Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Review

I’ve been somewhat conflicted these past few weeks whilst playing Kingdom Come Deliverance 2; on the one hand, it’s clearly a game that had some serious effort and love put into it, and there’s a lot to really dig deep into; on the other, I’ve run up against too many frustrations in my time with it, and every time I feel like I’m getting a handle on things something else pops up to knock me back down. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 feels very much like a Marmite title – something you’ll either love or hate, though I do find myself sitting somewhere in the middle.

Starting out, KCD2 makes it clear it’s not going to hold our hand through much of anything. An opening section re-introduces us to Henry, the returning protagonist, and Lord Capon travelling to a new land to deliver an important message. We’re very quickly introduced to multiple mechanics, from fighting to dice, the health and wellness systems, and some short but simple quests. I did find it to be a bit of an information overload though, with so much thrown at us it was all a bit bewildering to keep track of. We can at least re-read any tips in the menus at any time, but starting out as someone who’d not played KCD this was a blunt force introduction to the series. 

After shit goes down at our camp, a long sequence plays out that is intentionally confusing and obtuse, before we’re truly set free in the world of Bohemia. It’s at this point in something like Oblivion that the true scale of the game is evident, and the same is true in KCD2; while the map isn’t the biggest we’ve ever seen, it feels large thanks to having to walk or run everywhere on foot, and is only marginally more navigable once we finally get a horse. 

The world itself is a sight to behold, with some stunning visuals recreating the 15th century landscape. I definitely got very excited by the prospect of exploring as I gazed over the lands before me, wondering what adventures await, and just how lost in the world I was about to get. 

Then I was almost immediately killed by wolves, and my dreams of exploration came crashing down.

As I said, KCD2 is not here to hold our hands. Sure, there are some concessions in here, but it treads a fine line between fantasy and realism. Henry is weak as shit to start with, and getting any kind of decent weapons and armour feels almost impossible, let alone being able to use them effectively. 

The opening several hours felt like a slog. Trying to establish Henry in the world was hard enough, but being under almost constant threat from any danger we got any where near made moving about far more taxing than it need be. When I finally got to my first town I was met with hostility and more often than not a punch in the face for saying the wrong thing. I quickly learned that even the save system is against us as we can only save manually with a certain item (that is limited although can be crafted eventually). Auto saves only kick in a key points in quests, and so multiple hours were lost over the opening section as I foolheartedly got into random scraps on the side of a road rather than just mainlining the quests.

It’s not just the save system. Enemies are a tough bunch, and the combat system is slow and deliberate almost to a fault. When fighting, a rosette appears over an enemy dictating one of five points of attack. Winning a fight is about slowing the pace down, and only attacking when the enemy present an opening, be it via a counter attack or them failing to guard a part of their body effectively. While the idea is decent in practice, I can’t help but feel it goes a bit too far in making it awkward to use. Enemies are tough as I say, and each blow drains our stamina a little, so we can’t just go wailing in. The stamina is also dropped permanently as we take damage, so after a few hits we’re effectively fighting at half or less power. Is this a more ‘realistic’ way of depicting fighting? Probably. But does it make for a fun time? Certainly not early on, and I’d argue not really either later as well. 

And as you may expect, fighting is a large part of the progression in KCD2. I grew to dread when an unavoidable fight came up, and while we can theoretically run away from other fights this isn’t always possible. One early quest saw me stumble across a man up a tree being hounded by three wolves. I stopped to help, the game autosaved, and I proceeded to get my ass handed to me. After a few goes it was clear I wasn’t ready to win this fight so figured I’d just hop back on my horse and come back later. Unfortunately, each load of the autosave saw me thrown off my horse immediately, and with only about 25% health I had no time to get back on and run away before being killed. Even the few times I did manage to make some sort of getaway the wolves caught up with my horse straight away and I was thrown to my death once again. I ended up having to reload a save over half an hour back and went the other way round to avoid the quest until later. 

This action has been true for several moments in KCD2 so far. Another quest saw me reloading and losing over an hour’s progress a few times because I simply couldn’t move anywhere without being arrested and insta-failing a mission. At these points a simple manual save could have helped me out but I was without the Saviour Schnapps required (for various spoilerific reasons) and so I had no choice but to rely on autosaves. 

