Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Has the GOTY Potential, but I’m Not Sure if It Will Be Better Than the First Game

It seems that only Rockstar can announce a game in any manner, even by simply showing the logo, and immediately make it a top priority on the list of anticipated titles for the entire industry and players. There is probably a lot of truth in this, but in my personal ranking, GTA 6 dropped one place down last week, like all other titles. Kingdom Come: Deliverance: 2 swiftly rose to the top spot - a game whose announcement, like GTA 6, wasn't unexpected, but rather a prolonged anticipation.

For me, the first installment is undoubtedly a game from the past decade. I spent more time with it than with GTA 5, and I intentionally shortened my sessions to avoid finishing the story too quickly and to prolong my enjoyment of Henry's adventures in medieval Bohemia. The game impressed me with so many things that shortly after its release, I wrote about it in a piece on the "Czech school of gamedev," as the same developers had previously delivered the outstanding Mafia and Operation Flashpoint.

Me and the boys waiting for the release.Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Warhorse Studios, 2024

Unfortunately, the WarHorse studio only provided an early video announcement of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 to the media, so I didn't have the chance to ask the devs about various important aspects of the game. For now, I know as much as any of us after watching the trailer. And I have no doubt that KCD2 will again be an amazing, epic adventure in the Middle Ages. But will it surpass the first installment - which was buggy, crowdfunded, and had controversial mechanics? I'm less certain about that now... And not just because historically, Czechs have generally had less luck with their sequels, as was evident with both Mafia 2 and Arma.

I'm afraid of the "more epic" promise

Daniel Vavra, the legendary developer of the original Mafia and head of WarHorse studio, reflects in the video that the sequel to Kingdom Come is now what the first game was intended to be - grand, epic, and made with the appropriate scale - but at that time they lacked the resources, experience, and people. Now, there's a team of 250 people working for six years with a suitable budget, more powerful consoles and computers, instead of eleven programmers and a Kickstarter campaign.

However, I am concerned that the increased resources and opportunities may compromise the natural authenticity of the first game. The video shows Henry demonstrating his amazing moves during an axe fight in slow motion, with dark "splits" as if from a dream - indicating that the cut-scenes, which are now expected to be more than 5 hours long, will become more "epic" in a negative sense, more "Hollywood," and "glitzy" instead of the naturalness of European titles.

Pick up the gauntlet!Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Warhorse Studios, 2024

The next point is a substantial team working on the game and an as yet unknown, but likely significant, budget from the publisher, which will have to be paid back. In the case of Kickstarter funding, the devs had much more freedom to make the game according to their vision, passion, and fans' suggestions. Now accountants may have more to say, and this could mean reluctance towards bold ideas, such as limiting saving ability.

Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but it was an equally bold move to add a mission in which we pretend to be a monk and spend a lot of time just walking around a small location, making sure to do a long, obligatory prayer in the morning – I would like to see a lot more of such quests in Kingdome Come: Deliverance 2 instead of a spectacular combat, and I really hope that everyone involved in this project also sees the uniqueness of the game.

Will Kuttenberg be better than Novigrad?

Daniel Vavra's candid remarks stirred some unease, as if he wanted to provoke someone, stating that the main setting of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, the city of Kuttenberg, is in his opinion too large for the game. We expect game cities to be more than just "dead" dioramas of buildings. They should be teeming with NPCs and random events that can occur at any moment. It didn't look particularly impressive in these few scenes in the trailer, although perhaps that is consistent with historical realities? Or is it a matter of an early version of the game?

By the way, it's worth taking a closer look at this town, now called Kuttenberg in German, and Kutna Hora in Czech, and with a population of approximately 20 thousand residents. It turns out that we will not go too far from Rattay on Sasau from the original, because Kuttenberg is only 20 miles east of Rattay and 30 miles from Prague. In the Middle Ages, this was a really significant place – the city even rivaled Prague, i.e. the capital, in economic, political, and cultural matters. A year before the events of KDC, Kuttenberg was plundered by Sigismund of Luxembourg after bloody battles with the city's defenders, but then it began to develop rapidly.

The setting of the first part of the game is located 30 kilometers from the city of the sequel. I wonder if both places connected by expanses of wilderness will be included in the game – even if the scale of distance between them would be somewhat compressed.

