Kingdom Come: Deliverance II could be 2025's most underrated game
REVIEW: I'm calling it early, but as hype fades and competition mounts, this tough open-world game truly pushes the genre to new heights.
A quick note. I’ll be away on a work trip and small holiday over the next few weeks. This will be the last new Infinite Lives for this month and I’ll return in April, recharged and ready to cover the Switch 2 debut!
Substack’s system suggested I repost some older articles to share them with new readers. So I’m going to do exactly that, but I’ve re-topped them with new context for relevance — and a bit of insight. Let me know what you think of this approach when you see them.
There I was, being mauled to death by wolves. Within the first few hours of playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, I had been ambushed by a trio of them and without any armour and a sub-par hunting sword equipped, they made pretty short work of me.
One reload earlier, I was murdered by a guard for stealing food from the local inn. I had to eat? My character's vision was literally blurring from hunger. What was I to do? I tried running away, but that guard was willing to chase me across the map just to end me for swiping a spoonful of stew. The solution: Get good at stealing.
My personal experience here is far from unique. And it sums up the brutality, realism and—much later—the triumph of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II.
It looks, feels and on occasion plays like Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. But there's no whimsy or fantasy here. Rather, the grim reality of living in 15th century Bohemia—now known as the Czech Republic.
There's a rigidness to the game mechanics and a difficulty spike early game that will churn most players, especially as you are finding your feet. However, if you endure, it becomes an incredibly rewarding game that lays out a blueprint for what the next Elder Scrolls game—or others of its ilk—could look like.
You primarily play as Henry, a squire to Lord Hans Capon. They're on a simple quest to deliver a message to Trotsky's local lord, and as this is a video game, it all goes wrong pretty quickly. Bandits attack, Henry and Capon suffer a series of major injuries, both he and Capon end up snubbed by the castle that was supposed to receive them and then get into a bar fight which places them both in the local town's stocks. Lord Capon's insufferable—and more often than not condescending—demeanour gets the better of him, and he ditches Henry to find his own way to get a note to Trotsky's ruler.
That's how the game begins: Henry is alone and with nothing, not even clothes. And from there you're given a plan: find a way into the local county wedding where the Lord you are trying to get in front of will be in attendance. The game offers you tutorials up to this point, but they are short-lived and before you know it you are in the open world, with little in the way of guidance.
It's those first few hours that are the toughest hang. Combat in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is complicated. At first, felling a single opponent feels like a challenge. There's a directional blocking and parrying system that at first feels like it requires luck as much as finesse. Crafting life-saving potions, which are also required for an on-the-fly save of the game, require you to manually remember recipes and add ingredients to a cauldron manually. Blacksmithing literally requires you to heat metal then rhythmically hit it with a hammer. Picking a lock feels impossible. You fail just about every speech and skill check. Oh, and Henry needs to eat, sleep and bathe. Fail to take care of him and total health and stamina will slip making you an easy target for enemies. That all costs grochen, the game's currency, and you are poor as dirt.
But, you keep playing and the game gradually begins to break. Perks unlocked through levelling gradually ease up the friction its systems present. You learn combat tricks that evade an opponent's guard. The higher your alchemy skill, the more tolerant recipes are to errors, and your ingredients go further with each brew yielding more potions, which you can sell for a neat profit. Lockpicking goes from a chore to a breeze.
Quests gradually lead to better gear. You get a horse to help you travel around and unlock fast travel points. Earn enough coin and you can buy permanent beds at inns, which come bundled with access to food. The initial slog gives way to an intense sense of player satisfaction that only grows as you further progress the game.
This is the true triumph Deliverance. Its systems somehow go from painful to stimulating, and it perfectly captures Henry's own experiences as he transforms from being a beggar into a fully-fledged knight.
Bohemia itself is a very curious place. It's dirty, superstitious and pious all wrapped into one, all accentuated by the game’s folk-eque soundtrack. Despite a lot of nods to God and religion, nobody is really 'good' here. The game’s excellent voice acting and tight script work treads this tightrope of a juxtaposition well. Everyone is just trying to get by, one way or another.
While overall excellent the game isn’t sin-free. Bohemia, as presented in Deliverance, is a very generic place. There just isn't much variation in the countryside, compared to say Skyrim, where you traverse marshlands, mines, frozen ports and everything between. I’ll caveat this by also saying that unlike Skyrim, Bohemia is a real place and as a result cannot take as many creative liberties in its portrayal. But a change in scenery from lush green countryside and lakes would have been welcome.
Menus and the user interface in Deliverance isn’t the easiest to navigate either. While I completed my play through on the Playstation 5 Pro, the game feels as if it is favouring a PC player base, with an item and management system tuned towards a mouse and keyboard setup. Henry becomes a pack mule as the game progresses, and towards of the end of my play though it was difficult to find anything in his near endless bag of gear. This drags down the overall pacing, as being stuck in the pause menu is yet another layer of friction this game adds but with very little payoff for the player. While I can appreciate the commitment to realism and detail on all levels, some simplification here and a stronger focus on user interface — especially for controller players — would have been welcome.
Visually, and from a performance perspective, Deliverance starts to unravel a little when it tries to shake up the status quo. Rain in the game—especially at night—doesn't feel realistic or like it's adding to the experience. It just artificially blurs the player's sight with translucent pixels. This is a shame, as other visual effects with mist, light and even shadows are on point and its otherwise a stunning game.
Learning from a myriad of other open-world games, Deliverance is quite careful with players' time. Side quests are often fully scripted, and full of unique moments that are worth seeing. One puts you at the helm of a complex murder mystery, with multiple outcomes and routes for tackling it. Another sees you stalked in an abandoned mine by a knight who has lost his mind, believing he's protecting the public from a gateway to hell. Smaller tasks or chores within the game are kept to a minimum and you a generally not punished for skipping them. The game can be finished in under 30 hours by just doing the mainline quests. But with so much to see and enjoy it would be a shame to do so. A more rounded playthrough, enjoying the sights, took me around 70 hours.
However, Deliverance is at its best during its main quest line. Tightly stage-managed and scripted scenes are well executed. The elaborate Semine wedding, with branching pathways and activities, at the start of the game is just a taste of what's to come. Henry participates in heists, castle sieges and several mysteries too. The highs delivered by these major plot beats more than surpass the few technical faux pas that come part and parcel with massive open world games.
There's set to be a few of them this year. Deliverance is in direct competition with Avowed, which has arguably generated more sustained hype with its launch. Then there's the impending arrival of Grand Theft Auto 6, which will nip at the long-tail interest in this game too. Both may also mute Deliverance's chances of even scoring a Game of The Year nomination—especially given that its early difficulty may cause many players to abandon it after the first few hours.
But I'll be clear: If you enjoyed Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and are frustrated by the endless re-releases and a lack of progress from Bethesda on a new title, give Deliverance a go and — if you can — stick with it. Consider it a distant, more realistic, cousin of that game, that will sate your desire for exploration-based storytelling.
Its true genius lies in how it transforms early frustration into genuine satisfaction. If you have the patience to endure its initial challenges, seeing Henry evolve from a beggar who easily dies to wolves into a knight that fells entire armies is deeply rewarding.
Reviewed on: Playstation 5 Pro.
Worth trying if you like: Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Deux Ex: Mankind Divided, Fallout 4, Cyberpunk 2077.
Available on: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows
I read this and will consider playing it, the realism appeals to me for sure!
"Henry is alone and with nothing, not even clothes." No, thank you. I play videogames to escape reality.