PETER HOSKIN: Do you believe in magic? You will, after playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance II - a sequel made by history nerds, for history nerds, that's better than the brilliant original. It's witchcraft!

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £49.99)Verdict: Bohemian rhapsody. Rating:. Sometimes a game feels like sorcery. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is one of those times. Although my brain tells me that a team of developers must have coded this sequel to the 2018 original, I also don’t have the first idea how they could have pulled it off. Apart from perhaps... magic? Here, after all, is a game that evokes all the mud and brutality of its 15th-century setting, yet also has the shininess of a Hollywood blockbuster.

It leads you through its carefully plotted story, yet also allows you to roam free. It is elegant, clunky, serious, funny and ever-so-ambitious. A glorious conundrum. So let’s start with what I do know: in this one, you once again take on the role of Henry, a blacksmith-turned-knightly sort in medieval Bohemia. Sometimes a game feels like sorcery. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is one of those times. Although my brain tells me that a team of developers must have coded this sequel to the 2018 original, I also don’t have the first idea how they could have pulled it off.

Apart from perhaps... magic? Here, after all, is a game that evokes all the mud and brutality of its 15th-century setting, yet also has the shininess of a Hollywood blockbuster. You and your noble (though far from chivalric) companion Hans Capon are tasked with delivering a letter between two factions on different sides of a war. However, before that task is completed, the shield hits the fan — and Henry has to work his way up the feudal system again.

What follows is, in essence, similar to the first Deliverance: a detailed, open-world role-playing game made by history nerds for history nerds. Except, in this case, almost everything seems better. The narrative is wonderfully twisty-turny. Henry’s relationship with Hans is genuinely touching. The hand-to-hand combat is a fine mixture of swagger and subtlety. There are even noticeably fewer bugs and glitches this time around. And as for those that persist, who cares?.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II manages to be perfect and imperfect all at once. It must be witchcraft. Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, £20.99)Verdict: Dicing with life. Here you are, a robot with a human’s mind, on the lam from shady space corporations and even shadier space gangsters. Your mission: to escape, of course, but also simply to exist — if a hybrid being such as yourself can be said to exist.

So far, so Blade Runner. But also so Citizen Sleeper, the 2022 indie hit to which Starward Vector is a sequel. You don’t need to have played that original to play this one, but if you did, you’ll slide frictionlessly back into its universe and gameplay. Here you are, a robot with a human’s mind, on the lam from shady space corporations and even shadier space gangsters. Your mission: to escape, of course, but also simply to exist — if a hybrid being such as yourself can be said to exist.

Once again, we have a story told mostly through words, dialogue choices and beautiful comic-book art. Once again, that story’s more urgent moments are played out through dice rolls. Your robo-man — your sleeper — has access to five special dice that can help (or hinder) him through the numerous contracts he’ll pick up. Which isn’t to say that Starward Vector is the same as its predecessor. It’s not. It’s bigger, for a start, with a more ambitious narrative that unfolds across multiple interplanetary locations, rather than the first game’s single space station.

And, on your travels, you’ll accumulate new buddies who, as well as providing some good chat, will boost the number of dice you have to play with — which is particularly handy given that your dice can now deteriorate, becoming more likely to throw up bum numbers. All of which makes Starward Vector deeper and more satisfying than the original Citizen Sleeper. Better, even. But it does lack the outta-nowhere surprise that made the original so exciting. Existence, it turns out, is a complicated thing.