By Gianna Mulvey
Back in 2018, Warhorse Studios, then considered to be an indie video game developer, published their labor of love and passion project Kingdom Come: Deliverance. This strange and, at the time, underappreciated game flew under the radar for many within the video game community.
The game follows a peasant boy named Henry in 1403 as his world gets turned upside down by the invasion of the Hungarian king Sigismund and his army of Cuman mercenaries into the land of Bohemia. The story of the game was inspired by real historical events and people, making the game function as much like a history lesson as a form of entertainment.
I picked up Kingdom Come: Deliverance in 2020, the perfect world-immersing game to let me forget about the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic sitting on my doorstep. I may be partially biased toward the game (I’m a huge medieval history buff) given its subject matter, but I instantly fell in love with the world of Bohemia and the lively characters that inhabited it.
I will admit there are glaring issues with the game, such as semi-frequent game-breaking bugs and clunky game mechanics that make certain tasks nearly impossible to complete, and I feared the game’s sequel would never see the light of day for these reasons.
Seven years later, the long-anticipated sequel has finally arrived with great success and to my great and joyous relief. Only one day after release, the game sold more than one million copies, made all of its money back and started to turn a profit, and, within a week, achieved a spot on Steam’s fifty most popular video games of all time list. Although reviews praised the game, I couldn’t rest easy until I had played it for myself.
Over the last five years, I’ve waited for this game’s release while simultaneously fearing it would never come into existence or that, if it did, it would never live up to my expectations. I spent the past weekend doing nothing but playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and let me just say, my friends, “Audentes fortuna iuvat.” Fortune favors the brave—a guiding principle for this masterpiece of a medieval adventure.
One of the first things I had to do when beginning my playthrough was remind myself that failure was an acceptable outcome. By the time I finished my playthrough of the first game, I had taught myself how to become a master swordsman. I had the strength and the skills to defend myself and the people I cared about. When starting Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, however, players start at zero: characters must re-learn all their skills. I found myself failing at simple tasks I would have easily been able to complete in the first game.
For example, I found myself at a tavern one evening and watched as a group of three men began to argue with each other. I feared they would start a fight, so I made to intervene and stop them. At first, I tried to calm them down, but because my speech skill was so low, I failed miserably, and a fistfight ensued. The three men ganged up on me, and because my strength stat was so low, I was knocked out and lay unconscious in a puddle for three hours.
I wanted to be mad that I wasn’t capable of settling the dispute or strong enough to defend myself. Instead of anger, I actually laughed at myself for thinking I could take on the three guys and promptly went to the nearest water trough to clean myself off. The encounter was a good reminder that the world of Bohemia is dangerous and brutal and that I’d have to be careful who I talk to and interact with.
Out of the twenty hours I spent playing over the weekend, I think I played through two or three hours of the main story. The rest of my time was spent exploring the beautiful landscapes and getting sidetracked by the innumerable activities and side quests.
One of these many side quests involved a group of Cumans simply wanting to get a bite to eat at a tavern. The locals were furious that they were there (they are invaders, after all) and proceeded to kick them out. I don’t know why, maybe because we are at our most vulnerable while we eat, but I actually defended the group. They didn’t want to start trouble; they only wanted a meal.
Afterward, the Cumans invited me to their camp and offered me drinks as thanks for sticking up for them. We talked and made merry, and by the end of the quest, I had made a new group of friends, all because I stood up for them when no one else did. I understood deep down, too, that the group could turn on me at any moment and that I’d be forced to kill them for my own survival; we’re enemies, after all. But they didn’t, and in the end, I found myself four strange new allies and friends.
Besides this touching side quest, I also found myself gambling all of my money on dice in order to make just enough so that I could afford a room in an inn; I reunited with my lost dog, who found himself a part of a wolf pack; learned how to forge a sword; settled a heated argument between a father and his daughter; and painted a bull to help settle a feud between two neighboring villages, just to name a few.
Moving on from content and looking at its presentation, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is absolutely stunning. Every aspect of the game is handled with the utmost care and consideration. From graphics, music, sound design, and gameplay, everything feels polished and refined in a way that the first game was never able to achieve.
The game doesn’t take any shortcuts with the story, either, just because the technical aspects of the game get so much attention, unlike with many other recent games I’ve played.
Although I haven’t made it very far in terms of the story, what I have played is exceptional. The introduction is incredibly cinematic, as Henry and his party race into the countryside of the Trosky area to deliver their message to the region’s lord. Of course, conflict arises when the party is ambushed mid-delivery, and Henry is gravely wounded, only to later end up in the stocks for defending himself in a fight.
A lot is thrown at the player at the beginning, but it surely makes for an engaging and interesting start to Henry’s adventure. The cutscenes look as if they were taken straight from a film, and the music that accompanies these scenes does a lot to make the player feel fully immersed in the world and story.
As I stated earlier, I’m only twenty hours into the game, and I’ve yet to scratch the surface of this massive world. There is so much to see and do in terms of activities and side quests, and the characters and the story are so well-written and crafted that, oftentimes, I have to limit myself to how distracted I can get so I can enjoy this wonderful story.
If engaging gameplay, rich medieval history, beautiful environments and graphics, and a truly cinematic story are your thing, then Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 might just be the perfect game for you.
