Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 preview – a stickler for the details

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is many things. There are several fantastic ideas present here thanks to the game’s emphasis on realism. After spending several hours with the sequel inside an old gallery in the Czech town of Kuttenberg – where, as we were told repeatedly, a chunk of the game is set and recreated – my feelings towards KCD2 are fairly mixed. There is a heavy emphasis on realism and historical accuracy that, while fantastic at first, eventually hits diminishing returns.

During my brief time with the game, a lot of what I experienced was front-loaded dialogue from some truly loathsome characters. The intro follows the journey of Henry, the Bristolian dullard – our protagonist of the first game – as he accompanies his lord, Hans Capon, on a quest to deliver a letter. Things go wrong, Hans and Henry are nearly killed, and they have no way to identify themselves to the lord of the land and are mistaken to be beggars. When much of the opening sequence is two grown men hiding in the reeds to spy on some women washing their clothes, I can’t help but question the maturity of the devs and how the entire setup could have been executed better.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2’s setup is the same as the first game, simply bigger in every aspect. There are now two huge maps to explore, more weapons to choose from, and more side objectives to tick off. Playing as Henry and following his story, you can seemingly shape the adventure significantly. Quests have branching narratives and outcomes based on your decisions, the combat system has been revamped to be more streamlined, and you can completely customise Henry’s stats and abilities how you see fit. If bigger means better in this case, however, remains to be seen.

It quickly occurred to me that the game is very fun when you don’t have to listen to Henry’s inane babbling. Underneath this, you have extremely well-thought-out systems that help make KCD2 enjoyable. From facing a wide-open world full of characters and beautiful locations, dripping with cosy medieval vibes, you’d be forgiven for forgetting the overarching story. From my brief time, it leaves me wanting more but can it stick the landing? Any RPG and medieval enthusiast will have plenty to do and sink time into.

During my time playing, I experienced a quest with several branches that can change depending on your choices. This quest was chosen by the devs because it illustrated this perfectly, and the payoff was impressive. Tasked with stealing a sword, I was caught breaking into an area or at least very much seen sneaking around the premises by people there. Others went about it a different way, and the quest changed slightly. I still got through the quest, but those who stole the sword without being caught were rewarded with an easier time. This depth and attention to the quests give you a lot of agency, which seems to have been painstakingly brushed with a fine-tooth comb to ensure this. Whether each quest will have the same attention remains to be seen.

As it stands, there is plenty to enjoy in KCD2. Where the game has me a bit worried, however, is how the attention to historical accuracy and realism possibly detracts from the enjoyment of the game. During the preview, we got a taste of the Alchemy crafting and the process of working the forge as a would-be blacksmith, and it plays out exactly like the first game. I cannot say as to whether it is markedly different to the original, but it is certainly obtuse and time-consuming. While the methodical process of choosing your herbs and following a recipe is a fantastic novelty, doing it more than once felt painfully dull. I hope some sort of auto-craft function comes into play after you’ve made something several times manually.

The combat system will be immediately familiar if you’ve played the first one, only it has been “streamlined”, which is to say it has been scaled back. As it stands, there are a lot of problems with the combat that don’t feel satisfying and this is, so says Warhorse, because of how they fought back in those times to ensure KCD2 is historically accurate with its combat depiction it is keen to flaunt. Again, it is a nice novelty, but can end up being a frustration more than anything.

The preview area I trialled could have extended to the entire open world, but time constraints got in the way of me seeing more that followed the long-winded tutorial. However, towns could be spotted in the distance and quest markers were placed to lead you to other points of interest and beautiful areas to explore. As fast as I could, I ran into the woods and happened upon a bandit who proceeded to beat me with a stick no matter how hard I tried to best him. Combat, as you will be aware from the original, is brutally unforgiving, time-consuming, and hard to master. Whether this makes it fun or enjoyable, is up to you.

NPCs follow a fluid day and night cycle and they can be real sticklers for the rules. One time I was trespassing, only to have a maid declare that they “never leave this door open”. Just like that, I was rumbled. Conversely, the realism seemingly chooses when to kick in, and this is illustrated by simply crouching in plain sight of another NPC guard being enough for them to ignore me. Furthermore, the fact that the people in this game like and tolerate Henry, for example, is pretty unrealistic to me.

There is something of a mismatch between the tone and the setting. The game can’t decide if it wants to embody Monty Python or be more serious. This raises some concerns about how much worse the dialogue can get and if it can keep me interested in the long run.

While there is a lot to love here, I think the realism aspect of the game hinders more than it helps. When the dialogue and the voice acting are as jarring as they are, you can struggle with how story and narrative-heavy this game is. KCD2 asks a lot of you, but it is shaping up to be an extremely well-made RPG adventure crafted by a fairly small studio, and the preview I got to enjoy was impressive on that fact alone. Now if only I could stop myself from rolling my eyes whenever Henry opened his mouth.