To my surprise, I’m really into Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Despite skipping Warhorse Studios’ original RPG, I decided to pick up the sequel when I saw how good the reviews were. Critics were right on the money. I play games for an hour every morning, and KCD2 has consistently dominated that time since its release.
As much as I’m enjoying it, I was still shocked when I realized exactly how much I had played. While writing an article about the game earlier this week, I initially claimed that I had spent around a dozen hours with it. But when I checked my PS5 clock, it told me I had actually put in almost double that time, with 22 hours and counting. That’s a pretty big discrepancy! Which got me wondering: what is it about this game that makes it feel like I’ve spent less time with it than I actually have?
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Getting Good Takes Time
Like a lot of KCD2 players, I’m not going to the wedding. Though getting into this exclusive event is your defining objective in the early hours, I’ve been taking my sweet time. I’ve found a few different places where I can reliably sleep and get some stew, rescued my dog from a pack of wolves, rescued a drunk guy who was stuck in a tree from a pack of wolves, and lied to a shepherd about killing a nearby pack of wolves. Turns out a lot of stuff in this game is wolf-related.
Including Henry attempting to give himself the nickname “Wolf of Skalitz.” Could this be an ode to Geralt of Rivia, perhaps, who is both the White Wolf and the Butcher of Blaviken?
All that time on lupine leisure makes it feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. I keep pouring time in, but haven’t made a ton of progress. Or, at least, I’ve started to measure progress differently than I usually would. In most games, I would determine how much I’d accomplished by looking at the quests I’d completed, the hours I’d logged, or how close it feels like I am to the end. That last one is a little squishy, but if you’ve played a lot of games, you can usually tell when the credits are close to rolling.
Open Your Heart To Open-Endedness
None of those are reliable indicators for progress in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. The YouTuber Skill Up said that he had logged 20-plus hours, yet still hadn’t reached the event that marked the end of the supposedly 10-hour-long preview period. That open-endedness and depth make this a difficult game to feel any sense of objectivity about. Am I still early? Am I nearing the middle? I don’t know.
So, instead, I’m finding my own progress markers. When I clear the fog of war off one section of the map, that’s a sign of progress. When I win a fight (any fight) that’s progress. When I brew a potion correctly, that’s progress. When I brew a potion incorrectly, and learn that I need fresh ingredients for a more potent concoction, that’s also progress. Success and failure are both progress when they teach you something.
I’m pretty goal-oriented, and tend to have a hard time enjoying the journey if I don’t feel like I’m getting closer to my destination — even in video games. But Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 requires a perspective shift. When I meet a guy who tells me a fun fable about a water goblin and a silver axe, getting to hear his interesting story is its own reward. When I meet a weird wanderer who thinks his life’s purpose is something he can literally find by going back to the last place he remembers having it, the simple act of chatting with an interesting character is worthwhile. When a gravedigger schools me on the ins and outs of his profession, I sit my medieval European arse down and listen.
Our school years, and then our working life, can teach us that accomplishing something concrete is all that matters. But that distracts from the truth that just hanging out is a great way to pass the time. Sometimes, twice as much time as you realized.
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Fast Travel In Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Is Like Preparing For A Road Trip
Gotta have snacks. Lots of snacks.