Again, I get that this is the games idea in providing a more grounded and ‘realistic’ experience. But all too often I’ve fallen foul of one system or another that I seemingly couldn’t have avoided. Reputation plays a big part KCD2, and we’re praised or penalised for various things such as completing quests, selling items, crafting and fixing things, or getting into fights, saying the wrong thing, being even remotely near a door that we shouldn’t open, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are all manner of variables to consider – including if we’re clean or not – and I’m both impressed at the depth and frustrated at how finicky it can all be. 

In one of the aforementioned quests that required a reload, I was sneaking about in a restricted area in order to get to my target. All was well until I encountered a guard blocking a staircase. I threw a rock to distract him, he wandered off and I slipped by. Great stuff, and it was the culmination of a lengthy bit of stealth action. When returning though, I threw dozens of rocks to try and distract him, and even lobbing one at his head wasn’t enough to get him to move. The only option I had was to sprint past him, at which point I was either slain or arrested outside by a guard who had no real reason to suspect me as I’d lost my pursuer by then. This is just one example of where the illusion breaks and we just feel defeated rather than encouraged to continue.

Other frustrations include not easily being able to heal in battle, or indeed after the fact, using any weapon other than a sword being laborious and not worth the effort, and a pretty dire menu system that was clearly designed for an interface other than a controller. Each menu screen can be paged between but also has panels that can’t all be displayed on screen at once. For example, equipping a food item in a slot means we can either see its current status and stats, or where we’re going to put it, but not both. This is the case with all the menus, and it makes even simple things like comparing weapons more of a chore than need be. 

I’ve spent too long on the downers, but the TL:DR version is that KCD2 is a hard game to get into, and one that will beat us down as often as it rewards. Don’t come into it looking for immediate thrills or gratification.

Having said all of the above though, there’s no doubt something a bit special here for those with more patience than me. As much as I bemoan the tricky systems and harsh world, when it all comes together I can’t deny having a good time. Once over the initial hurdles I found the world to be engaging to explore, with some interesting and meaty side-quests to delve into. And as laborious as things like crafting can be, forging a new sword or crafting a well-brewed potion has an odd charm and sense of satisfaction to it.

Exploring towns and finding new objectives and people is interesting, and it’s rare that there’s not at least something worthwhile to find or overhear. It truly feels like a living, breathing place, complete with a robust (and again harsh) set of rules and governances. Get into enough trouble, wear the wrong clothes, or simply forget to wash and it’ll be harder to win favour with new people. Conversely, word of your deeds travels far and we may even gain favour with a new group of people before we even meet them.

And for what it’s worth, the story told in KCD2 is easily good enough to drag us through even the most frustrating parts of the game. Acting goes from excellent to dreadful in the general NPC’s (a few characters even clearly have different voice actors between cutscenes and in game) but the main cast are all brilliantly portrayed. Even when I felt lost between all the names of the Lords and their regions, I was still avidly watching the scenes and waiting for the next revelation or twist to drop.

And this is where I remain conflicted in KCD2’s verdict. I can absolutely see why some people would play this and get hundreds of hours of entertainment out of it, be it fully immersing in the role-play nature of the simulation and the world or simply picking a vocation like potion crafting and becoming a master at it. The systems are incredibly deep and complex, but they have the potential to make each players world almost fully unique to them. In that way, it’s the kind of RPG I would have killed for as a younger player with far more time on my hands.

But I cannot escape that too large a portion of my time with KCD2 has been filled with frustration and annoyance, every high followed by a crushingly effective low. Be it having to lose hours of progress because of a dodgy autosave, to a combat system that I just can’t find the flow of, to inconsistencies in the world that allow a character to be grateful of my help one minute, and calling for the guards the next with little real reason (pro-tip; after sleeping in the herbwomans bed as part of the story, don’t assume she’ll be so kind to let us use her facilities straight away afterwards…). 

There’s so much more to KCD2 than I could reasonably cover in depth, and more than I’ll ever fully experience myself. It’s a game that is as abrasive as it is clever, and for that reason it’s something I’d only cautiously recommend, especially to new players to the series like myself.

Conclusion

It won’t be for everybody, and even the ones it will be for will no doubt find grievances within its systems, but there’s no denying KCD2 is an incredibly deep and dense game that will reward those willing to invest the time and energy into getting the most out of it. A strong story pulls us through parts that otherwise might have been too much to persevere with, but there have certainly been enough times that we have found ourselves enjoying the game that we’d offer a cautious recommendation.