More than almost any other genre, RPG fans never have any shortage of great new games in their preferred genre to dive into and look forward to. Among the many promising RPGs looming on the horizon right now, few are looking quite as promising as Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Though not without its flaws and rough edges, its predecessor has won over more than a few fans since its release several years ago, and now, its sequel is promising an interesting evolution of that formula.
Few games have even attempted to deliver on Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s premise of a rich, open world RPG rooted in a semi-authentic historical setting, so naturally, the sequel’s promise of a bigger and more expansive experience that just does that – but with several lessons learned from the first game – is one that has turned a fair few heads. Ahead of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s launch, then, here, we’re going to go over five such key reasons that have got us excited for the action RPG.
HISTORICAL SETTING
The historical setting is basically synonymous with the Kingdom Come: Deliverance series. It’s what made the original pitch stand out. Imagine a role playing game with the systemic depth and flexibility of something like The Elder Scrolls, or a narrative as driven by player choice as something like Mass Effect. But instead of a science fiction or fantasy setting, you place it in the real world, in an actual recorded era of history. You play through the life of a man in this era, from childhood on, and see the world through his eyes.
It’s an extremely interesting concept – an RPG where you’re not relying on magic and alien powers, one where the lore and backstory of the world you are in is the history of the real one. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 takes place in 15th Century Bohemia, set directly after its predecessor ended, and will presumably dig deeper into the world as it stood at the time- from the tumultuous internal conflict the land is facing, to the shifting allegiances and friendships that the complex political landscape of the era entailed. Whether or not Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 will take the steps to address the deficiencies in the historical accuracy of its predecessor remains to be seen, but regardless, it will certainly stand out for being a unique experience that has few, if any, big budget analogs.
MASSIVE OPEN WORLD
The historical tourism aspect is obviously a huge part of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, but just as important to the experience is the size and scope of the world itself. The original game was certainly no slouch in this area, to the extent that a similarly sized sequels would by no means have raised any eyebrows. What Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is promising, however, is something significantly more expansive. The upcoming sequel is going to have not one, but two full-sized open world maps for players to explore.
One of these maps is going to be set in and around Kuttenburg, a dense and thriving city. Back in the early 15th century (which is when this game is set), Kuttenburg was one of the biggest and most active economic hubs in Bohemia, courtesy of its silver mining industry. Getting to explore a dense urban locale in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 – especially with the series’ implicit promise of detail and historical immersion – is an exciting prospect. The action RPG’s developers have also confirmed that the game is going to have more than enough content to keep players occupied for hundreds of hours, not to mention a script exceeding 2.2 million words in length, so clearly, it’s going to be quite an odyssey.
CHOICE AND CONSEQUENCE MECHANICS
Choice and consequence mechanics in an RPG aren’t exactly groundbreaking – they’ve been a staple of the genre for decades at this point, and we’ve seen some incredible implementations over the years – but they are certainly always welcome, which means we aren’t complaining about their inclusion in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. In fact, we’re positively intrigued by what the game may bring to the table on this front, because it includes not just the standard choice and mechanics system that players may be used to – you know, making different choices that lead to different outcomes for the story or for the quests, including and up to multiple endings influenced by the choices you made – but a new system that, in theory, could really add to the game’s immersion and variability.
In Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, every action that Henry makes is remembered by all the NPCs in his vicinity. From then on, their memory of what Henry did, and how they feel about it, will end up influencing their behaviour towards him in the future. This doesn’t just mean small micro-changes to NPC conversations and the like, but theoretically can even alter how certain quests play out, all due to the dispositions of the NPCs involved in them. Again, it remains to be seen how this actually works, but it definitely sounds like an interesting wrinkle to how choice and consequence in RPGs has worked for the longest time, and we are interested to learn more.
ECCENTRIC MECHANICS
The original Kingdom Come: Deliverance is remembered strongly and fondly by a sizeable audience, and many might argue that a lot of that is down to the game’s insistence on being its own weird self. Admittedly, a byproduct of that is some frustrating design choices and eccentric mechanics that might put some players off – such as the way even something like saving is done through limited potions – but many of the game’s staunchest fans will tell you that those eccentricities are a huge part of Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s identity, and what made it stand out from the crowd.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is promising to build on those foundations, and we’re excited about that prospect. The likes of Elden Ring, Dragon’s Dogma 2, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl have proven to be recent reminders of just how compelling (and successful) even the most unusual and eccentric open world experiences can be when they’re well designed, and our hope is that KCD2 will join that list. If nothing else, those kinds of experiences tend to stay much longer in memory than the majority of your run-of-the-mill open world titles (of which we have no shortage).
IMPROVED COMBAT AND PROGRESSION
The original KCD’s combat was one among its several weaker departments, though its upcoming sequel promising a more refined experience in that regard. Several improvements have been confirmed, including new ranged weapon types (like crossbows and firearms), and, crucially enough, all weapons are going to be meaningfully different from each other in how they’re used and what their strengths and weaknesses are. That’s on top of improvements to controls, responsiveness, animations, and what have you, so hopefully, combat will be much tighter.
Similarly, progression is also being expanded. Unlike with combat, the first game wasn’t necessarily weak in this area, so KCD2 is starting from a stronger base. In total, players will be managing six different skill trees (compared to the first game’s three), which means the progression mechanics should ideally have greater range and be more expansive. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is already making a point to focus on players choice and options in several areas, as we’ve already touched on, so for genre fans, it’s great to see that applying to the progression mechanics as well.
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