Summary
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 focuses on storytelling over quantity of content, creating a more immersive open-world experience.
- The game’s open-world is filled with untold stories that players can discover through exploration and curiosity.
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 utilizes environmental storytelling to make the world feel alive, unlike traditional quest-based narratives.
Despite their increased prominence over the last decade, public reception of open-world video games has been a bit of a roller coaster. In many cases, open-worlds have leaned more into the idea that quantity automatically begets quality, with an approach that packs as much content into one game as its world’s size will allow. However, over time, that has proven to be far from the truth, as many open-worlds, regardless of how much content they contain, still feel empty at the end of the day. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, on the other hand, is an open-world game that manages to offer two expansive maps for players to explore that aren’t filled to the brim with content and yet still feel full.
One thing that Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 does differently than many other open-world games is it doesn’t fill its map with map markers, although there are still plenty there to assist players in finding their way. In addition to that, though, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 simply prioritizes storytelling over its quantity of content, choosing to offer players what feels like a real, living world rather than merely a video game with a checklist of objectives to complete. As players venture off the beaten path in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2‘s faithful recreation of medieval Bohemia, they will bear witness to the idea that the best open-worlds don’t need quests and objectives to tell stories, as they can tell their own.
Related
One Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Character Fits the DLC Bill Perfectly
Just as Theresa received her own DLC in the first game, one of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s most underutilized characters deserves DLC of their own.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s Open-World Is Its Best Storyteller
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s Open-World Is Home to Countless Untold Stories
While Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has an incredibly compelling narrative, and its side quests are arguably just as interesting, its open-world is home to countless untold stories that players may not even know until they see it all for themselves. This is because none of these stories are indicated on the map by an objective marker and instead rely on players who are driven by their curiosity as they explore. Granted, it is possible to get an idea of where these stories are by talking to NPCs who will mark a point of interest on the map, or by simply unlocking the Explorer passive on the Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2‘s Scholarship tree — which reveals everything on the map, including settlements, fast-travel spots, hunting grounds, caves, and more.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 simply prioritizes storytelling over its quantity of content, choosing to offer players what feels like a real, living world rather than merely a video game with a checklist of objectives to complete.
Even then, however, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 takes an unorthodox approach to modern open-world games by piquing the curiosity of players rather than handing over everything on a silver platter. As players explore medieval Bohemia, they may come across a house that has been attacked by wolves, with the house’s owner lying on the ground outside deceased and covered in blood. Players may even happen upon unique Easter eggs like Snow White’s cottage in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, where they can find a young woman lying dead on her bed after biting into a poisonous apple.
These stories aren’t told through main quests and side quests in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, as many other open-world games prefer to utilize. Instead, they are generally told in a way that utilizes the player’s imagination more than anything else. For example, players might happen upon an archery range where two archers lie deceased on the ground and filled with arrows. At first glance, it’s difficult to tell what happened there, but once players find a pile of Groschen identified as “Bet Money,” it becomes apparent that these two archers bet on who would be the last one standing after they took turns shooting arrows at each other.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s Reliance on Environmental Storytelling Makes It More Immersive
Ultimately, this approach to open-world storytelling makes Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 more immersive than other games like it. Rather than relying on quests to tell stories, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2‘s world, then, feels more like one that exists outside the game itself and is always in motion. In the end, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 proves that the best open-worlds are those that offer players an experience rather than just a lump sum of content for them to complete. Perhaps if more open-world games were to take a similar approach, the genre would be able to escape the stigma it has long maintained.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is an exhilarating Action RPG, set amidst the chaos of a civil war in 15th Century Bohemia.
You are Henry of Skalitz – an ordinary man doing extraordinary things – caught in a gripping tale of revenge, betrayal, and discovery as he embarks on an epic journey, ‘from a humble blacksmith’s forge to the court of Kings’, searching for purpose in this beautiful but brutal medieval world.
From bustling city streets to lush forests, explore this open-world Medieval Europe through an unforgettable adventure filled with action, thrills, and wonder.
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