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Review

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Review

Are you yanking my pizzle?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II has it all. Back in the perspective of Henry of Skalitz, players can look forward to first-person brawling, boozing, bribery, broken bones, and flat-out brilliant action role-playing shenanigans you will not find elsewhere. Players returning to 15th-century Central Europe will not just recognise the lush fauna extending as far as the eye can see, but also familiar menus, combat, controls, and the brutal logic that dictates how this dogmatic world in the heart of the Holy Roman Empire will react to your version of the barely-adult Henry.

Set only days after Henry departs in the previous game to deliver a message of allegiance in nearby Trosky on behalf of his lords, he is set upon by rampaging bandits who see him thrown off course. Our unlikely hero has already survived raids, ambushes, and near-daily brushes with death but despite all of this, he’s back and duty-bound for dozens more hours of helping every wayward soul he finds before his mission is seen to.

Trespassing is a common practice during your time in Kuttenberg

As much as Kingdom Come: Deliverance II sticks to its guns and doubles down on its most interesting design quirks inherited from the first game, its core combat shakes out as something that remains a little misguided in its execution. The fighting game ethos that drives fisticuffs and sword fights is compelling. Combos trigger with a series of uninterrupted directional blows, delivering an unstoppable and satisfying tackle that can turn the tide of a fight. All melee combat has the player pitching the angles from which to strike or parry. Those strikes are positioned by the same input as the camera. Parrying and critical blows are contextual and depend on where the camera is facing. If a single opponent flanks too quickly and you try to compensate by moving the camera, the game tosses a coin to decide if you want to move the camera in general or still participate in the duel. The moment there are two or more enemies nearby, you’re otherwise fucked if you haven’t been judicious in your selection of perks and equipment. The mouse/right thumb stick is trying to balance too many tasks, often leading to a frustrating disconnect between the intended input and the myriad possible outcomes that the combat-slash-camera decides.

This messiness is accounted for and can be adapted to if the player is willing to spend the time understanding the deep and layered interplay of equipment, stats, and appearance and Henry’s general well-being. If you’ve played a Bethesda roleplaying game before, you’ll have a headstart on the RPG systems. Fortunately, the first region of Trotsky works as an effective tutorial before venturing into the relatively more combat-dense zone of greater Kuttenberg. By the 30-hour mark, fully kitted out with plate armour and some wildly beneficial perks, a lot of that combat messiness is curbed in the player’s favour and the action fantasy finally appears. By hour 60, I drunkenly slayed an entire raiding army by downing heaps of stat-boosting (alcoholic) potions, locking the invaders into a narrow fortress corridor and recklessly swinging for what felt like minutes.

Henry explores the greater depths of his sexuality this time around

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Alongside a lot of standard roleplaying systems like perks, levels, and gear stats, players will also have to subsist and survive. It’ll be a challenge living to the end of your first week. A simple knick will see you bleed out if you’re hiking without bandages. That’ll be an early lesson. Keep an eye on your food; you’ll fall apart from the inside out if you start staving off your hunger meter with expired or uncooked perishables. And for goodness sake, watch you don’t try sleeping in a stranger’s bed when your stamina is fried from fatigue – that’ll get you wasting away for a few days on the pillory. Warhorse surprised me with how much they’ve turned the simulation and roleplaying dials up, with harsh lessons as players learn the rules of this unique sandbox.

There are plenty of less narratively intended rough edges that players will run into though, which will no doubt be addressed in future updates. Your dog Mutt will physically knock you out of crafting or other locked-in activities, bark constantly at nothing, and generally be a nuisance if taken on missions involving stealth or tactical skirmishes. Haggling is easily exploitable. The camera is likely to fly away from a fight when changing weapon direction or targeting the enemy. Incorrect map icons, quest markers, and the occasionally broken quest step. Plenty of amusing physics bugs and a couple of crashes. I had to nitpick most of these oddities, as none will remain in my memory compared to the immersive and systems-dense adventures that Kingdom Come Deliverance II delivered. In fact, my experience with the sequel was less prone to breaking down than my playthrough of the first game last year!

The pleasure of happening upon a little hamlet or wayside village will spur you to find the next

Kingdom Come: Deliverance was a mostly good-looking game and the sequel is a stunner. The Bohemian landscape is awash in greenery, its idyllic nature beckoning you to explore for long periods. The promise of a slightly trodden path leading into a forest is only made more alluring by the sounds of wild nature, and the likelihood of surprises lying within. The basic photo mode at launch allows you to manoeuvre the camera in the near orbit of Henry, but the rustic artistry on display is effortless to capture. Warhorse has also smartly filled these landscapes with a swath of fascinating and compelling characters for Henry to engage with and impact, one way or another.

All the new primary cast are fantastic and memorable, from the real-life storied warrior Jan Žižka to the gravely voiced Dry Devil and his band of merry misfits fighting to rid the countryside of the invading Hungarian king. I especially found side quests hard to ignore, with Warhorse sparing no effort to fill the optional jaunts with interesting, funny, and heartbreaking characters who are all voiced and written with interesting flaws and quirks. My favourite minor cast of characters are the miners you will find in and around the city of Kuttenburg. Virtually speaking another language, miners chat in heavily accented dialects from the northern Kingdoms, littered with idioms and happy-go-lucky gibberish to my ignorant Aussie ears. There are also some surprises in stumbling upon somebody you helped hours earlier going about some random, unexpected business far from their home.

Henry is well-versed in menial labour (and corpse disposal)

Final Thoughts

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Warhorse has been quietly cooking up the greatest first-person roleplaying series of the last however many years. It overhauls little from the first game, instead improving on everything that made it such an ambitious, unwieldy beast. The fact this sequel builds upon everything I loved, means it’s a sequel that improves more than innovates. Make no mistake, there are glimmers of a masterclass, action-packed role-playing game here that has me thrilled for whatever Warhorse has in store next. Kingdom Come: Deliverance should now be regarded alongside greats like Oblivion and New Vegas.

Reviewed on PC // Review code supplied by publisher

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Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Review
For a few groschen more
This is more Kingdom Come: Deliverance, just a bit bigger and better. Warhorse’s second tour into medieval Bohemia should be on your 2025 travel itinerary if you can survive it.
The Good
Immersive roleplaying systems keep things dynamic and exciting
Incredibly detailed, history-laden world that reacts in surprising ways
Art direction
Writing among the genre’s best
With diverse dialects and exemplary voice work
The Bad
Some buggy quest lines and rough edges
Combat and camera married to the same input is still troublesome
9
Bloody Ripper
  • Warhorse Studios
  • Deep Silver
  • PS5 / Xbox Series X|S / PC
  • February 4, 2025

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Review
For a few groschen more
This is more Kingdom Come: Deliverance, just a bit bigger and better. Warhorse’s second tour into medieval Bohemia should be on your 2025 travel itinerary if you can survive it.
The Good
Immersive roleplaying systems keep things dynamic and exciting
Incredibly detailed, history-laden world that reacts in surprising ways
Art direction
Writing among the genre’s best
With diverse dialects and exemplary voice work
The Bad
Some buggy quest lines and rough edges
Combat and camera married to the same input is still troublesome
9
Bloody Ripper
Written By Nathan Hennessy

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