Though I was not a backer of the original Kickstarter campaign in early 2014, I was certainly enthusiastic about the original Kingdom Come: Deliverance which (KCD) was released in early 2018. I bought the game in 2020 but my aging hardware had trouble running it and I first saw it to the end in 2022. Even with the difficulties I had, I found the experience engaging and even more so when I played through it again last year with a new PC. It was in fact one of the first games I reinstalled and I had a lot of fun playing it again and this time with all the DLC that followed the original release. It was also early last year when the long awaited sequel was announced and set for release though it was ultimately delayed until February this year.
What first brought Kingdome Come: Deliverance to my attention was the outspoken support of the game’s director Daniel Vávra for #GamerGate which was raging on Twitter late the same year the game was funded on Kickstarter. Vávra rejected and mocked forced “inclusion” and “diversity” in video games and as such, the cast of Kingdom Come: Deliverance were all visibly European as would certainly be the case in Medieval Bohemia. And still mostly is today if you look at the demographics of the Czech Republic which is both the game’s setting and where the developer Warhorse Studios is based. The game was refreshing if only for intentionally excluding most of the absurd pandering found in almost all other media which has only gotten worse since.
The game was both financially successful and well-received by the playing audience. It even had positive reviews in most mainstream outlets though it was also attacked for the reasons mentioned above as well as a number of technical issues found in the initial release. Warhorse Studios was bought by Koch Media (now Plaion) in 2019 around the time all the additional content had been released for what was a very successful game. The original’s ending was set-up for a sequel though there was nothing official until Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (KCDII) was announced in April of 2024.
From the announcement until very close to release last year, it seemed that the sequel was going to be exactly what people who played the original wanted it to be. The last few years have seen a number of disasters in the same genre beginning with the bland Starfield in 2023 and followed by Dragon Age: The Veilguard in 2024. The game was very close to release before some leaks as well as some confusing news from Saudi Arabia raised a few questions about content found in the game. Some of these rumours sounded so absurd given the creative director’s previous position that I thought they were the work of trolls (and I wasn’t the only one). The studio PR was initially quiet and then dismissive of these leaks and used minor errors or inaccuracies to to play down these reports such as one claiming “unskippable” scenes in the game.
Unfortunately, the actual substance of these leaks turned out to be true and proved to be worse with further leaks. Around the same time Vávra himself confirmed and defended much of this through his personal account on X. The one I had initially found laughable was the inclusion of an ahistorical negro Muslim from sub-Saharan Africa named ‘Musa of Mali’ that had very implausibly found his way into Bohemia and become part of King Sigismund of Hungary’s court. Vávra had previously mocked just such inclusion in a tweet using an image from the Martin Lawrence film ‘Black Knight’; a film that incidentally has a comedic premise that is totally dependent on the absurdity of an African being present anywhere in Europe in the middle ages.
Then there was the inclusion of sodomy described as a “gay romance” which even more absurdly turned out to be between Henry, the game’s protagonist and the teenage noble Hans of Capon who befriends him in the original and plays a major part of the sequel. Henry had been established as heterosexual in the first game by both Warhorse themselves as well as the events of the game. He has a sweetheart named Bianca who is killed in the raid on Henry’ hometown Skalitz in the opening hours of the first game. He then has the option of forming a relationship with Theresa, a fellow survivor who nurses him back to health after the attack.
As for Hans Capon, he is shown to be an incorrigible lecher almost from the moment he is introduced and even has an entire DLC quest revolving around Henry helping him to seduce the butcher’s daughter in Rattay — a major town in the original game.
This was defended mainly because it is a player “choice” but a choice that completely ignores what was established in the original game. Vávra also mentioned that there were sodomites in the original but neglected to mention that one was the antagonist Sir Istvan Toth who is only implied to be. The other was a monk met in one of the most interesting quests in the game who is celibate and more importantly ashamed of these feelings. Henry even has the option to express disgust at the monk’s revelation though he can also offer a more modern “you are what you are” response. More controversially, the original’s stated birth date for Hans Capon in the Codex meant he was around fifteen if not slightly younger or older and the second which begins mere days after the original ends in the year 1403. This was pointed out as part of Fandom Pulse’s extensive reporting and Warhorse has since updated KCDII’s in-game profile of Hans with a statement that Hans is totally twenty years old and always was even though he wasn’t until they realised the implications of what they had done. Despite this “clarification”, he is still referred to as “underage” and so not an adult in the original game in both the Codex and the game’s script. Henry was also thought to be a teenager though this is less definite.
These two absurdities as well as the game director’s defence of them, immediately dampened my enthusiasm for the game along with many others. What was originally my most anticipated game for the year became one to ignore in a single news cycle. But the full extent of Warhorse’s betrayal of what first brought them to prominence was shown to be even worse on the game’s release.
