Kingdom Come Deliverance II has been making massive rounds lately as 2025’s biggest game release and it’s only been a couple months. Warhorse Studios, the developer behind the first Kingdom Come Deliverance appears to have delivered what most gamers are describing as the best experience of both KCD and first person medieval RPGs. With its more realistic and highly detailed system of minigames and mechanics the game has certainly put a new standard on RPG’s and gaming itself going forward now that this title has brought to life the jarring issues of modern day gaming.
Taking place within the early 15th century in the kingdom of Bohemia Kingdom Come Deliverance II centers around the continuing story of Henry of Skalitz, a former blacksmith turned knight who serves the king of Skalitz to fight in a civil war against Sigismund and his forces after they murdered the family of blacksmiths who raised him. In this story, Henry and his faithful dog Mutt accompany a nobleman Sir Hanz Capon along with his own personal entourage in a journey away from Rattay for an important mission to deliver a letter to Otto Von Bergow an ally to Sigismund to acquire whether or not his loyalty to him still remains. On their journey, however, they are ambushed by bandits seemingly lead by Sigismund who killed everyone except for Henry and Hanz because they were bathing away from their camp and equipment, Henry’s dog Mutt also survives, but gets separated from the two. As they escape the massacre Henry gets severely injured and brought to a herb woman who heals both men before they make their way to the town where they needed to deliver the letter.
Unfortunately, the bandits that attacked the camp stole all of their belongings including the letter and the only thing they have on them are attires that make them appear as peasants and not noblemen so they are brushed off and drenched in manure. Afterwards they arrive at a local tavern to collect their bearings and attempt to come up with a plan to meet with the head of the town, but before that they need to work off the tavern’s debt because they ordered more than they could afford. As Henry works off both of their debts Hanz makes a fool of himself, upsetting a local guard and getting them both into a massive bar fight that ultimately gets Henry and Hanz locked up. Henry scolds Hanz for his pompous behavior which leads to both men going their separate ways. Now, Henry must do everything he can to get help in the upcoming war before it’s too late even if that means finding a job or attending a wedding in order to do so.
What makes a game stand out the most is its gameplay whether it’s because of its fast paced and fun nature or its very well detailed system of mechanics that help it stand out from other games. The first Kingdom Come Deliverance set itself apart from most because of it’s massive emphasis on realism and not just in graphics, but gameplay mechanics that force the player into some very humbling experiences with how much effort it requires the player to be more involved in learning the various processes rather than simply just glaze through them entirely like most games would have them do. An example of this is the potion making, which instead of simply being gather the materials and going to a tab that will just automatically craft it for the player, KCDII made it a minigame that requires the player to read instructions from the book and follow them to the letter otherwise the potion will come out bad. Everything from what liquid to use, how long to boil the ingredient in cauldron, whether certain herbs need to be grinded or not, and even grabbing a bottle and pouring the finished product into it. It’s also not a one and done thing either as the process needs to be repeated allowing the players to learn the process the more they do it.
The same level of detail applies to everything else from the combat itself to other crafting mini games like Blacksmithing. The combat especially is extremely reliant on its more realistic approach because instead of having it where players become more powerful the more advanced gear and abilities they acquire KCDII keeps itself in a more realistic area where no matter how good your gear and skills are the Henry can still be overwhelmed because despite him being the main character he doesn’t get the privilege most main characters get which is being an unstoppable force because he can be killed by anything from armored soldiers to ravenous wolves to even food poisoning Henry is as much of an average person as an average person can get.
While the game is mechanically and visually impressive it isn’t immune to certain issues performance wise. Performance wise, while the game has incredible visuals, there were a large number of times where the game would suffer from framerate drops due to it being automatically set to ultra on all of it’s advanced graphics settings especially during combat depending on how many NPCs are in the area. Even worse issues would arise from the transitions from gameplay to cutscenes because once the second cutscene of the game started every cutscene going forward suffered severe lag to the point where the dialogue would end before the scene did. However after switching from ultra on all graphical settings to medium it got a lot better and even on medium the visuals were still breathtaking.
Overall all the positive reviews are correct Kingdom Come Deliverance II is a great game to start off 2025 and will no doubt go down in history as one of the best RPGs out there. Despite a couple of humbling introductions and learning curves players should be able to get into the swing of things and once they do they will find it impossible to stop playing no matter how frustrating it gets.
Score: 9 out of 10
Reviewed on PC