Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Hands Off Preview

Kingdom Come: Deliverance was released back in 2018 to a pretty favourable reception. Indeed, our own Anthony reviewed the game and gave it one of that years only 10‘s. praising the world building and attention to detail in every aspect.

Unsurprisingly then, Warhorse Games have been inundated with requests for a sequel over the last 6 years – and now, we finally know that one is coming for real, and later this year to boot!

We were recently shown a hands-off presentation of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, and came away very intrigued by what we saw. While there was a fairly limited amount of actual gameplay shown, it’s clear this has been a passion project for Warhorse’s team for a long time. Not only have they spent the last 6 years seeking to create the game they envisioned with the first outing thanks to technical improvements in the space since, but they’ve ballooned from 110 people to 250.

That extra head count is evident at the very least in the presentation, with the visuals and detail being a clear step up on even the great looking original. We saw many panning shots of the games Kuttenberg location, with plentiful wildlife and fauna, as well as highly intricate buildings and some pretty good looking character models.

The team size is also going to help out in the scale of KC:DII, with Warhorse mentioning there are over hours of cutscenes, and the game itself up to two times bigger in scope. We’re shown plenty of cinematic scenes, and even are greeted to the show by the lead actors. New players can pick up and play with no prior knowledge it’s said, though returning fans will naturally have plenty to call back too throughout.

Heavy choice-based interaction is also promised, with NPC’s remembering our actions and altering their interactions with us based upon them; cause a ruckus in a village and the merchants might not want much to do with you and your coin, while may just refuse to even talk to you. Considering the scope and challenge promised in KC:DII, it might be best to keep people on our side, but there’s no doubt going to be plenty of opportunity for mischief to tempt us to the dark side.

Should you get into a bit of a scuffle, we’re promised more historically accurate combat, something fans of the first game will no doubt be pleased to hear. Indeed, there were plentiful shots in our presentation that had arrows to the face, chunky-looking sword and shield combat, and gore for days.

One final note that really caught our eye (or ear) was the soundtrack. Composed by Jan Valta, even the short presentation we had was full of excellent arrangements and melodies. This is always an element of games that sticks out to me personally, and it certainly fit the tone and mood of the gameplay shown perfectly.

All in all, we’re keen to see more from Warhorse and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. Can it live up to the high expectations set in this preview as well as 6 years of fan hype? We’ve not got too long to wait to find out.

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Written by
I've been gaming since Spy vs Spy on the Master System, growing up as a Sega kid before realising the joy of multi-platform gaming. These days I can mostly be found on smaller indie titles, the occasional big RPG and doing poorly at Rainbow Six: Siege. Gamertag: Enaksan

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