Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Review

The original Kingdom Come Deliverance was a game filled with passion and promise, colorful characters, and a beautiful world to explore – it’s just a shame it never really delivered.

At launch, it was a buggy, broken mess – so much so that I wasn’t even able to complete the game before writing our official review (something I’ve done maybe five to six times in 15 years).

Some seven years later, and having developed an impressive following, the franchise is ready for Henry’s latest adventures in Bohemia with Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, but was I?

In a word, no.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Review

Every aspect of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 has blown me away. At the time of writing, I have about 90 hours in. I’ve finished the main story, chased down more treasure maps than I ever thought possible, and completed every side quest I could find – yet I still want more.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 captured me in every way imaginable.

It’s such a contrast to the typical tropes of AAA open-world titles of today. Everything, from simple streams and woodlands, to complex quest chains, everything has a purpose; it feels believable and routed in a realistic world with as much comedy as debauchery.

I laughed, I cringed, I cheered.

Despite the serious nature of the overarching narrative, it never felt as though the world existed to simply serve my character and entertainment. I felt like I belonged to something greater; I wasn’t the main character, and the world would get by with or without me. I could wake up, grab a wash, share some food with the blacksmith’s wife, and then get to work making some swords for some gold. Finish up work, head to the tavern for a couple of games of dice, then head home for the night.

Or, I could rob an entire town’s worth of guard supplies, poison the food chain, and return the next day to see half the town dead on the floor – and the rest clueless as to what happened.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 features a mechanically-driven sandbox environment that rivals the fun of exploration and impact of decision with the very best the genre has to offer – and that’s not even the best part.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2’s greatest asset is the characters. The relationship between Henry and Hans is one of the most realistic bromances I’ve seen in a video-game, that one ride-or-die that always has your back.

Even if his idiot antics get you both thrown in the stocks as the townsfolk throw shit at you. Maybe now you can understand my genocidal instincts to “add a little” to their food pots. There are so many funny lines or ridiculous situations that had me grinning and laughing. Anyone who’s ever had a best mate will relate to the dynamic.

This same attention to detail with the characters and voiceover work spreads throughout the cast. There are characters I loved, and characters I couldn’t wait to see hanging from a noose, but all are equally memorable.

It’s rare in these open-world style games for the story and characters to grip me more than areas I typically find more entertaining, but that’s not to say Warhorse dropped the ball in many other areas.

Combat in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is fantastic. It’s brutal at the start as you find your footing, but before long you’ll be hacking through multiple enemies without taking a strike.

It’s simple in design, a directional system where you choose Henry’s offensive approach, while trying to avoid enemy attacks with parries or dodges, the former being far more reliable.

Although it lacks traditional combat abilities, pushing a button for some immediate effect, its combo system is equally, if not more, rewarding. Surrounded on all sides, launching attacks, planning parries, unleashing combos – it’s just pure fun.

Even after all my time in the game, I don’t avoid a fight, and that’s a rarity in any game today after that length of time. On the contrary, I actively seek one out anytime an NPC insults me or looks at me the wrong way.

And that’s the real magic of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2: player-driven choice. Proper choice, not the illusion of choice we’re so often shoveled today. Decisions Henry makes can have a long-lasting impact on the main story, it can be the difference between someone living or dying, or it can even result in Henry heading to the gallows himself.

It’s delivered at such a digestible pace. Not every situation is morally complex, not every choice matters, but the right choices at the right time make all the difference.

That same philosophy is true throughout Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. It’s just the right serving of just the right pieces, at just the right time. I never felt one POI to be repetitive, every side quest was delivered with purpose and intent, it’s a game I look forward to diving right back into.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 has quickly become one of my favorite open-world RPGs of all time. Warhorse sits atop RPG Mount Rushmore with the best this industry has to offer.

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