With having never played the original Kingdom Come Deliverance I wasn’t exactly sure what to even expect when jumping into it’s sequel, but it wasn’t long before I found myself completely in awe of its incredibly detailed recreation of 15th century Bohemia. The first time that the game let me walk out freely into the open world landscape, I really had that similar feeling of wonder that Skyrim gave me all those years ago, when you first stepped out of that cave.
Often in games the environment can be impressive and very detailed, but you still see it as a “video game landscape” where it’s been sculpted to lead the player down certain paths, or there’s flat edges on boulders to make using them as cover easier. In KCD2 you rarely see completely flat ground, there are always little undulations, and everything makes sense to your eyes, there are little dirt tracks eroded where people have been cutting corners, stone walls built into natural rock faces, and constantly varying different types of grasses and flowers, and it’s all visible with very little pop-in.
While there is no support for hardware Ray Tracing, KCD2 does use Voxel based global illumination, a feature of CRYENGINE that although not quite as impressive as Ray Tracing, does produce spectacular results in most scenes, and which is much less demanding on your hardware. Every day within the game world feels different, with varying cloud depth and weather having dramatic effects on the lighting. Nights are actually dark, and finding yourself caught out in the forest without a torch leaves you cursing yourself for spending all that time gawping at the golden light of sunset filtering through the trees, as you blindly fumble your way back with wolves snapping at your legs.
It would be all too easy to find myself going on and on about the visual and audible treat for the senses that the game is, but that’s not all there is to set this game apart; with several other big releases in recent times being such a let down in the storytelling and character building departments, I found my self taken completely off-guard by the depth and maturity of the story in KCD2, and with characters that actually feel relatable. I’ve found myself laughing at remarks made by characters as if they remind me of people in my real life, and that is almost unheard of in video games to have dialogue feel so natural, it really makes you feel that bit even more engaged with the world that you’re inhabiting. I will say however that although there is some brilliant voice acting in the game, there is also some terrible acting, and not to mention painful attempts at varying accents, that are distracting to say the least. Those blemishes can be forgiven though just due to the sheer number of characters in the game, and they usually tend to be the voices belonging to fairly minor characters.
When first starting out the game feels quite slow, there’s a lot of information to absorb and mechanics to learn, and even the movement of your character takes a bit of getting used to, especially in the beginning as it is a more lifelike pace than most games, and it can feel a little sluggish. It’s all part of what makes the game play so well though, it doesn’t hold your hand, and it really demands your attention. There’s only so many times you can swing your sword, or so far that you can run before you run out of breath, and it forces you to learn to be cautious, and to train to get better. The sword fighting is engaging and you have to watch your opponent carefully and swing in the correct direction to block their attacks, or to strike where they aren’t defending; it can feel brutally difficult, especially against multiple enemies, but it is very rewarding once it all starts to fall into place.
Games like this don’t come along that often, and it’s hard to do it justice in writing or in videos, this is one that you really have to pick up and play, let it draw you in, and before long you’ll be completely immersed, living out your new life as a noble’s escort in 15th century Czech Republic.