Kingdom Comes Again

 

I wasn't exactly a fresh hopper on the Kingdom Come bandwagon when that game first launched. I watched from the sidelines appreciating what it brought but also figuring I would get little out of the thing. Afterall, everyone called it the Oblivion reimagining of their dreams, and I retain that Oblivion is the worst-aged Elder Scrolls game- so why would I enjoy a game that reminded everyone of that? Of course, even the stone faced like myself must wither and collapse eventually, and I would make my way around to Kingdom Come through way of it's definitive edition which I actually reviewed on this here blog. And what I found was a surprisingly engaging and well made medieval life simulator, with some wanting narrative hiccups and a horrendously poor implantation of their new DLC questline. (What were they thinking?) But overall I enjoyed it.

I think the best aspect I can remember of the game would be the melee combat which the team put so much time into feeling natural and true-to-the-period for how soldiers would be trained. Not only was it accurate, but gruelling. You would have to dedicate actual hours of real time training on the field time and time again just to get your stats high enough not to be gutted in your first open world encounter. It verged into the hardcore in away I can really respect in game that managed to break so far into the 'main stream' as Deliverance did. If only they had managed to get the group fights working a bit better. I understand the idea that 'fighting multiple combtants at once isn't supposed to be all that feasible, because realistically you would just die'; but that didn't really translate well to the game when in that everyone would just kind of glitch out and you'd end up slaying a conga line of idiots that can't properly swing because they're crammed too close together. (Or hell, maybe that is realistic to the period. I wasn't there, I can't say.)

Since the wrap up of Deliverance there had been precious little coming out of Warhorse studios regarding how they would follow it up. How the team was expanding, what lessons they were learning from the first game, or even how the blowing up of the original had affected their outlook on the franchise they were making. Hell, they went so quiet no one could even confirm whether or not a sequel was being actively worked on at all! But of course that has broken given we're talking about the game right now and bemoaning the fact that yes, it would seem marketing has won- the game is going to be called 'Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2'. What is even the point of the colon, then? Might as well make the base title of the franchise 'KCD'. (Missed opportunity...)

Now right away there is a receptive audience waiting for literally anything out of this studio given the first was such a genuinely unique proposition. Medieval simulator games tend to focus solely on either the large scale tactics aspect of the time period or the lamentable open world survival rabbit hole. And few are conceived with any level of genuine polish. Deliverance felt like a properly designed game with professional standards of quality that put you in the unflinching shoes of peasantry in a blossoming age of strife. Even more so than any fantasy game of it's genre, KCD was unique and I would honestly call it an experience worth having once for anyone with even a passing interest in this time period. Now 2 will bring us even more memoires worth sharing.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 promises to shown yet another angle of Medieval life- that of being a noble, albeit a bastard one, in a time of coming war- thus greatly shifting the viewing angle with which we approach this world. Henry will be lording it up over in Prague, the new map coming to this game which will be our first depiction of a medieval city, and thus present us with opportunities for urban sword combat which I pray they don't miss out on because come on- that's a lay up! Apparently this is also around about the time period that gunpowder was being introduced in the West, so we're going to get our hands on honest-to-goodness hand canons! Hand canons to roll up on people in the street? One can only hope...

Combat was actually a central focus of the original game to the extent that the team put in research man-hours to nailing the feel, look and functionality of the various weapons on display. Throwing in more this time around is only expanding the range of work they need to conduct, as well as the effort that I hope is going in to making group combat a bit less dopey considering with the coming warfare storylines- big fights are only going to become more common. The highlight of the original game was a one-on-one duel midday through the campaign- I'm hoping for a similarly climatic showdown in this one perhaps at the heart of the narrative and featuring a large scope climatic showdown like I yearned for all throughout the second half of Deliverance. I mean: the first Deliverance. (Should have changed the name, dammit!)

Personally I thought one of the places where the original game was lacking, at least on a fundamental 'RPG level' was in consequential decision making. The original treated choices more like a Immersive Sims do- where you take different paths to reach the same determined outcome. Perfectly fine avenues of development, don't get me wrong- but I would prefer if actual branches could be made on Henry's journey to really shift the flow of the narrative, maybe give a bit more agency behind Henry's actions rather than this rather doe-footed revenge plot he's supposed to have been on since day one, but to which he made largely no progress throughout the entire original.

That being said, Kingdom Come doesn't need to really change up the way they handled the gameplay of the original to draw a crowd. The team has grown considerably since that original so I expect a larger scope, but that very unique approach we talked about earlier works to the game's advantage in that the audience are not yet sick of this style of grounded and dirty medieval historical fiction- nothing needs to 'evolve' on a fundamental level. (This ain't Assassin's Creed or anything.) So long as the generally accepted issues with the original are ironed out, such as the crazy level balancing that made Henry actually invincible at late game, we're probably up for another banger later this year.