The original Kingdom Come Deliverance was called by some one of the better RPGs of the Xbox One/PS4 generation. And while it was loved by many it was plagued with launch bugs and issues across platforms. After patches it would become a beloved game among western RPG enthusiasts, does the second game do what the first did – this time without the bugs?

Before we get into the review itself, keep in mind this is a direct sequel, but the game will run you through the meat of the last game and is complete with flashbacks and the like that will fill you in. With that in mind, is Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 everything we always wanted in a Western RPG?

What’s going on?

In Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 you are Henry of Skalitz; skilled blacksmith who is friends with and served under Lord Hans Capon; skilled archer, and more or less a pain in the ass in every other way. He is going to get you in trouble, particularly earlier in the game. You two travel across 15th century Bohemia to deliver a message but along the way get tangled up in the drama of warring kingdoms and all the chaos and fun that this sort of adventure can bring to you. After all, what was 15th century Europe, if not war, chaos, and violence – with maybe some diplomacy once in a while. There is, of course, much more story, but I’m not into spoiling too much.

Gameplay

There is absolutely zero way to describe every nook and cranny of the gameplay of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 without leaving stuff out, there is simply way too much to do in this game to write about and keep this review that would be something anyone would read. With that in mind, I’ll try to keep to stuff your most likely to see if you play the game

With a label like Western style RPG, you’ll likely think up images of playing Bethesda’s Oblivion or CDPR’s Witcher series, and this game is like those, but it’s not. There is an extremely in-depth experience here full of the type of choice and consequence RPG fans dream of that those games simply don’t have. There’s plenty of ways to tackle tasks that you might not find in other titles. Don’t feel like going in and drawing your sword? Talk your way out of it or into it. Does someone have what you need? You could buy it or steal it. If no one is looking, what’s the difference? Need a potion of some kind? Brew it yourself or buy it.

The combat is admittedly a bit tanky particularly to start, though as you go on you can train with people who are experts in different styles of combat, whether it be one handed weapons, 2 handed, bows and “pistols”(see the below picture to see why this is in quotation), and if you so choose, unarmed combat. To start, consider less violent ways of approaching things ’til you get your skills up.

A big complaint about the first game was the stiff voice acting and dialog that sounded like George Lucas directed a 15th-century movie. I’m glad to report the did a lot of work in this game in that department, and it shows, with science that at times will make you forget you’re playing a game and make you think your watching a movie. Good stuff.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is full of side content as well. There’s plenty of romantic options (some of which have hilarious results), thief missions, fetch quests, blacksmithing, and a whole host of other things to do too long to name. You could also just run around and piss people off too, which is shockingly entertaining.

All this fun brings me to a big pain point in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, the save system. This game doesn’t have a modern save system. What that means is that saving isn’t as easy as pulling up the pause menu and hitting save(though you can save and quit). You’ll need some Saviour Schnapps. There are two ways to get it. Either make it yourself or obtain it by either buying or taking it from some unsuspecting innocent person (I suggest the second method, but after they are dead, less drama that way). Dying and losing progress sucks but also keep in mind progressing in any quest, mainline or otherwise, triggers an auto save, but venturing out into the forest with no real goal may make you lose progress.

Performance(GPU:AMD 7800xt)

Performance is more or less what you’d except with a game like this. I played the game on high settings and managed around 80fps. Sometimes, it got up to as much as 100 in non combat areas, and other times, there were dips here and there. Bear in mind this is a big open world RPG, so there will be issues. I wouldn’t say it’s as bad or as buggy as, say, a Bethesda game at launch. There are definitely issues, like when my horse bucked me off and somehow ended up in the position you see in the photo below. This isn’t anything a quick reboot doesn’t fix, and honestly, these sorts of things happen just often enough to laugh at, and that’s about it, but I thought you, the reader should be aware.

Steam Deck

Ok, this game is marked as Playable in the Steam store, and it is. If you set everything to low except character  detail on medium, cap it at 30fps, turn anti-aliasing on SMAA 2TX, and keep FSR off it stays pretty locked at 30fps You can play with texture detail settings if you like. However, I found that when I set this to medium combat took a big hit, about 50% of the time. Anything above medium tanked my performance.

Conclusion

There is so much content in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Romance, violence, betrayal, despair, and comedy. You name it, and it’s here. I honestly think there is a ten out of ten experience in this game that’s hamstrung by a single issue, which oddly isn’t the performance. The save system, particularly at the beginning, did piss me off. I love just wandering around and exploring in these sorts of games and early on, without many Saviour Schnapps I felt like I couldn’t do that. That’s a good way to lose progress and it held back the initial parts of the game. So I’ll have to knock the ten out of ten down half a point. Normal saving for the third one?

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 was reviewed on PC and released on PC, Xbox Series X/S and Playstation 5 on 4th of February 2025.