Having never played the first game, I had some idea of what to expect with Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, but could never imagine the depth of what is on offer. Kingdom Come II is an immersive sim RPG of the most neurotic kind, built on tiny details that seek to make the game as realistic an experience as possible.

A game where you have to take baths or NPCs will refuse to talk to you (and remark on your odour), where you have to make sure to dry your alchemical ingredients or they will spoil, where you have to craft and use a specific item to save the game. It is a game of countless systems that all work to make as immersive an experience as possible.

The brilliance of the game is balancing its I-sim aspirations with fun and its sprawling open-world, and in this, the work that developers Warhorse have done can be described as exhaustive. The Elder Scrolls this is not.

We received a review copy of the game from representatives of publisher Deep Silver in South Africa.

The tale of Henry

Developer Warhorse Studios put a lot of thought into how to open the next chapter of their story, the tale of Henry of Skalitz, the adopted son of a blacksmith who discovers he is actually a nobleman’s bastard. The developers decided on taking the difficult route: craft an opening tutorial that familiarises new players to the main mechanics while also introduces the world, the main character’s storyline and some of the important members of the cast.

The opening hour of Kingdom Come Deliverance II is a slog, mostly experienced through cutscenes with small pockets of gameplay interspersed throughout. It’s a railway that throws heaps of information at the player but does a fine job at getting you acquainted and prepared to face Bohemia.

It also prepares to player for the reality of Kingdom Come II. This is a time-consuming title, where the more you put in, the more you will get out of it. By the time to the tutorial ends you would have learned about speech checks, combat, questing, sneaking and alchemy.

Speech is a large part of the game, as with all RPGs, and is the main method the player interacts with the world. Like most in the game, the speech system is deep. The player accrues certain points that make difficult speech checks easier and these are added to attribute multipliers.

One of the main ways to play the game is to be a silver-tongued diplomat, but this doesn’t mean you will succeed at every speech check. Think about the context you’re facing. NPCs are not dumb. One speech check I failed saw me attempt a flagrant lie to a knight, who before I even received the notification that I failed the check twisted his face in contempt.

NPCs viscerally react to Henry, adding to the immersion.

The saving grace of the lengthy tutorial is the writing, which is a highlight of the entire experience.

Characters, even the annoying ones are conveyed like living persons. Hans Capon, Henry’s liege and best friend is a spoiled, sniveling little nobleman but he’s a lovable scamp with a heart of gold.

Early on Henry and Hans get into a bar brawl with a bunch of locals and get locked in stockades, naked, once released you may meet one of the men you fought in the brawl. Instead of holding grudges, he forgives you, saying “It was a fine scrap,” and you move on.

The weight of realism underpins the entire experience, which is why the larger story beats feel so earned and hit so deep. This is also noticeable in what I’m calling the medieval idea. Throughout the game Henry learns the ins and outs of life in the 1400s and all its cruelties, including long-dead ideas like “the three orders of mankind.”

These are ideals that Henry will either have to embrace or rebel against, and the story positions the player in the perfect place to do either.

Do mine eyes deceive me?

If you ever wanted to visit the Czech countryside, just buy Kingdom Come II instead. It’s cheaper and just as gorgeous. The vast open-world fills you with that “Wait, I can go all the way over there?” excitement that only a handful of games can deliver.

Every road takes you down a unique, hand-crafted path. Every rocky outcropping seems different and ancient, every forest has its eccentricities. Every village has a story.

The full might of the CryEngine is at work, with rich texture work, shadows, raytracing and most-importantly, art direction. You can tell you the devs at Warhorse visited some of these places, many of which are real world locations.

There are some shortcuts, likely to spare your poor system from overheating. Some of the foliage textures are low quality, especially when you get really close, and you may notice some artefacts with the shadows and lighting, especially moving the camera around and zipping through a location.

The other highlight of the art direction is the attention to detail. We have yet to see a similarly insane adherence to medieval clothing, structures, armour, artwork, hairstyles and more. This is the Czech Republic in 1403 and it feels like it.

