Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Preview

The long-awaited sequel to the medieval role-playing game Kingdom Come: Deliverance II received his presentation.

With the start of the Gamescom video game exhibition in Germany, new trailers were shown to the public. The developers of the Czech studio Warhorse are an example of an unusual success story in the gaming industry, which few others could repeat. In fact, a team of passionate creative people years ago created the best simulator of life in the Middle Ages using a single plot featuring Czech history of the early XV century. The staff has grown in recent years from 11 to 250 employees, and the team has moved to a new larger office.

Warhorse co-founder, producer, director, game writer and designer Daniel Vávra explains that the second game will become what was planned initially for the first one. Since it is a rather expensive undertaking years ago the team decided to make a smaller-scope title based on the same concept. It became hugely successfully, and now the team is supported by one of the biggest European game publishers Deep Silver.

The story of the blacksmith’s son Henry, who lost everything to rise again, put his life in order to take revenge, has found its way to the hearts of millions of gamers in all countries, many of whom have never heard of Czech medieval kings and their conflict. Together with Henry, they plunged into the peculiarities of royal strife on the part of a simple peasant, who became a real brave warrior and entered the service of a nobleman as a squire.

Here the writers made another unusual turn for video games. Instead of making the protagonist a king or aristocrat, he was placed at the very bottom of the medieval social ladder. Some felt sorry for him, some mocked him, but with his strength, tenacity, ingenuity, and sarcasm, Henry of Skalitz made himself respected for everyone, from his worst enemies to the top of the local nobility.

The whole adventure was as immersive as possible. Players had to feed Henry, collect his inventory, let him sleep, heal his wounds in time, look for ways to earn money to buy better equipment, complete incredible quests, many of which captivated for hours from the simplest search for an escaped horse in the woods to studying a witch’s night ritual and investigating a bloody attack on the stable with tracking down each bandit throughout the neighborhood while someone eliminated witnesses faster, than the hero could get to them.

Game tasks were built in a variety of story genres from an investigative detective story to a thriller. At the same time, each story was extremely convincing for its historical context, as, for example, a quest about problems with the stone supplied for the construction of a monastery, during which strange ritual signs were found at the site of search, but the denouement was much more criminal and common.

In another memorable assignment for the local bishop, Henry tracked down a closed sect, trying to decipher the directions to its meeting place from fragments of interrogation text with an unusual description of the natural surroundings. This was in incredible contrast with the abundance of monotonous «get-and-deliver» assignments in many other games of the genre, first of all, the detailed study of all the characters of the quest, the entourage, the abundance of descriptions, the saturation of locations with the necessary props, a variety of activities, etc. There were also treasure maps in the game, with the help of which you could find valuable items and wealth, buried where it could well be done, for example, under a rural bridge close to a swamp.

Together with the players, Henry experienced what was happening with all his emotions: he was surprised, angry, upset, had fun, and even read a morning sermon to help out the village priest. Each quest had an abundance of passage options, different options in dialogues, and a complex combat system that challenged players. They fought and mastered it, even if not in all perfection (not everyone managed to make complex combos with a sword), but at least at a level sufficient for an average fight.

In fact, dozens thousands fans believed in the studio, while the project existed only on paper, donated considerable financial help to keep up the creative process. Even after releasing the project in 2018, Warhorse did not abandon it, as any major publisher might quickly do, but continued to fix bugs, improve graphics for next 4 years, created 4 large DLCs that expand the capabilities of a relatively small map.

Rumors about the sequel Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 have been circulating for the 2 years. Since the release of the first part, the creators have managed to make a port to Nintendo Switch, finalize versions of the game for Xbox One, PlayStation 4. There was also a prequel comic book and possible expected Netflix adaptation which kind of stalled at an early point.

In great secrecy, the creation of the sequel continued all these years. Users wondered if it would be a prequel, whether the authors would tell the story of Henry’s father instead of continuing his unfinished adventure, but the fears were in vain. The second part further develops the story of Henry himself from the moment the players parted ways with him, when he, in the company of Lord Hans Capon, went to the surrounding lords of Bohemia in search of support against Sigismund’s forces.

