be lying if we said there's not still room for improvement, but progress is progress.
In the end, if you've got the time and inclination to rise to the stiff challenge, what Warhorse has produced here is an almost overwhelmingly deep, clever and engrossing thing. It's absolutely one of the best RPGs we've played in terms of how it embeds you in its world. It makes you work for everything, and it's all the better for it. If we had the spare gaming hours, we'd likely spend another 100 of them in 15th Century Bohemia.

Finally, and with regards to performance on Xbox Series X, we settled on playing in the game's Performance mode. Quality, which we didn't spend much time with, just feels lacking in combat compared to the smoothness of 60FPS, and there's no huge aesthetic difference in action. We've also been fairly amazed at how few bugs we've encountered. For such a huge and complex thing, we can't think of any standout examples of having been held back by a critical bug, missing NPC or any of the usual RPG things. Which is nice!
Conclusion
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is an epic RPG in every sense. This is a big, brutal world that works according to deep rules and mechanics that it's never shy about enforcing. Combat is tough, there's a heft and realism to everything, and you'll need to work hard for the things you achieve, but if you're up to the challenge, if you can spare a whole lot of time, this almost obtusely tough RPG will reward your persistence in spades. With top-notch writing and voice acting, one of the most convincingly real worlds we've ever roleplayed in, and an absolutely filthy line in humour, violence (and foul language), this is every bit the sequel fans of Henry's first outing will have been hoping for.
Comments 24
Is the save system still "sleep" and rare drink?
Because I was really enjoying the first one until I went to a bed to save and it crashed and I lost a whole bunch of progress.
Pretty dang excited. I started school though recently and I work full time along with getting married in like 2 weeks, so I worry I do not have the time
Between this, Civ 7, and Avowed, I'm truly screwed for time
Never played the first game, and tbh from what I’ve read in reviews for KCD2 I don’t think I’d have the patience for it. Oh well, Avowed is out in a few weeks…
Glad it’s reviewed well. Will be a while till I get to it, but at least it will be worth it.
So just like the first one, then. Great!! I loved it and will be picking this up after I’m done with Avowed.
I was just discussing the first game in another thread. I'm going to pick it up (the first one) when it's next on offer. I always thought this series was difficulty on a gameplay basis - but it seems to be more difficult in how you learn things and master things, which I can definitely get behind.
First one was one of the greatest rpg I've played and I was going to pick this up anyway. Kudos to Warhorse. They're a breath of fresh air with all the bloated open world games. Just waiting to see if my laptop can handle as the first one was already really demanding.
Sounds to time consuming for me to be honest and I promised myself id knock some games off the backlog this year!
The game sounds good but not for me next game in this vibe I'll be buying and playing is dragons dogma 2!
@abe_hikura for the most part yes. But conversations can check point saves for you too. Just you might need to live with the consequences of your actions when it does checkpoint haha
Don’t seem a game for me, how long to work out how to get a horse 🐎 🤣
Avowed for me in a couple of weeks will do nicely, whilst I polish off Indy and COD.
Seems Eurogamer only gave it 3/5.
Picked up on what this review and others said but to me gave it a more realistic score.
I do wonder sometimes when reviewers bring a lot of sort of issues into the review, but then end up giving 9 or 10 out of 10.
How's the lock picking? 😬
@BustedUpBiker DIFFICULT!
Too much for me I guess. But glad it should live up to hype foe those who pick it up!
@abe_hikura this is where quick resume would come in handy.
@HelloCraigo hey I'm cool with living with the consequences of my actions, it was being punished for the game crashing I wasn't cool with.
@OppoFieldPower doesn't really help with the no manual save vs crash issue but yes it QR dose make it more convenient to play.
Alright this review has convinced me to go into the military and do this in real life because it might be easier than the game actually I am looking forward to this. I think PsychoGhost is going to be streaming this on Twitch so I'll check it out there before hopping into it myself.
Yep, I think there’s a particular audience for this and they’ll love it. The rest of us won’t have the time or the patience or the desire to invest the hours necessary to learn the ropes and get the most out of it.
Would happily play a demo as a taster, but I’m not forking out the RRP.
Kudos to Warhorse for achieving what they have and wish them every success.
The review will certainly put a lot of potential new players off but the game is not really hard, it just requires time and effort. I usually play games on easy but when it comes to games like Like a Dragon or Dragons Dogma 2, I just put the time and effort in to improve myself so I can face the game. These games are 90+ hour time sinks though. I might struggle with KKD2 at the start but I feel like the game is worth my time due to the deep immersion. I can imagine this will be my second game alongside others over the next few months as I improve myself slowly to get the best out of the game.
Really having my doubts now about this game. Oh well, there's plenty of other games to play.
The First one had some of the funniest quests I have ever experienced in a game. There is one where you do crazy stuff with a priest and the whole quest line is just crazy your basicaly being a reprobate to the max. I am very religious and it didn't offend me it was just hysterical. The ending pulls it all together too!
@Smackosynthesis congrats on the wedding. I'm sure your other half will understand if you knock it back a few days so you can unlock a horse.
@Isolte Luckily I picked up the original on sale as I saw this game getting hyped. I'll give that a go and see if these games are for me but so far they sound a bit too difficult and time consuming for my taste.
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