In Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, you need to look before you leave. Every fast travel trip requires supplies and energy, so if you don’t want to arrive at your destination so hungry you’re blacking out and so tired you’re falling over, you need to prepare carefully. In that way, KCD2’s fast travel is a lot like our own fast travel: cars.
Going The Long Way
If you’re riding your horse or going on foot, you can find room and board on the way, but that requires preparation, too. You don’t want to end up in the middle of a forest with nothing to eat, or worse, nowhere to sleep. The longer you play the game, the more you learn to work the system. As you complete quests, people reward you with places to sleep and new pots of stew to stand awkwardly in front of as you eat single spoonfuls at a time until your belly’s full.
Yes, this is double dipping, but this was centuries before George Costanza’s behavior warranted the creation of that phrase.
Bohemia is a scary, overwhelming place, but at a certain point, Henry needs to be a good Catholic and say a prayer that wouldn’t be written for another hundred years (and worse, was penned by a Lutheran): “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” You cannot control when and where you will be attacked by ravening packs of wild dogs. You can’t stop a horse you don’t own from clipping into a tree, creating an insurmountable situation in which you can’t climb on its back, but also can’t whistle for it to come to you, because you don’t own it. You didn’t make the rules. You just have to abide by them.
Be Prepared
But you can prepare so that, when things go awry, you have a plan. It’s a bit like setting out for a drive. My dad always insisted that we bring a coat in the car in the winter, even if we weren’t going very far because, who knows, your car’s engine might break down, leaving you stranded in the cold for hours. The longer the trip, the more important it is to think ahead.
That’s why, when you head out on a road trip, you make a checklist before you go. It might be a long list, but most of the needs break down into a few simple categories. Do you have a means of transportation? Do you have money to fuel your means of transportation? Do you have snacks to fuel yourself? And do you have a place to sleep if you need to?
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 asks you to make similar preparations before each trip. Each time you fast travel, you watch a board game piece-style Henry move across the map. As he moves, you can see your hunger and fatigue grow.
Your health is also displayed on screen, but that isn’t going to change mid-travel (unless you get stopped by bandits and fail to flee).
The Passage Of Time
In most games, fast travel is (in-world, at least) instantaneous. It may take a few seconds for the game to load the new part of the map, but when you get there, no time has passed. If it was sunny when you left, it will be sunny when you arrive, and so on, even if you’re warping hundreds of miles.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 handles it differently. When you fast travel in KCD2, a clock at the bottom of the screen shows how much time is elapsing as you move. If you’re going far enough, you might leave in the morning and arrive in the middle of the night. It’s still probably going to be faster than actually making the journey, but the game is interested in representing fast travel as travel, not teleportation.
In this way, the game is getting much closer to the reality of taking a road trip. My wife helped a friend move from Illinois to Texas last year, and it took days. They stopped for the night three times along the way and, each time, were in a vastly different place. They needed to get a hotel, stop and get food, and then set out in the morning to do it all again. That’s the reality of travel, even in the 21st century. It’s cool to see Warhorse bring the same considerations to the 15th.
Next