The second part of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II opens with a scene of a brutal siege where matured Henry helps to fend of the attackers, but as we reckon this might be a moment from the future plot where Henry is no longer afraid of anything and is ready to fight with any opponent. In the first game Henry’s native village was burned down by the Cumans, hired by King Sigismund in the hope of taking the throne away from his weakening relative Wenceslaus. He sends nomads to his lands in the hope that their raids will force the nobility to turn away from the weak suzerain, and at the same time plans to collect silver deposits under his control, because in those days the owner of wealth had the strongest army.

Sigismund was secretly supported by an influential lord, whose plot Henry and his allies uncovered throughout the first part of the game. However, the main villain could not be captured, and he fled to return later. The brave lords, loyal to Wenceslaus IV, decided to organize to beat back the bandits and raiders. It was against the backdrop of these global events that the adventure of the blacksmith’s son unfolded. In the second part, the royal intrigues twist even more. Henry realizes that he can become a pawn in other people’s games, the kings themselves appear on the screen in videos, but, as before, with Hans and the other knights of Bohemia, he still hopes to expel the Cumans and the entrenched allies of the usurper.

In the released trailer King Wenceslaus IV personally warns Henry that he has made peace with Sigismund, demanding that any counterattacks on his forces be stopped. The heroes realize that from now on they will have to act in secret, and Henry loses the support of the lords in all his endeavors while Sigismund’s troops continue to carry out his cunning plan to weaken the influence of Wenceslaus IV. If in the original game Henry watched how the local rulers gathered troops and helped fight the threats discovered by the hero, now he will have to act as a local Robin Hood, carefully hiding his intentions. As we expect the scale will get bigger and bigger to eventually greater siege battles than featured in the first game.

At the very beginning, Hans and Henry, in the company of guards, go in search of new allies. At a halt, when they go off to admire the bathing peasant women, which is implemented by a separate Stealth task, the entire escort of the heroes is killed by bandits, Henry is seriously wounded, and then falls off a cliff, but survives. His faithful friend Hans drags him to the nearest city to recover allowing to recall first game events. The wound «resets» previously maxed skills allowing to start progressing again to perfection.

Heroes follow their personality tipes. Lord Hans still believe he is the center of the world, while new turns might make him taste something else. Henry keeps his irony, but still remains true friend, loyal servant and brave warrior. Luke Dale and Tom McKay are British actors and starts of Kingdom Come: Deliverance games. They both return for the sequel but this time not only providing usual Voice Overs but also performing in Motion Capture suits acting as in real cinema with the game showing corresponding emotions, expressions, gestures carried out by the actors.

Voice acting is very important for any such complex Action RPG Survival game especially the one set in distant Medieval times. The voices of Luke and Tom became the story’s trademark for KCD, and both actors did amazing jobs bringing written game character to life as heroes and an exciting duo who can poke funny jokes at each other only to save one another in difficult times. As we could see from the trailers already released Lord Hans might have a bigger role in the sequel allowing him to mature more and to become a hero instead of just brawling and drinking in the tavern of his home town while his regent Sir Hanush covers up his misdemeanours.

Yet Henry will still remain the key character often traveling alone doing his own tasks for the greater cause. It seems to us that Sir Radzig importance in the original and his functions will now switch to Lord Hans. In addition, Henry dreams of revenge on the king’s bald general, Marquart von Aulitz, who killed his parents in Skalitz. We hope the list of returning characters gets bigger and can’t wait to see again Sir Hanush himself whose emotional monologues have also always been interesting to follow.

The second game will be much bigger in scope with more quests and time needed to discover everything. The map of the area will be approximately doubled, there will be more smaller settlements, interesting places to explore and a new huge city will appear – Kuttenberg. Henry will visit it, see its majestic walls, expensive houses, a fountain and get acquainted with the local guild of swordsmen and, in general, learn the differences between the regional capital and those cities that he visited in the original game. It remains only to take Henry to Prague somewhere in the third part of the series to complete his tour over the surroundings. The tutorial content will be embedded in the first adventure chapter for new and old players alike reminding how to fight and do basic daily activities. In the videos we see Henry walking as a blacksmith, Hans fighting with his fists and both heroes appearing restrained and punished later. It looks like Hans will try to keep up his life pace quickly running into trouble. Seemingly Sir Hanush is not nearby now to protect him from the consequences of his actions.

