Has it really been seven years since Kingdom Come: Deliverance came out? The 2018 RPG about Henry of Skalitz, a noble’s bastard son who climbs the ranks from blacksmith’s apprentice to seasoned hero was addictive stuff. Now, finally, we have a sequel. And if you’re thinking, ‘where can he go from here?‘, don’t worry: the fall from grace doesn’t take long.
Why? Oh, well, you know – the small matter of Henry’s lord, Hans Capon of Pirkstein, getting into a scrape involving giggling women, naked swimming and the inopportune arrival of some bandits. Needless to say, by half an hour in, Henry is no longer a sword-swinging hero, but instead a bare-bottomed rube who doesn’t even have a pair of britches to his name, much less a functioning set of armour.
His slow clawing-back of all that lost status – money, power, trousers – is what forms the arc of the game, and getting stuck in is a lot of fun. There’s just so much to do in fifteenth century Bohemia, it turns out: mainly, it involves negotiating between all the different, rival factions who disagree about who should wear the crown (ie. King Wenceslas or his abductor and successor, Sigismund). Sometimes, though, it involves being a drunk man’s horse, or stealing maypoles to deepen the rift between two warring villages.
This Henry is very much a blank slate, too. His adventures from Kingdom Come the First are hardly referenced at all, beyond some brief NPC reactions, but at least this gives you the freedom to choose a new path for him, via one of the three classes that determine his skillset (soldier, advisor or scout).
As you weave your way through the massive, complex storyline, do also take the time to explore. It’s hard not to: the map is massive, while the city of Kuttenburg feels unbelievably rich and alive. The side-quests, too, are impressively fleshed out, with dialogue changing according to what you’ve already done in the world so far.
It is dense – the gameplay is fiddly and relies often on shoving reams of text down your throat (who enjoys that?). Plus, it’s a grind: the early stages of the game, in which Henry is bumbling around without even a sword to his name, often feel like banging one’s head against a wall. He fails, repeatedly, at everything. Sometimes, it drags. And the less said about the combat, which remains frustratingly slow and simple (the best way is simply to parry and riposte your way to victory, ad infinitum), the better.
Fortunately, the sidequests do an admirable job of picking up the slack: one job, concerning a wedding feast, offers players the chance to learn about the basics of stealth, crafting and survival. And there are rules here. Consequences abound: stolen something? Chances are somebody spotted you doing it and they might well report you. That enticing armour displayed in a shop window is waiting to be stolen, if you can pass the necessary checks; if not, expect to be hounded out of town by the guards, Skyrim-style. That said, if you happen to stumble across a bandit attack on your travels, there’s nothing stopping Henry from looting the bodies for high level gear.
It’s a world that feels almost dizzyingly free of rules – or rather, built to test how far you can push them. Factor in the relationship between Henry (who comes possessed of a thick West Country accent) and the bumbling Capon, and what you have is a recipe for something very addictive indeed.
