Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2‘s approach to realism and immersion extends to making me as bad at fighting for my life as I would be in real life. Usually in an RPG, you run away from enemies when they’re too high level for you. In Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, I’m running away from everyone.
Guards? Yep. Bandits? Yep? Wolves? Of course, and — I’ll do you one better — I’m sprinting away from stray dogs, too. Since I finished the extended tutorial and entered the open world, I’ve only been in a handdful of quest-required fights, and I lost them all multiple times before succeeding. You take your eye off the ball and Henry gets turned into Skalitzbury steak. It feels like… well, it feels like what it would actually feel like to be a guy getting into sword fights in the Middle Ages. You wouldn’t win all the time. You pick a sword fight with the wrong guy and your head is going to end up on a pike.
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Going Back To (Very Basic) Basics
As much as I respect the philosophy, I’m straight-up not having a good time. I really like the game as a whole, but every time I have to stand my ground, I find my lessons with Hans and the swordmaster Tomcat fly out the window like old privy water.
It doesn’t help that the game can be frustratingly opaque. During one of those tutorial sessions with Tomcat, I was doing exactly what he told me to do, but consistently failing to pull off the combo. I looked it up, and found endless people in the Steam forums complaining about the same issue. Some players were piping in with their solutions or sharing videos that showed YouTubers pulling it off. But many still said they couldn’t get it to work, even with those tools. I was in the same boat, and when I finally got it, it was by pure accident. I still don’t know how I did it or how to repeat it.
So I’m not exactly confident in my sword fighting skills, and worse, I’m unsure it would make much difference if I was. I can’t tell if I’m doing something wrong or if the game just thinks that I’m doing something wrong. Either way, the positive effect is that I’m taking the game’s systems seriously. I’m looking for any edge I can get. I’m searching for better weaponry. I’m sharpening my sword, practicing my parries, triple-checking my thrusts, and doing drills with my dagger.
I’m Afraid Of Everything All The Time
But my sword insecurity is just another factor contributing to the feeling that Bohemia is out to get me. Being Henry kinda feels like being a hypochondriac. I’m always worried that some mechanic I don’t know about yet is waiting to bite me. I didn’t eat enough, and now my vision is blurring. Guess I should eat everything in my inventory! What the hell do you mean one of the items in my inventory gave me food poisoning and now I need a Digestive Potion or I’ll die? Do you have any idea how far I am from the nearest Alchemist Bench?
Swordplay’s difficulty drives home how inhospitable this world is. In most games, I could yada yada most of the extra systems because I know I can handle the core verbs. You don’t actually need to engage with crafting in Cyberpunk 2077, for example, as long as you keep collecting new weapons. If you know how to shoot — and the shooting in Cyberpunk basically works the same as shooting in every other shooter — you’re gonna be fine.
But the Kingdom Come: Deliverance games are reinventing something just as basic. What would be thoughtless is now something I have to think about all the time. Is this what it was like to live in Medieval Bohemia? Was everyone scared all the time? If so, hats off: immersion achieved.
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