As we understand from the trailers in the beginning of the game Henry will have to gather a team of former warriors who became bandits, mercenaries and adventurers. Developers showed one of quests in the game’s beginning where Henry looks up for Rainek and a Polish mercenary nicknamed «Viper». It turns out that Reinek owes money to the local bandits and also died. His mates send Henry to rummage through the dung heaps in search of the body of the bandit, where a decision could be made whether to give or not to give the bow found there, what can end in a heated fight in order to save a valuable thing.

In the game all familiar features will remain. Henry needs food and sleep, he has to develop own skills, learn new perks, read books, master combat with a variety of weapons and, of course, helps people with their problems. The «Viper» is almost hung on a tree in another village. He is suspected of seducing the butcher’s wife. Here, the developers have shown the entire set of options available to Henry for investigation. As it turns out, the «Viper» was slandered, and the butcher is engaged in physical abuse at home and almost executed an innocent man. Attention to detail opens up new options in conversations that lead to different ways of solving the quest. Not always in terms of a reward, but somewhere – to clear your conscience. If there are not enough skill points, then diplomacy will fail, and a battle will begin, or the NPC will end the dialogue prematurely.

In a conversation with a woman if a player has developed medical skill, Henry can advise her an ointment for bruises. This develops trust in the dialogue, and she gives new important testimony that can then be used in a conversation with the offender. It is there that the skill of diplomacy with charisma, as well as the factor of power and the looks of equipment, is tested. Though not shown in the video we believe that quest could be solved without a fight by intimidating the attacker and correctly talking him over. It worked the same way in the original game.

By killing the attacking butcher, Henry puts the players in confusion – on the one hand, he eliminated her husband and family member, whom his wife tolerated and loved. On the other hand, he saved her from new beatings, rescued an innocent person from captivity, who would still be useful to him for more global tasks.

The duality of actions runs like a red thread through the entire plot, reminiscent of one little-known quest from the first part, where a beggar female asked again and again to steal some things from the house of her evil ex-husband. Indulging her whims, Henry led her, emboldened, to go to his house and kill him with a dagger, and then be executed for murder, although she could have lived on like her husband if Henry had firmly refused her requests and ignored the quest.

The trick of a super-interesting plot is that players never know in advance where this or that line in communication, consent or refusal to the next quest will lead them, how, in general, the lives of familiar characters can change by completing certain tasks. So, in the first part, Henry’s fellow villagers could be caught robbing and sentenced to death. The main character had the opportunity to contribute to their capture, help them to leave with the loot, and even take part in the raid himself or in a very complex sequence of actions to save them from death and recruit them to his village, re-educating them.

It is very interesting how the authors modernize the most interesting part of one of the expansions of the first game, where you could become the appointed lord of your small settlement, resolve disputes between several residents, collect resources, erect buildings and receive unique items and bonuses from them. Although there is a village in the Assassin’s Creed series, still graphically the updates of buildings look cooler in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, turning an almost abandoned field into a busy village, where you could attract NPC specialists from different quests.

In the first part, the village lacked only some walls, gates and fortifications – more for the atmosphere, as well as the activity of regularly repelling raids of robbers, and, in general, some mini-games in the village. Why not let Henry work as a lumberjack, guard, miller, baker, merchant, or blacksmith in the simplest activities for a change?

When Henry meets the Viper, he demonstrates his sense of humor. The mercenary begins to babble something in Polish, but Henry, who speaks English in the international version of the game, does not understand anything, talking to him as if he were a madman.

In the big city the atmosphere changes. The demo takes us somewhere to the middle of game. The kind hero begins to listen to a passer-by, and he steals his wallet, after which there is a «random quest» in the spirit of the Assassin’s Creed series to chase the robber on the streets, where you can return the stolen from him. Almost any task can be refused, except for those related to the main plot. So far, the developers have not commented on the main problem with the story of the first part – quests with a hidden timer, where being late sometimes led to a tragic or alternative ending of the task. There is reason to believe that the authors are not going to change anything here, but the game world is so big that sometimes people do quests randomly or pick the closest ones not understanding a few others have hidden clock already ticking to a failure.

