Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 has been a long time in the making. It has been almost seven years since the release of the first game, pushed to market following a Kickstarter campaign that raised $1.3 million in just one month. On February 4, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 will be released, and I’ve been lucky enough to piece together a preview of the game.
I’m a huge fan of the first title, which was steeped in historical accuracy, featured gruelling mechanics, and had an authentic story that left you feeling immersed and challenged in equal amounts. All that and more awaits you in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2.
Here’s my full preview – it’s an exploration of a cinematic masterpiece in progress.
If you’d prefer, you can watch the full preview in video format:
Enter the World
I can’t stress how immersive I’m already finding Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 to be. With a surround-sound headset, I’m traipsing through summertime forests and fields, hearing the leaves and brush crunch under my feet while birds twitter above me in the canopy. The light’s rays pierce the branches, splashing a burst against a nearby stag, who catches my scent and scarpers through the trees.
Perhaps I’ll hunt later.
In the next moment, I’m on a beaten path flanked by a twinkling stream, which would be idyllic if I wasn’t being held up by cutthroats. They demand my Groschen; I simply plead with them to leave me alone, for I have nothing.
They don’t care, and in a flash, I’m on my back.
After a reload, I’m in a nearby village, watching a fight break out between two shopkeepers, for whatever reason. The townspeople gather to watch the spectacle as I turn tail and walk down the path, avoiding making eye contact because I’m not familiar with the residents and they are inherently mistrusting of me because of a recent tavern brawl.
That’s how granular Warhorse Studios has made Kingdom Come Deliverance 2.
From the reputation system to how the AI treats items you’ve dropped, and from manually smithing a sword step-by-step to needing to dry herbs and smoke meat to preserve everything, the finest details and all the most monumental moments alike have been considered by the studio in this awe-inspiring game.
This is just the beginning.
Henry Returns
Henry of Skalitz (Tom McKay) is one of my favourite game characters of all time. His ascendance in the first game was nothing short of memorable, with his rags-to-riches story capturing perfectly the true grit of a survivor hellbent on turning around his ill fortune.
Henry returns in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, flanked by Sir Hans Capon (Luke Dale), his trusty companion – a brash, cocky counterpart with a sense of swagger as large as the fortune that sits in his family’s coffers.
Audentes fortuna iuvat, and all that.
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 sees our troubled duo land in hot water within a few minutes of the game’s opening sequences, left for dead after a skirmish and a near-naked chase through the night. The game’s deeply cinematic introduction left my mouth agape – everything from the soundtrack to the way the camera pans over medieval vistas blew my hair back right off the bat.
Immediately, McKay and Dale deliver stellar performances, perfectly representing the chemistry they’ve built up both on- and off-screen over the years. There’s humour, there’s intensity, and for the first three or four hours, there’s… Well, the typical tutorial missions you’d expect from a game like this – but it’s all great.
If you’ve never even heard of Kingdom Come Deliverance, you’ll enter the second game unsure of what to expect, but after a few hours settling into the ambitious open-world RPG, you’ll be chomping at the bit to explore, grow as a character, and pursue the winding, branching story.
Evolution at its Finest
The first Kingdom Come Deliverance game was a marvel – but it was rough around the edges at times. It felt a little sluggish, there were a fair few bugs to deal with, and occasionally, it felt a bit too challenging. It’s not a game that holds your hand, but sometimes the difficulty level felt a bit too punishing for the average gamer.
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 retains that obvious challenge in the earliest sequences of the game, presenting players with a dire set of circumstances that take them from being a lauded nobleman to little more than a peasant begging for scraps. Where you once had a fine set of armour and a razor-sharp sword, you now have rags and bloodied knuckles.
That’s the welcome you get in KCD2 – but it’s phenomenal.
For those new to the franchise, you’re starting at the beginning, building Henry of Skalitz from the ground up and shaping him into what you want, and Warhorse Studios has done such a perfect job of explaining why that’s happening. This is an RPG at heart, and from the skill paths to the way you build your character based on your desired fighting style, everything is manipulated and experienced by you, the player.
For my Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 preview, I worked my way through the first ten hours or so of the game, but that was enough time to see that Warhorse has taken everything from the first game that I loved and improved upon it immeasurably – an evolution indeed.
Visually, the game is stunning. The audio palette is sumptuous and realistic, the movement mechanics are much smoother and more satisfying than the first game, and combat has been toned down a bit and optimised. The game’s AI is believable, interactive, and sensible, and the world around you feels as though it exists.
Of course, it helps that it’s rooted in history and authenticity – Warhorse made sure to employ the sharpest experts to make sure everything from swinging a sword to the behaviour of the local farmers is correct to the game’s period.
Performance-wise, I’m having no issues. I’m playing KCD2 on a high-end gaming PC with a controller, and running it at Ultra 1440p is giving me no concerns about the game’s stability. It’s buttery smooth and (almost entirely) bug-free.
Forge Your Story
When I spoke to Tom McKay, the actor behind Henry of Skalitz, he let me know about the depth of the choice and consequence system in this game. As I explored the opening sequences, piecing together the steps for my Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 preview, I became aware of just how impactful even a passing comment in a conversation could be.
The world is truly what you make of it, and if you want your Henry of Skalitz to be a conniving, manipulating criminal, then so be it. If you’d rather be a stalwart and honest member of the wider community in the open world of KCD2, then you’re free to do that as well.
As you explore the game and mould your character, you’ll come to experience intense fights, incredibly cinematic cutscenes – all of which are fully acted – and at times, a slower pacing that makes you feel as though you’ve been teleported back in time by a few hundred years.
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 starts as a very slow burner. You might not even hit the title flash for a good while, depending on your play style. It’s designed to give all players a solid introduction, a spread of the backstory, and a tutorial for the game’s many mechanics. It’s nice – it feels natural and entertaining, and the best way to learn is by doing, so I was more than happy to crack on with it.
Not Long to Wait
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 will be released worldwide on February 4, 2025. That’s just a few weeks away – and until then, I’ll be neck-deep in the game, exploring every nook and cranny in preparation for my full review, which you’ll find here on Insider Gaming on February 3.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 preview – stay tuned for more coverage as the game’s release date draws closer, and as always, stop by the Insider Gaming forum to chat about the game.
Comments