Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Hands-On Preview
My history with Warhorse Studios’ Kingdom Come: Deliverance franchise is a complicated one. I absolutely adored what I saw from the game, dating all the way back to February 2014 when I put some of my own finances on the line to back the original game on Kickstarter. At the time it was planned to release in 2015, but of course the nature of game development, as well as the Kickstarter’s immense popularity meant that development bloated out, and the game consequently wouldn’t ultimately arrive until 2018. Fresh from having gotten married, two weeks into a new job, and now with my first child on the way, my life circumstances had changed significantly between 2014 and 2018, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance came and went for me. Sadly I never went back to Kingdom Come: Deliverance, but with the support of Deep Silver behind them, Warhorse is back with a sequel, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. I’ve spent almost 10 hours with the game so far for this preview, and I’ve come away feeling all the energy that I wish I got to feel from the original game.
Deliverance II picks up where the original left off, with players again assuming the role of Henry from Skalitz. The earliest stages of the game are littered with action, bloodshed, intrigue, and delves into the trauma that underpins Henry’s current life and mental state. Warhorse has put a lot of work into making the sequel narratively accessible for those who were there for the original game, and those who are new to the world. I dabbled in the original game, and was witness to some of the initial events that served as a thrust for Henry’s adventure, and the way that the team crafted opportunities to introduce or reintroduce players to Henry’s backstory was impressive.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II begins in a pretty grand way with castle sieges, attacks from bandits, and ploys to crash a wedding all being major plot points within those first 8-10 hours, which itself can bloat out time-wise due to the many paths the player can follow; chasing side-quests, exploring the Bohemian landscape, and engaging in lengthy conversations with the locals which reveals layers, upon layers of additional history, as well as potentially handy context and insights into the current situation that Henry is apart of. The world-building, and onboarding of new players has been incredibly impressive up until this point, and throughout the games’ reported 60+ hour campaign, I’m keen to see how it holds up.
Large portions of the initial 3-4 hours of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II are quite scripted and tutorial-heavy, with none of the aforementioned ability to explore. Those opening hours are quite harrowing though and once the opportunity to explore the world emerges, players are going to immediately want to stretch their legs and do so. This is where Kingdom Come: Deliverance II will put players to the test the most though. 15th Century Bohemia isn’t necessarily the most populated of worlds, meaning that traversing terrain as you head from one township to another can be trying, while players will also need to juggle the myriad threats that are before you. Beginning with bandits, players will quickly need to get comfortable with sword in hand because there are threats that will need to be dealt with. The game does a great job of teaching you how to block, parry, and even swing the blade in such a way that you can deal damage. The art of swordplay has never been as fast and flashy as most modern media would make it out to be, so it will be important for players to demonstrate the necessary patience required to block opponents strikes, parrying when you can, and waiting for the chance to launch a counter offensive. If you rush, you’ll likely die, and with the games’ saving system being what it is, failure can sometimes have a large time-soaking consequence. The way Warhorse have described the streamlined combat in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is “easy to learn, hard to master”, and based on my experiences so far, I’d agree wholeheartedly.
On a couple of occasions I found myself in combat with multiple weapon-weilders, and where one can often be a headache, two or more can spell doom. It did, and 15 minutes was lost as I took to the path again to find a new way through. The mode of the game is simple, take your time, observe your environment, and don’t get overzealous, because the game isn’t generous with its save points. Players can save by sleeping in a bed, but you don’t find them often while venturing out, or by drinking ‘Saviour Schnapps’ which isn’t available to you often either. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, like its predecessor, is a brutal reality check at times for those who’ve grown accustomed to the generous checkpointing of many other RPGs.
On the presentational and technical front, Deliverance II is something of a mixed bag. Artistically, the game looks sensational, and on a technical front is largely delivering what the artists had dreamed up, but on the technical side can also let the team down at times as well. Texture pop-in, at least on the PS5 Pro that I’m playing it on, is prevalent, and draw distances can be a bit inconsistent, and distracting as well. Awkwardly and frustratingly, background noise completely dries up when you enter conversational with NPCs, only for it suddenly burst back into prominence as soon as the conversation ends – its quite immersion breaking, but in the throes of gameplay, the sound design shines brightly.
The Kingdom Come: Deliverance II experience is a compelling one that I’m eager to invest more time into. There are areas for improvement, and hopefully with just shy of a month before release, there are some patches inbound to address some of the technical flaws, but overall, this is an open-world RPG experience to keep an eye on. Let’s see how the final product shapes up in February.
Time Until Launch (February 5, 2025)
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