Meanwhile, they reveal that Henry’s karma depends on the player. In their gameplay demonstration, they even included an episode of the massacre that Henry arranges in Kuttenberg, when he robs merchants, destroys guards, and then becomes a victim of a jailer or executioner, receiving his blows with a stick on the scaffold for his crimes. The creators seem to hint that you can do this, but you shouldn’t, and that much more of the game world will open up for the good Henry, who will be happy to see everyone, and the merchants will offer discounts.

Some game media trying a separate demo game build reported also on a quest related to the local swordsman Menhard. He is not accepted into the city guild. Menhard tries to show Henry’s new technique, but he is fined for studying without a license. Even in such a smaller plot episode, there are a lot of options to choose from. Trying to protect the instructor, Henry can say that it was a duel, not a lesson. Then he will be asked what was the reason for the skirmish, and Henry will lie that he seduced his daughter. Later it turns out that Menhard really has a daughter, and Henry’s words will offend him to the core, but if the hero shows cowardice, Menhard will be banished from the city altogether.

Brave Henry agrees to help the swordsman. To do this, you need to steal a ceremonial blade from the guild building and hang it on the city hall, which, according to local customs, announces the beginning of elections to the guild. On a dark night, Henry steals a blade from a heavily guarded headquarters, hangs it where it is supposed to, and finds himself in the arena in a 3v3 tournament, trying to help Menhard defend his future job. If the townspeople notice Henry hanging a blade on the town hall in the morning, then the enemy side gets permission to fight in heavy armor, which makes the fight many times more difficult. Any decision or oversight has its consequences in the game.

The guards also oppose the thieves in every possible way. Having found an open door to the guarded room, they will now lock it again. As before, they will react to the noise of footsteps and clang of equipment, inspect suspicious places and linger there for a while, looking around. In the second part it seemed to us that several of their guards patrol important locations at once, while in the first part, a random patrolman from the street could get to the scene of the robbery, and, basically, the alarm was raised by the inhabitants of the house from among the civilians. At night, according to local customs, you need to walk with a torch on the city streets. With low skills and the presence of stolen goods in their pockets, the guards will insist on a search.

It is curious that if everything in the quest is done unnoticed, then in the dialogues, the guild members awkwardly agree to a duel in the format of a tournament according to the city rules. They communicate differently than they did on the street during Menhard’s lesson». Now, finally, we can move on to the description of innovations and changes. In fact, the authors did not break what worked. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is as similar as possible to the first part in all aspects of the gameplay. Falling off a cliff even explains the loss of all the character’s skills. Again, you will need to read books, level up, learn combat techniques, collect armor bit by bit, get used to your favorite weapons and ride a horse in the vicinity.

In the first part, there were a lot of secret locations, for example, a house where the victims of a hungry witch were burnt down, encouraging exploration. So, a broken cart with a bloody trail could lead Detective Henry to the victims of bandits or, conversely, a banal collision on the roads. As a mini-game, you could find and hit nests in trees with a bow, where valuable items were hidden. All this we hope will be transferred to the sequel on a larger map. There will also appear random meetings, bandit camps, except that now it is not always only a fire and two tents with a chest, but sometimes some ruins of a small castle with an alchemist’s room, for example, where the rewards already correspond to the profile of the inhabitants.

The leader of the bandits can be robbed and released or destroyed, winning a battle with him. Looting on the dialog option now automatically takes everything from the NPC, and he leaves the field even without shoes barefoot. The knight icons at the top of the screen have given way to creature icons like Pikachu. In the game, they look like hares with long ears, symbolizing the status of the character – Combat, Stealth mode, etc. Rabbit hares are symbolic for the game, being also the main object of the earliest hunt that will return. In the original game and in the real history of that time, hunting on the lands of a feudal lord without a patent was considered poaching and could lead to negative consequences if the hero’s bags were full of loot at a meeting with the forester. Animals killed during hunting are divided into raw meat, bones and skins for sale. Raw foods will spoil again until you cook them, and all of this requires all the same familiar skills.