The beautiful St. Barbara's Church dominates the city's panorama, where the creators filmed their trailer. We certainly won't see it in this form in the game – its construction was completed several hundred years after the game's time frame. However, we should come across an early version or the beginnings of its walls, which had been built for just a dozen or so years during the KCD2 campaign. I am also sure that by taking a trip to Kutna Hora in the real life, we will recognize many locations from the game. The first part already proved that the WarHorse team can masterfully, almost photorealistically, transfer the appearance and atmosphere of historical places to the game. Let's hope the city isn't just a mock-up of streets for strolling.

Crossbow tempts to leave the bow behind

The preview of expanding Henry's arsenal is a natural way to enrich the sequel with various mechanics, and at the same time, it could also introduce some combat improvements into the game. Anyone who played Kingdom Come at the time of its release knows well that even archery required some skills, and it wasn't easy to hit the target every time, especially with little developed ability. Using the crossbow, a new addition to the game, may enhance accuracy but likely at the expense of slower bolt "loading."

The second novelty, firearms, can already serve the role of a curiosity - something like a last chance attack in close encounters with strong opponents. I'm not an expert on weaponry from that age, but based on the video presentation, I believe it is a type of medieval musket - a metal tube with a projectile, ignited by manually lighting the fuse. There's no possibility of carrying such a thing in large quantities or reloading it quickly - so there is no fear that the Kingdom Come sequel will suddenly turn into a first-person shooter due to the crossbow and arquebus, but it's good that they will expand our arsenal.

Swords crossed.Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Warhorse Studios, 2024

The main combat mechanics will remain the sword, and this raises the question of whether the developers have changed anything in this regard. The first part of the game became famous for its painfully realistic melee combat, as far as the video game formula allowed, and was generally quite difficult. Instead of being accessible to everyone and spectacular, using the sword was not very intuitive and required a lot of skill – as befits a Kickstarter game from a handful of enthusiasts! For now, this is one of the more burning questions for me – whether or how much the sword fighting in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has changed? And if it became more accessible, is it generally, or maybe through optional settings?

"Hey, Henry has come to see us!" "Get lost, you jerk!"

The good news is that the creators worked not only on expanding the game world, its mechanics and overall epicness, but also RPG systems. Instead of the constant "Henry has come to see us," NPC characters are to react much more diversely to our behavior, and the hero himself will also gain the option of extreme responses. From the scenes in the trailer, I gather that it will be up to us whether Henryk will be a noble knight, or perhaps a nasty scoundrel in the sequel. We'll choose whether to be ruthless thieves and murderers, facing the consequences, or to play as the people's hero. Personally, I'm also counting on various ways of completing quests. Already in the original it was possible to avoid fighting or to give up dressing up as a monk, so the second part should give us even more possibilities here.

Solid GOTY candidate

It's worth mentioning the remaining details known from the first trailer of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. We will have an open game world that is twice as large, with numerous forest areas filled with secrets and interesting corners, as well as the "too big" city of Kuttenberg vel Kutna Hora. The story will follow Henry's fate, but it will be written to ensure that even people unfamiliar with the first installment won't feel lost. Therefore, there will be no lack of vicious antagonist Markvart von Aulitz, and I hope that the fate of the sword will be resolved once and for all! Hans, also known as Capon, who is still inseparable from Henry, will probably play a big role in the new story. There will be new romances, a mini board game, and the most important thing of all - the option to pet the dog!

Lady and the knight.Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Warhorse Studios, 2024

I, and probably many of you, are left with many questions that I would like to ask the devs. How much has the combat and lock opening changed? Is it still problematic on the controller? Will the save system once again stand out with an unconventional solution? Will Hans Capon be the second playable character? Will we see a famous actor, like Brian Blessed, in some role again? Have the developers stayed loyal to the CryEngine engine, and if yes, have they implemented any improvements to it, or are they able to use it much more effectively now? Will there be Czech dubbing? And finally - how realistic is the announced premiere for later this year?

If Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 does indeed come out in a few months, we might have a solid contender for Game of the Year. And in my personal ranking, even to the prestigious title of the game of the decade! Unless in the meantime Kingdom Come 3 is released or some completely new project from WarHorse studio...