I hated my first 10 hours with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. I then realized I wasn’t meeting it on its terms; I was trying to morph what is clearly a realistic immersive sim-like digital LARP into the Skyrim-esque experience I figured it would be as yet another open world RPG. Only when I took a step back and engaged with all KCD2’s systems did I grasp what developer Warhorse Studios was trying to accomplish. For the rest of my 66 hours, I experienced near-perfection, an RPG whose mechanics, characters, and world-building are intrinsically tied together to create a modern day medieval epic. KCD2 is challenging, demanding, and often unforgiving. But, like the sharp blades I smithed in-game, through fire, it forges an exciting, surprising, and unforgettable fable.
Picking up after the first game, players start KCD2 in control of Hans Capon, the master and best friend of the first game’s protagonist, Henry. They are holed up in a fort under siege by an enemy army and things are going terribly. After a brief tutorial showcasing the game’s swordplay, which uses real-time directional input to determine where slashes and stabs land, and the new crossbows, things continue to get worse. It’s a stirring in medias res opener, as you’re soon sent back to a few weeks before this moment to learn how Hans, a noble typically above warfare, ended up in a brutal siege.
From this point onward, you primarily control Henry, the returning protagonist who must balance the revenge he seeks on those who killed his parents and the everyday responsibilities he has as Hans’ knightly bodyguard. In these subsequent opening hours you learn how one small bandit attack derails what should have been a simple delivery for Hans and Henry, putting them on a weeks-long journey of retribution, rebellion, and reflection.
In my early hours, I found myself frustrated by how realistic everything in KCD2 attempted to feel, from the combat and potion making to the horseback riding. It felt slow, clunky, and exhausting. I struggled to carry all the loot I wanted. I couldn’t defeat enemy groups that outnumbered me, even if by just one. I kept getting caught by guards for stealing, resulting in me paying hefty fines (don’t worry – I struggled to get money, too), an embarrassing amount of time in the pillory, and eventually a criminal branding that permanently affected my reputation. It felt like every aspect of KCD2 was hostile. “I’m the hero, I’m the main character, why does this keep happening,” I found myself asking in anger.
Determined to find the love for this series, I continued forward, adjusting how I approached the world. I stopped trying to loot everything, taking only what I needed. I stopped trying to fight multiple enemies at once, instead taking on singular foes to improve my stats and attain and build a better armor set over time. I stopped being a criminal, tackling objectives in lengthier, more challenging, and ultimately, more rewarding ways. It turns out that being a good citizen, a smart knight, and a logical person in 1403, was the key to unlocking my personal success in KCD2. In other words, I found enjoyment in KCD2 only after playing it the way it’s intended to be played.
Leveling up embraces an action-focused approach that encourages you to try out the many facets and abilities of Henry, like blacksmithing, equestrianism, and more. As I continued to level up, what once felt like insurmountable barriers to my fun became progression climbs I looked forward to completing. Combat remained challenging but thrilling, too. There’s something incredibly satisfying about guiding the blade to where you want to hit, blocking incoming attacks directionally, and countering with a master strike or feint attack. It’s the closest swordplay in a game has come to feeling what I imagine it actually feels like to attack with a sword. And though I dabbled far less with ranged weapons like bows, crossbows, and medieval firearms, they were all equally engaging.
The level of realism approached simulation while remaining just gamey enough for my liking. I remember telling my wife one night how much fun I was having. When she asked what I was doing, I responded by explaining I was moving sacks of flour from one cart to another and cleaning human excrement out of a latrine into a disposal pile nearby using a shovel – unironically exciting stuff! There’s something about Warhorse’s commitment to every system, whether it’s shoveling manure, riding a horse across a beautifully realized medieval landscape, or mixing new potions, that kept my attention in ways open world RPGs of late have failed to.
The rest of the experience – everything outside of the mechanical gameplay – matched the highs I was getting through my mouse and keyboard, too. There’s so much dialogue but it’s all well-written and performed splendidly by the voice cast, and my choices felt consequential in surprising ways. Even though I was controlling a character I didn’t make, I felt like I was crafting a personal version of Henry that made sense with my journey thus far, and KCD2 rewarded my efforts around every corner.
That characterization, my actions as a participant in this medieval world, and how I interacted with the various others who call this land home, weaved their way excellently into the immersive sim nature of KCD2. When tackling an objective, I first thought about how my Henry would do so, and KCD2 never failed to provide me with gameplay that felt tailor-made to the plans I landed on. Coupled with my favorite score of the year so far, a whimsical and epic composition from Jav Volta and Adam Sporka, and gorgeous painterly visuals, rarely was I pulled from the immersion KCD2 provided.
The few times the illusion was broken were due to camera issues, usually the result of the sometimes finicky first-person viewpoint, unfair enemy engagements, and the stealth, which is satisfactory but easily the weakest element of the gameplay. There was usually an exciting story moment, fisticuff fight, or environmental mystery around the corner to bring me right back in, though.
Though its gameplay is the real highlight of this adventure, the storytelling in KCD2 is also worthy of praise. Like a grand fantasy novel spanning hundreds of pages, Henry engages in multiple arcs filled with heists, mysteries, warfare, hijinks, romance, and more – it’s all here. Though its climax, which resolutely brings players back to the game’s opening moments, happened at a pace too rapid, an epilogue moment succinctly ties a bow onto Henry’s journey that’s both a moment of reflection and a tease of adventure to come.
This moment also doubled as a reminder of everything I had accomplished, the good and the bad, in the shoes of Henry of Skalitz. It was an almost souvenir-like expression of the fun I had. Whether physical like a magnet, or something less tangible like a memory, I don’t want souvenirs everywhere I go, but I do want them for experiences I’ll never forget. And KCD2, for all the ways it impressed, challenged, engaged, and enraged me, is an RPG whose adventure will likely forever be etched in my mind.
This 2025 review reflects our thoughts on the game’s current state at publishing. As such, post-launch updates were factored into the final score.