A new interaction menu has been added for the horse. Now the horse can be speeded up, slowed down, praised and scolded by commands, and in the villages near the taverns there are «drinking bowls», where rural horses graze and you can park your own. Again, the animators made the movements of a horse trying to drink water, but did not take into account that when the place is occupied by other «random» horses, the horse unnaturally lowers its head as if into emptiness. Probably there are some other cases like this to be fixed later down the like. Again, you will have to take care of cleanliness, but now the residents will also recognize the smell of the hero, after he has been in the dirt, so you will need to visit the bathhouse regularly.

The plot and at least three subsequent DLC will not do without love scenes and stories. Although Henry may have previously been hopelessly in love with the miller’s relative Theresa, he will definitely be presented with new temptations in the sequel with explicit scenes and at least one red-haired beauty. Although in the first part, the authors did not cross the line of vulgarity, and even in the game of undressing with a bathhouse worker, only Henry lost his outerwear. In the sequel, there will be a little more passion in love scenes during video cutscenes, but you will have to complete a lot of quests to win the heart of your beloved. By the way, the total number of video inserts in the game has increased from 3 to 5 hours. For comparison, in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey they last a little less than 10 hours. The difference is that in Odyssey there were some voluminous dialogues, while in KCD each clip is saturated with some kind of action.

Changes also affected the direction of simplification. There are five attack vectors instead of six. Blocks and counterstrikes are carried out in the same way. Primitive weapons such as clubs, sticks, axes no longer require mastering the complex mechanics of swords and are often reduced to simple blows, which will appeal to those who like to travel with all kinds of hammers.

The interface has become neater, the color scheme has been slightly changed, the location of the slots for the hero and horse has been moved to the left half of the screen, important numbers have been «highlighted», Henry’s avatar has become of higher quality when filling out the equipment. As a model, the main character now poses with a bow, then with a sword in a sheath half his height. In alchemy the mini-game screen has been made more intelligible and understandable, without changing its essence much, but hopefully by adding new recipes for potions with different effects.

Long journeys between cities will remain. Even in accelerated mode and with the best skills, the hero can run into bandits and ambushes at any time of the day or night. Although the map has become noticeably larger (almost 2 times), the authors do not want to introduce any one-click Fast Travel in the spirit of Assassin’s Creed, claiming that this harms the effect of immersion in the adventure. On the contrary, they strongly encourage riding around the area alive, looking for places of interest and well-hidden quests, as well as reacting to random encounters generated endlessly, such as with a traveler offering a duel on the road for a reward.

We do hope that the tasks where the time timer plays a role, at least now get a corresponding mark, indicating how many days or hours for the quest stage Henry has left to complete it. Previously, you had to guess about this by carefully reading the dialogues. Anyway, many players were so fond of free travel that they could return to the mission when some of its characters could no longer be saved even after completing it, or even the entire quest was recognized as a failure.

In the release version, you can save only by the Schnapps icons that you buy or are in the vicinity. It might seem Hardcore for better realism but you shouldn’t be scared since a huge game modding community very fast created some popular mods easening some game espects like allowing to save at any time or carrying a bigger load or returning the aiming crosshair for bows or including visible area for helmets with a visor which happened to have best defense stats but not so good field of view during battles. We wish though these were in-game options available to fine tune the difficulty suitable for a player rather than browsing a mod archive looking for a thing saving time and nerves. Chests might remain the key object. In the lodging rooms in any taverns, they will be synchronized again, carefully preserving everything that is placed there, but the equipment of enemies from a random skirmish can quickly disappear from the ground.

Graphically, the game has improved a lot. New interior items, architecture, richer character animation, texture detailing are only some of the features, although this may require quite modern hardware. System requirements weren’t announced yet officially. The new animations of interesting combat moves were added to battles. In one of these feints, the hero manages to put a blade to the neck of the attacking opponent, when the picture on the screen freezes for a split second in order to further perform a medieval «fatality».

Previously, interesting animations were hidden in complex combat techniques, but they were not easy to implement due to the need not only to quickly make several movements as part of a combo strike, but also to carry out each in a certain attack vector, which the game did not always recognize as correctly executed. We expect more «finishing blows» to be introduced to addition of the returing «chivalrous» one.

