GOG.com
Donate to Codex
Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
u7buy.com

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II previewed at IGN, now releasing on February 4th

Click here and disable ads!

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II previewed at IGN, now releasing on February 4th

Preview - posted by Infinitron on Wed 4 December 2024, 20:22:13

Tags: Kingdom Come: Deliverance II; Warhorse Studios

https://www.ign.com/articles/kingdo...as-the-potential-to-be-a-medieval-masterpiece



This Henry guy just can't seem to catch a break. When we last left the blacksmith's son-turned-knight at the end of the original Kingdom Come: Deliverance, things were finally starting to look up for him. But the sequel, in true video game sequel fashion, starts by knocking him down a peg or two and dumping him into a new, larger open world to regain his dignity, one side quest at a time. And to be honest, that's refreshing.

The story of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II picks up almost immediately where the first one left off, but it's certainly not essential to have played it to follow what's going on, thanks to an extended intro that brings you up to speed on the broader strokes. The year is 1403. Henry is a village boy from Bohemia (modern day Czech Republic) who saw his home burned to the ground due to a civil war for the crown taking place between two half-brothers. He ended up in the service of the frustratingly good-looking nepo baby Sir Hans Capon to try and help out the supporters of the royal brother who isn't going around burning down villages, and that plan got… a little sidetracked.

It's not exactly a start back from square one, though. Henry began the first game as that kind of old-school RPG protagonist who is really just some random guy with no skills to speak of. He could barely hold a sword, and the unforgiving combat really made you feel that until you put in the time to master it. But Henry's a seasoned adventurer now. He knows how to read, which is practically a superpower in medieval Europe. And while you were out partying, he studied the blade.

Taste My Blade
This is reflected in the changes to combat in KCD2, which the developers described as lowering both the skill floor required to play competently and raising the skill ceiling for the most devoted warriors. There are only four attack directions now instead of five. Thrust attacks are no longer a separate attack button, and have instead been folded into the combo system for weapons that make sense with them only. Parries are a bit easier to pull off, and much to my delight, blocking can now defend you from multiple attackers – as long as they're all in front of you.

Basically, whether you mastered KCD1's combat or not, the lower skill requirement at the very beginning models the fact that Henry is simply a better fighter by now. But careful stamina management is still the core of every scrap, and button-mashing is one of the quickest ways to die. I came across plenty of challenging encounters even as someone with more than 100 hours across two playthroughs in KCD1, and it's not as easy to spam your way through them by getting a couple of powerful combo moves down to muscle memory.

Hill and Dale
The world of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is quite a bit larger as well, with two distinct maps about the size of the first game's that you can travel back and forth between once both are unlocked. The terrain feels fairly familiar, for the most part. We're still in the Central Bohemian woodlands, basically just over the hill from where KCD1 left off. But the level of detail on the terrain and vegetation is a noticeable step up. And better yet, it's way more optimized. My RTX 4070 Super still can't run KCD1 – a six-year-old game – on max settings. But what I played of KCD2 rarely had any performance problems.

The centerpiece of this new world is the city of Kuttenberg, which is quite a bit larger, denser, and more vibrant than anything we saw in KCD1. It's certainly no Paris or Prague, but navigating its crowded streets and markets, taking shortcuts through back gardens, and admiring its grand Gothic architecture is a complete change of pace from wandering around muddy woodland trails. It's big enough to get lost in, built on a realistic scale that makes towns in a lot of other RPGs feel like tiny dioramas.​

There are 2 comments on Kingdom Come: Deliverance II previewed at IGN, now releasing on February 4th

Site hosted by Sorcerer's Place Link us!
Codex definition, a book manuscript.
eXTReMe Tracker
rpgcodex.net RSS Feed
This page was created in 0.036607027053833 seconds