When you look at the modern slate of RPGs in 2025, there is nothing out there quite like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.

Even Baldur’s Gate 3, at times, feels limited in comparison. KC:D 2’s scope, ambition, possibilities and huge amounts of content is in a class of its own and truly is a spectacle that simply must be experienced.

But it does not come without frustration, tedium and what, at times, feels like unnecessarily implemented systems. I’m sorry Warhorse, but who is the Saviour Schnapps save system really for at this point? When people are creating their own bespoke mods on day one and getting highly praised for it, you do have to wonder.

KC:D 2 has so much running through it that it’s hard to know where to start, but this is a game that lets you do whatever you want, however you want, when you want. In fact, it is highly encouraged to ignore the story for at least your first thirty hours of play and do side quests just so you can get all the necessary upgrades, equipment and experience you’ll need to deal with the game’s brutal challenges.

Make no mistake, KC:D 2 does not hold your hand. And not even in a ‘we don’t hold your hand’ Bethesda kind of way. Warhorse really do throw you in at the deep end, barely giving you much in the way of tutorials, explanations, and definitely no equipment. Genuinely, once you’re through the initial stages, Henry is thrown in the middle of the game’s first major town in his underwear.

If I had to put this into perspective, I might even call this the ‘Strategy Gamer’s Open World RPG’, as there are a lot more layered systems and things to read and consequences to every action. Timing and patience is required at almost every step, and this is one you need to pay attention to. Even when you do, you’ll still need to put extra work in to get the most out of it.

So you will need to be prepared to make many many mistakes and learn from them. The hard way, mostly, as you may find out the game hasn’t saved for over an hour because you didn’t sleep or drink a Savior Schnapps and have to repeat all the steps you’ve just gone through. There’s some auto-saving at times but you absolutely definitely don’t want to rely on it.

And you may accidentally steal something and suddenly find yourself in debt to the guards and have no money to pay. You could run away and escape their clutches for now, but when you come back, get collared by the same guards and thrown in the stocks. KC:D 2 doesn’t forgive and it doesn’t forget.

Oh, and if you’re brazen enough to wear stolen items on your next visit into town thinking no one spotted you. Guess what, someone is going to spot you and call the guards. So on your head be it.

This game is wild. Like seriously, unbelievably intelligent and unpredictable.  You can have a great relationship with a character and may even be besties but don’t dare sleep in their bed or they’ll confront and threaten you with your life. At least they’ll stab you in the front rather than the back.

If you played the original, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what to expect here. KC:D 1 was already quite ambitious for the time and KC:D 2 is, as you’d expect, a lot bigger. The map is enormous and is absolutely littered with side quests, areas to stumble upon and hidden secrets. You’ll be spending an age exploring every nook and cranny and probably still have a ton left to see.

Even when you’re fast-travelling between locations, you can suddenly be stopped en-route to your destination and decide to examine the scene you’ve stumbled upon or be caught up in a battle you can’t run away from. This game does not do anything the easy way.

It gets to the point of being obtuse, in fact. I often found some of the systems it implements are purposefully going against the grain, like the game has a pick pocketing system which is time and speed based, but also heavily reliant on RNG as you scroll around a dial to find a specific item. But it changes location each time and if the time runs out and you’re still looting, you’ll be caught. There’s barely a second to breathe and each interaction goes right down to the wire.

How about the lockpicking system? If you hated it in KC:D 1, guess what, it’s back and still as frustrating as ever. You essentially hover the cursor over an area until it glows gold then you have to keep it place while rotating the lock with the other analog stick. Simply put, it’s a real slog on a controller.

Then there’s the combat. On the one hand, I admire Warhorse trying to do something different with each of these systems you’ve seen done over and again in other games. But to be honest, there’s a reason there is sort of a standard template for these things – they work. People get it. They’re approachable for a wider audience and they make sense.

In case of KC:D’s combat, I do like half of the system. The idea of switching stances with your weapon, left to right, up and down, to block incoming strikes then going in for the riposte and counter. It’s clever and smart and it really does something interesting with the formula. I’d even go as far as to say I feel like Warhorse are onto something.

But for me, it just doesn’t feel quite right. I’ve seen many say they feel combat is better in KC:D 2, but having played the original, I’d go as far as to say it’s worse. Aside from overpowered NPCs you go to duel against – seriously, you’d never believe Henry had one epic adventure already when he’s getting pasted by a random villager – I often felt like my blocks just weren’t being registered and when I was getting strikes in, it was barely grazing my opponent.

As for ripostes, the game goes to such lengths to teach you at the start, but most of the time they get parried away, even on the game’s easiest difficulty. You only really start to get to grips with the combat when you gather the Master Strike from one of the early side quests, but to get that you’ll need a decent set of armor and weaponry to defeat the duelist as he can slice through you with ease. As I said, KC:D gives nothing away easily.