The developers note that medieval melee combat and fist fights are accurately modeled on the traditions of the XV century. Everyone holds weapons and strikes the way they did then. Now, indeed, NPCs make more variable stances, swings, the animation of their handling of different types of weapons has become much more diverse than before. Fist fights will also happen more often. Looks like that smaller enemies in peaceful locations do not immediately grab the blade, even if they have it, but at first try to fight with their hands, but will instantly switch to the sword if Henry tries to do so.

A large amount of additional animation was added, first of all, for completely new types of weapons. Now, in addition to the bow, Henry will be able to shoot from crossbows and the simplest musket of the late Middle Ages.

Although due to the long reload time of the firearm, it might be possible to make only 1 shot per battle what is good for game balance, and it is still a useful thing, especially when you need to fight against 3-4-5 attackers at the same time. With a well-aimed hit, one of them will leave the battle immediately. Previously, a bow was used for this, but you had to hit a vulnerable spot and quite quickly. The loading of the crossbow is animated in detail, although the weapon itself is compact so that Henry does not have to load it by leaning it against the ground, and he managed to do it in the air. You can also shoot directly from the saddle. It looks like some kind of a «thieves’» crossbow, but very noisy. If the bolt does not hit the target, then the potential victim will immediately be alarmed and attack. Recall that in the original game, archery was a nightmare for players, because the authors even removed the crosshair. It was simplified back by using the efforts of modders. Again it would be great if such moments could be customized to the wishes of the player without waiting for mods. At the same time, the videos also showed a large heavy crossbow, loaded classically on the ground. It is not yet known whether this option will be a game weapon, equipment for AI companions during sieges, or even added to the video cutscene for beauty.

During the assaults on the settlements, there will be clashes on the walls and city streets, which is a good development of the very idea, where Henry’s first siege of the bandits’ camp included several soldiers-assistants from Sir Radzig, but now the royal intrigues require a completely different scale, when the story has reached a new level, and no longer tells about how the local nobles fight off robbers, but about like two kings clash over one throne. This is also noticeable in the armies of the parties. Although they are not yet the size of the main royal army, they have well-formed units of archers, swordsmen, halberdiers, and noble knights with banners with their own coats of arms and uniforms.

During siege missions, players will see what the attackers and defenders of the castle were up to. It will be possible to participate in some new activities in this regard. While the focus will remain on hand-to-hand combat, a small number of tasks involve various activities like throwing stones at attackers from walls, making wooden ladders fall with special forks.

In terms of cutscenes that provide plot events, we see in the trailer some innovations from the history of medieval assaults. Apparently, at least once a barrel of an explosive substance like gunpowder will be delivered to the enemy fortress and placed in the basement of the castle, in order to then blow it up and maybe later go with the troops through the tunnel. This kind of assignment would require a cool disguise, and the creators once again remind that changing the details of the hero’s costume will significantly affect what is happening around. You can pretend to be a beggar or a  nobleman, collecting sets of things with certain names. The better the armor of the equipment, the higher the noise level from it.

The locations are filled with the usual variety. In addition to picturesque landscapes with fields, mountains, meadows, rivers and forests, there will be settlements of different sizes – villages, mining villages, farms and a large rich city in the center. The latter one became a real challenge due to its size and level of details needed. As for the open area, the authors also studied the maps of that time, and the artists and designers of the locations managed to recreate some natural attractions. You watch all this in action and dream that Warhorse will make a game about pirates in the Caribbean, since you can’t expect a sequel to Black Flag from the creators of Assassin’s Creed, but Warhorse could make an intriguing project on that topic. They feel the era so well, they know how to work it out as realistically as possible and saturate it with interesting plot events. They had already figured out the horses, so all that remained would be to master the naval battles. Though you should not expect this anytime soon, since the studio is focused on their series and will contintue to support and update game after its release. Who knows maybe even a prequel about Henry’s father will follow somewhere later.