There are rich deviations in heraldry, armour types, clothing, weapons. Every dirt-ridden, toothless face is distinct. From the peasants to the nobles, every aspect of what you’re looking at has been thought about, pointing to the other big strength of the game – the passion that went into its creation.

Parry! Riposte!

Aside from speech, combat is the other most often-touched mechanic. Again, heavily guided by immersive sim theory. Basically, combat is a dance between Henry and his opponents, where you can control which way you want to swing your blade. Here you have to carefully manage your stamina, while also keeping your positioning (especially important for fights against more than one enemy), and watch your opponent and look for openings.

If they drop their blade to the left, swing left! When you get attacked, you have a chance to parry and quickly riposte. Timed right, this is the surest way to defeat your opponents. This basic ruleset, like any good mechanic, is complicated as you progress by things like more enemies, shields, heavy armour, heavy weapons and more.

Combat can get tough as the game only has one difficulty setting and some fights later in the game are downright impossible. But you have many tools at your disposal.

Alongside one-handed weapons like swords and axes, you have access to heavy weapons, longswords, bardiches, polearms, shields, daggers, bows, crossbows and introduced in Kingdom Come II – early rudimentary firearms.

These blackpowder weapons are one-hit killers almost always, just don’t get caught trying to reload one.

Combat is the best when encountering roaming bandits on the trail or in quest-specific duels against named characters. Large battle scenes and set pieces can get quite buggy, and other immersion features like wearing full helmets (that black out 50 percent of the screen sometimes) can make these confusing and dizzying affairs.

You may notice floating enemy soldiers, clipping issues and other similar glitches in these moments.

When not fighting for your life, Henry will be found desperately trying to find a place to sleep and warm food to eat. Both of which are essential for gameplay. You can’t do much in the dead of night, so every day you will find yourself sticking to the same ritual.

Find your bed after a long day of work, usually a rented room in an inn or a camp in the wilderness. Get some sleep. Have some grool, wake up, have a wash and get back on your horse. At the beginning of the game, you are given a selection of three loose “classes” that influence your starting attributes.

Henry can either be a combat-focused knight with more strength and weapon skills, a stealthy thief with more agility, or, as mentioned, a crafty diplomat that can talk their way through most anything. Alchemy is as close as it gets to magic in this game.

It’s an important system used to gain essential buffs for most encounters. Some potions increase your speech skills, some make you stronger. As you progress, you will usually find herbs in fields that you can use for alchemical recipes.

This is another in depth system that requires precise inputs to craft potions. Use the correct base for your potion, apply the correct heat, look back to your recipe book to make sure you’re doing it right, wait- You took to long and now your ingredients are ruined.

Thy kingdom come

Kingdom Come II is like what the Witcher III is to the first two Witcher games. A fully realised dream, a sprawling great oak whose first green shoots emerged with the prequel. Warhorse put all the money they made from the first game into the second and have achieved a more complete experience.

Professional voice acting, AAA-quality motion capture and extensive polish show that this studio has finally come into its own with its second-ever title. And it’s worked marvelously well for the once-small team from Prague.

There are still some things that are tricky to get used to, that have become synonymous with the series. The strict immersive first-person camera can be tough to get a handle on, and I wish I could see my weapon and armour better. Usually I would find myself wishing I could toggle into an over-the-shoulder view.

It’s also a difficult title to just pick up and go, and requires a fair bit from the player in terms of attention, keeping track of things, and just time enough to give the game its fair shake, especially with the depth of systems in place.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II – final verdict

Warhorse has managed to craft a deep, intricate immersive sim with a strong storyline and even stronger characters. Its engrossing gameplay is matched by its inspired art direction and fulfilling RPG mechanics and progression.

However it can be quite buggy, and it requires a player willing to give it enough time to get started, but once locked in, becomes a memorable experience that is difficult to put down.

FINAL SCORE: 8 OUT OF 10.