As Henry travels the land and overhears bits of info, an in-game codex fills with detailed accounts of the Bohemian life, from historical figures, battles, and locations, to rules governing everyday existence, religion, even how toilets and plumbing worked back then, and everything in between. To make sure players get the most accurate simulation of medieval life in Kingdom Come, Warhorse brought in a slew of academics to act as historical experts and advisors on the project. With a high enough speech skill, talking oneself out of confrontations is an option. Amazingly, a Hardcore game mode has been added since release, upping the ante on realistic play by, amongst other things, hiding the combat reticule, eliminating fast travel, and forcing players to navigate via landmarks and position of the sun by taking away the in-game map. This does wonderful things for immersion, but some players will find the price of admission too high to accept. Kingdom Come puts most of its emphasis on the role-playing parts of being an RPG, often treating the gaming as a distant third. If this sounds like the early hours spent in the game severely hamstring players as to what they can do, that is because they absolutely do. As befits his station in this realistic medieval world, Henry has no formal weapons training, no money to his name, and only a passing knowledge of horsemanship. Henry’s daily life consists of assisting at his father’s forge, flirting with the local tavern wench, and causing trouble with his mates. Players take on the role of young Henry of Skalitz, a common blacksmith’s son living a simple life at the turn of the fifteenth century in the kingdom of Bohemia, the western part of the current-day Czech Republic.

This isn’t a case of a game being challenging for the sake of it everything is in service of realism. It’s not so much that things get easier later on, but being given time to come to grips with the game’s various systems and level up skills at least enables players to meet new challenges on more even footing. Practice is the operative word here, and while it won’t make things perfect in KC:D - there are still plenty of challenges during the game’s latter stages - players will at least be able to hold their own. Life is hard, and this game, in its quest to remain as lifelike as possible, does not shy away from absolutely crushing the player, particularly during its first half. Sure, it’s not the first game to eschew fantasy and science fiction trappings or feature a historically-accurate setting, but not many have yet done so to such a satisfying end result, not to mention going the open-world route and still succeeding, for the most part, brilliantly.Īny review of Kingdom Come: Deliverance should probably begin with a warning of some sort, that this game is not for those that are easily frustrated. Which is exactly what makes Warhorse Studios’ realistic-to-the-max effort Kingdom Come: Deliverance such a noteworthy occurrence. These are among the first images players may associate with their favorite gaming genre. RPGs: home to slavering dragons blotting out the sun, mystical elves wielding ancient enchanted blades, sci-fi blaster battles on distant alien worlds, and androgynous youths clad in fierce fashions sporting an unpractical amount of zippers and buckles.

Kingdom come deliverance time period