Of course, with a game on such a scale players have to be patient and trust the developers. With dozens and dozens of quests and different options for passing each, bugs, dead ends, problems, «suspended» tasks might appear after release. We are sure all of this will be fixed and a bigger team allows for more thorough test runs than before. We want to believe that they will also fix the permanent bug of the first part, where some quest items were not deleted after tasks and over time cluttered the inventory a lot, because they could not be put in the chest. On the one hand, the authors wanted to leave Henry things as a souvenir of the solved missions, but it turned out awkwardly. It was better to transfer them from the inventory to some diary, and, in general, the need to save them as separate items after the completion of the quest is doubtful, because it was very annoying when selling trophies to list through dozens of old quest items. At the same time new DLC are already promised. At least 3 of them will appear but it might be more announced in future.

The voice acting of the project is made by all the same talented actors. Tom McKay returns with the voice of Henry, who is now a real squire, brave, reckless, but still sharp-mouthed, sarcastic, capable of crying at a tragic moment, and in the prologue flashes all the events of the first part of Kingdom Come: Deliverance in his eyes. The soundtrack is one of the additional trump cards for the sequel Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. The same maestro Jan Valta was engaged in the already memorable music of the sequel, although it was possible to just a few tracks for now. We don’t doubt it will be amazing music which was recorded with a whole orchestra and dozens of male and female singers. The music is another amazing feature of KCD and its soundtracks have long replayability for all Medieval music fans.

The medieval cities of the sequel will come to life even more. The villagers, as before, go about their business, do their work, whether they are peasants, soldiers, merchants, nobles, thieves, beggars, or newly added NPC executioners to the list of city fillings. They react vividly to what is happening around them, they will raise the alarm if they see bodies, they will point to you as a criminal if they are found doing something unreliable. NPC reactions have noticeably increased. So, if you whistle in front of a well-dressed lady nearby, she will exclaim: «Don’t even dream about that!»/ Such humor will be everywhere, adding atmosphere to the series. Reactions to reactions have also been added. In an intoxicated state, Henry can now choose: to be rude to passers-by or to apologize for his condition. In addition, the system of offenses was replenished with new medieval punishments on the scaffold, some of which are very cruel and shown without embellishment.

What happens in the sequel if you drop a piece of clothing next to an NPC? He will take it for himself and in a few hours you will see him walking in your hat. If the evil Henry killed the owner of the house, then the next time he appears in the location, his inconsolable widow will cry on the porch. The algorithms of behavior of even the simplest inhabitants change depending on the actions of the hero – another unique feature of the Kingdom Come: Deliverance II game.

The Tavern will once again be a chance to try your luck with the dice, but other games hopefully will be added for variety. After a long day in a town the people will gather in the tavern for rest. You can chat with everyone, finding new quests and information. The large city of Kuttenberg will delight you with signs of its prosperity (in history it was considered very prosperous at that time): guilds, rich houses, huge walls, towers, additional gates, passages, castle spaces and interiors are staffed by guards in heavy armor. As we see the team used many art objects from the original and supplemented them with new, for example, working fountains for large cities, which significantly saved the designers’ time. Mutt the dog will also return, but looks like with new animations and maybe even commands.

The new art, where Henry’s allies are visible, also attracts attention. In addition to Hans, this is a certain mustachioed knight in expensive armor and a dark-haired girl in poor clothes and with a crossbow. It is curious how and where this motley team of comrades-in-arms will prove themselves in the adventure. At the same time, the crossbowwoman may not become the hero’s beloved interest, because game videos feature his scenes with a red-haired chosen one in expensive clothes and castle interiors.

So, 2025 will be a surprisingly fruitful year for the premieres of long-awaited video games. Civilization VII and Mafia IV, previews of which we have already appeared on the channel, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, among other major games, should be released next year. The sequel to Kingdom Come: Deliverance II will arrive on 11.02.2025 on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and, of course, on PC. The date was slightly moved from December 2024.

The Gold Bundle also includes the Lion’s Crest optional quest, a Season Pass for 3 guaranteed DLCs, and a Hunter items back. In the bonus mission, you can learn the story of the legendary crusader by trying to find his long-lost armor and weapon. The Collector’s Edition of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is released in a limited edition and will include items for collectors: a cloth map of the game world, a collection of magnets with the coats of arms of local lords, a medieval letter written in ancient font and autographed by the developers, as well as a 30-centimeter statuette of Squire Henry on the horse Pebbles, and all the bonuses of the Gold Edition.