Summary
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 refines Oblivion’s progression system, emphasizing a natural “learning by doing” approach to skills.
- Speech skill in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 reflects improved skill development by encouraging interaction with NPCs.
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 ensures all skills are relevant, promoting a more well-rounded character development than Oblivion.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 may be more of a remake of the first game than anything else, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What that means is that Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 simply honors the core principles of its predecessor while refining them for a more accessible experience. This ultimately applies most prominently to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2‘s progression system, which continues to utilize a “learning by doing” approach, similar to The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is actually a lot like The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, sharing similarities in its NPC interactions and its open-world approach, but its progression system is chief among those similarities. This is a progression system that was largely lost in The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim in exchange for increased accessibility and more natural playstyles. Ironically, however, this is where Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 improves Oblivion‘s progression system, as it manages to maintain the mechanics while also adding the adjustments that Skyrim was intended to implement.
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Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Review
With Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Warhorse Studios delivers one of the first great games of 2025.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Improves Oblivion’s Progression System
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Improves Oblivion’s System of Skill Development Through Practice
One of the biggest issues with Oblivion‘s progression system is that it led players to use skills artificially rather than naturally. A great example of this was Oblivion‘s Acrobatics skill, which could be upgraded very easily by jumping around the map constantly. Inevitably, this led to unnatural gameplay, as players could enhance their Acrobatics skill by running around a single area and jumping at every chance they could before moving on to more important matters. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 takes this “learning by doing” approach and incorporates it into gameplay more naturally.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2‘s Speech skill is probably one of the best reflections of these adjustments in action, as players can increase it by speaking with NPCs and participating in Speech skill checks. In other words, progression of the Speech skill in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 comes about more naturally than something like Oblivion‘s Acrobatics skill, since players are not only encouraged to speak with NPCs in KCD2 for gameplay reasons, but it also serves the game’s worldbuilding as well by creating a more immersive experience.
Other examples of this system are in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2‘s combat proficiency, which increases through actual combat encounters, and alchemy skills, which are developed by actively creating potions.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Offers More Comprehensive Skill Integration
Another area that The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion‘s progression system failed to impress in was its ability to comprehensively integrate skills into gameplay. For the most part, players could neglect certain skills in Oblivion without consequence, and while that could be chalked up to the emphasis on player freedom that Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 shares with it, it might have been a more fulfilling experience overall if it had found a way to incorporate every skill into its gameplay.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 improves that part of Oblivion‘s progression system by ensuring that almost no skills are ignored — apart from perhaps the game’s weapons, as that really does come down to player preference more than anything else. Each skill in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 progresses through its relevant activities, which, in turn, promotes a more well-rounded character development. Bringing up Oblivion‘s Acrobatics skill again, players could easily create a very acrobatic character in Oblivion before dipping even slightly into the game’s other skills.
One of the biggest issues with Oblivion‘s progression system is that it led players to use skills artificially rather than naturally.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 refines the “learning by doing” progression system of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion in a way that feels both immersive and rewarding. By ensuring that skills progress naturally through organic gameplay rather than repetition, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 offers a progression system that encourages players to engage with the world on its terms. This not only makes character progression feel more authentic but also strengthens Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2‘s commitment to realism.
RPG
Action-Adventure
Open-World
- Released
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February 4, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ // Use of Alcohol, Blood and Gore, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity
- Developer(s)
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Warhorse Studios