Kingdom Come: Deliverance II - Preview

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Epic Games gives an overview of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II:

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How Kingdom Come: Deliverance II pushes the medieval RPG series even further

Kingdom Come: Deliverance made a major splash when it released back in 2018. The debut game from Czech developer Warhorse Studios embraced history more than the typical RPG, trading in the dragons and flashy spells of the Skyrims of the world for the colorful minutiae of real-life 15th-century Bohemia-including blacksmithing, bandit raids, and a civil war that actually tore the region apart more than 600 years ago.

It paid off, too. The original Kingdom Come: Deliverance has sold more than six million copies as of 2024. Now, six years later, its ambitious sequel aims to push its vision of the RPG even further, with bigger cities, smoother combat, and an even greater sense of freedom. As Lead Scripter Martin Ziegler puts it, Warhorse views Kingdom Come: Deliverance II as the game that the developer always wanted to make, with vast improvements across the board.

"We had our hearts set on making a sequel even before starting the first Kingdom Come: Deliverance, because we knew that we wanted to tell a story that would be larger than just one game," Ziegler explains. "Then during the development [of the original game] we had to leave a lot of really great ideas on the cutting room floor, which reinforced this idea even more, as we wanted to return back to them...Fortunately, the players drove the first game to a large enough success that we indeed have the opportunity to work on this sequel, and for that we're very grateful to them."

The basic premise of Kingdom Come: Deliverance is one that is sadly rare in big-budget RPGs even today. You aren't a prince, a king, or a chosen hero. You are Henry, the humble son of a blacksmith. Henry seeks revenge against the Hungarian king Sigismund after his family is killed in an ambush.

In the original Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Henry allies himself with supporters of the Bohemian King Wenceslaus IV in order to help fend off Sigismund's continued raids on the region. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II will continue this story-though Ziegler indicates that you don't need to play the first game to follow what's going on in the sequel.

"We crafted the story of the sequel from its inception in such a way that it also stands on its own and makes it easy for new players to jump right in, and we're gently reminding players of the major plot points from the first game through natural exposition in the first several hours," says Ziegler. "The two main threads continuing on from the first game are Henry's quest for personal revenge and the national political conflict between [Wenceslaus] and Sigismund and its implications for the region-they intertwine a lot."

Ziegler describes the core mission of Kingdom Come: Deliverance as "inviting people to immerse themselves in a real medieval Bohemia." He notes that the original game focused on smaller villages, castles, and natural landscapes in this setting, due in part to the complications involved with crafting a large, lived-in city in an RPG like this. However, because Warhorse is much more experienced now-the studio has more than doubled in size since 2018-the team wanted to include the big regional city of Kuttenberg as one of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II's signature features.

"One major goal definitely was to bring the game to a large city," Ziegler says. "First of all, I think that it was a natural evolution of our core concept, because the cities were the heart of the society and naturally the place that we as modern players are attracted to visit. I feel that moving to a major regional city is a crown jewel of this idea. I'm really happy with how we portray Kuttenberg in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, especially with how deeply researched it is - and consequently, how it feels like a real, lived-in city."

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