Fortunately, if you’re finding the sword a bit too taxing, there’s options. You can use axes and maces to reduce the amount of inputs down to three and make things a bit more streamlined. This sequel also throws in crossbows and guns for the first time which give you more of an advantage from range and have more familiar feeling systems where you can just pepper enemies from stealth or at a distance, aiming right where you want the arrow and bullet to go.

The game at least gives you various methods to try. And in that, despite my frustrations, I absolutely loved strolling through the Kingdom of Bohemia. The game does beautiful countrysides as well as anything you’ve seen, better in many cases, and really seems to grasp the scale of cliffsides, walking alongside streams and even wading through water. In fact, KC:D is one of the few games that feels accurate when walking through tall grass. There were moments I genuinely couldn’t see where I was going and had to play total guesswork. It was actually kind of fun.

The countrysides are enormous but all feel distinctly appropriate for the times between orchards, farmlands, butchers, alchemy labs and stables. Warhorse have brilliantly captured the mood and as we said at the top, there aren’t many games doing what KC:D does. Not since The Witcher 3 have I felt so compelled to just wander and happily stumble across things.

Simply put, you cannot fault the scale of this game, especially when you consider it’s coming from a large Indie studio, it’s even more impressive. Warhorse are very much like Larian in that respect, in what they’ve been able to achieve with the resources that they have. Look at the mo-cap for example, it’s of a higher standard than some major AAA games we’ve seen in the last few years.

Tom McKay, of course, reprises his role as Henry and you can really see how far the technology has come just looking at him. Henry’s facial expressions are all the more interpretable as he frowns, grimaces, sneers, smiles, and shows affection so brilliantly. Then when you throw in the line delivery, everything really paints a picture of a well acted adventure with some scenes and moments that help the Henry character become even more three-dimensional than before.

Quite a challenge, considering Warhorse just broke the Guinness World Record for most words in a game at 2.2 million. Crikey!

And even though I’m still groaning they went the ‘amnesia’ route to explain reduction of abilities, the story is a lot more involved and intriguing than before. Continuing from where the original left off, we see Henry and Hans adventuring together again across the countrysides, but this time during a time of civil war, where this humble son of a blacksmith finds himself in the crosshairs of an invading King and his army.

The relationship between Henry and Hans really is at the heart of KC:D 2 as both men go through trials and tribulations together, sharing some wonderful moments between them – funny and wholesome, but also contentious and conflicting. This is where the game is at its best, showing off those dramatic moments, and as such, it does sometimes represent a bit of a tonal shift when moving between these great cinematic, emotional moments, then getting some of the side quests, which are something of a mixed bag.

KC:D 2 is not a game for everyone. Despite improving its onboarding and making things more approachable, the game is punishing in almost every regard. The combat is, at times, infuriating. You can be taken down in two hits pretty sharpish early on in the game and it won’t be until much later on when you’ve built up your skillset and got the equipment and understanding you need that you’ll fare better.

You’re going to get lost and ambushed pretty regularly or die due to starvation or because you ate some bad food. Or had a lack of sleep. You can get diseases and infections which will kill you and the alchemy system to get what you need isn’t as straight forward as just pressing a button. You actually have to make the potion from scratch!

You’ll fail lockpicking again and again, get caught, harrassed and probably forget to save your game at least once. And that’s just the start.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 listened to some of the feedback from the first game, stayed stubborn with the other half and kept to the systems that really divided people last time. You either respect that drive and go along for the ride or accept that maybe this won’t be for you. They are, at least, somewhat better at onboarding you than before.

Whether you like it or not, KC:D 2 makes you work for everything. Nothing is off-limits, nothing has been simplified, you will have to roll your sleeves up and get stuck in. Especially when you have games like Avowed which feel more catered to a mass-market audience.

As a result, KC:D 2’s stubbornness is both its blessing and curse. It’s a game that accomplishes incredible things with its open world through detail, content and quality, unlike any game before it, but it also holds itself back from its full potential by trying to reinvent the wheel with systems it didn’t need to, staying deliberately obtuse and seemingly preferring to frustrate the player, even at its own expense.

Verdict

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a true sequel in almost every regard. Bigger, bolder, more expansive, better story and characterisation with a world brimming with stunning visuals and detail. But it maintains many of the original systems and mechanics that proved divisive last time and in case of combat, saving, and lockpicking, doubles down on them to the point where they become even more frustrating. What Warhorse have accomplished here is astounding and in many ways have raised the bar for Open World RPGs across the entire industry, yet you can’t help feel the game’s often times obtuse, unintuative systems and tutorials hold it back from its full potential. 

Pros

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Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is out now on PC, PlayStation and Xbox.

Played on Xbox Series X

Code Kindly Provided by Plaion for review purposes