I don’t know whether Vávra (who also has Jewish ancestry), was pressured into including these among many other anachronisms by the studios owners (Plaion is owned by Embracer Group), or if he never believed them in the first place. I expect it will be a while before the truth is revealed but whatever the reason, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II betrays the vision of the original game and the goodwill and financial support that made it such a success.
This is a long introduction to my review but I believe this context is all necessary for what follows. To establish that I have played and enjoyed the original game and that I aware of it mainly through Vávra’s support for #GamerGate and his earlier rejection of forced diversity and modern politics into gaming. What has happened with Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is a shameless bait-and-switch worse than any other DEI game because the content above was not evident in any of the reveals or promotion of the game. It was revealed through leakers and denied before being acknowledged and Vávra among others, pretended it was just an overreaction when they were cornered.
Like many of the media shills defending these significant departures from the spirit of the original: I did not buy the game. Unlike them, my income isn’t dependent on staying in the good graces of large publishing companies. This is more a hobby for me but one it seems I do more honestly than paid professionals. I requested a review code from PLAION Australian & New Zealand who graciously (and rather surprisingly), granted me one. I don’t know if I shall ever receive another after this but a review of the game from someone who has played Kingdom Come: Deliverance II from start to finish follows below.
There will be “spoilers”.
At the outset, I should be clear that Kingdom Come: Deliverance did not adhere perfectly to history with regard to events, characters and narrative but it generally stuck impressively close. I had a number of personal quibbles with the original but I allow that changes needed to be made. My quibbles were mostly down to the way some characters were presented and with some entries of the in-game codex. As an example of the latter, there was an obvious sympathy toward Jan Hus that I don’t share but this is still part of the actual historical record and there was nothing that I would consider wildly anachronistic in the game. From the initial introduction and early hours of the sequel, ignorance of the leaks leading up to release would have led me to assume the sequel would be much the same. The only major difference is initially is the noticeable improvement in the visuals, brighter colours and motion capture with more realistic facial expressions.
The game begins just a few days after the original ended with Henry and Hans sent to deliver a message to Lord Otto von Bergow. Due in no small part to Capon’s own stupidity, this simple diplomatic mission is derailed when their party is attacked by a group of bandits. Only Hans and Henry manage to escape but are pursued through a forest in the new region of Trosky. This section of the game functions as an extended tutorial and it is about two hours before the player released into the the region. My only major issue with the opening is the way it hand-waves away all the progress Henry made in KCD with a rough fall he takes during a chase sequence. This leaves him injured and he now has to gain experience across all abilities and skills again. While he still isn’t as weak and inexperienced from the outset as he was in the original, it was still a rather lazy way to have him begin anew.
The region of Trosky will be a mixture of the familiar and new for returning players. Familiar in the sense that it has similarly beautiful landscapes with lush foliage, dense forest areas and the pleasant chirps of birds piping in at times through the gentle music which either reuses or rearranges many of the same compositions. Henry is soon set to work with a number of quests that serve to both progress the story and continue to teach new players the mechanics. The gameplay mechanics have been tweaked but I wouldn’t describe any changes as an overhaul of what’s found in the first game. Progression across all skills seems to be much faster and combat is generally easier; judging only by how much easier I found it to defeat multiple enemies at once in KCDII. There are also a lot of little adjustments such as the time progression wheel moving much faster and some changes to the combat mechanics as examples. Anyone who disliked the combat in the original will not be converted by these changes unless they simply wished it to be more forgiving. However, as with the first, success in combat is tied much more strongly to the number crunching in the background than player skill. If you have decent equipment and have levelled up in skills such as warfare and the weapon you’re wielding, then it becomes almost trivially easy unless you allow yourself to be surrounded.
The main goal at the outset remains to get to von Bergow and having lost all their men, equipment and even the clothing off their backs, Henry and Hans have one window of opportunity through an upcoming wedding at a town called Semine. It is also here that a silly dramatic contrivance sees Henry and Hans go their separate ways but this does leave Henry on his own to explore and adventure. Henry has a couple of paths to get to the wedding. One by helping a local miller and another by helping a blacksmith who are met together at the same tavern where Hans and Henry go their separate ways. Both are viable and one can even go through and complete both quests as I did before getting to the wedding quest. As in the original and many of the best games in the genre, it is very easy to get lost in pursuit of other things and I noted I was not alone in keeping the Semine wedding on the horizon without going there until I’d seen and done much of what could be experienced on the map.
It is also with the Trotsky region that the player gets a sense of the changes that will become more apparent later. The miller mentioned earlier is revealed to be Jewish and in pursuing one quest or another, you will also come across a Gypsy camp. The camp is referred to as the ‘Nomad’s Camp’ and the Codex calls them ‘Romani’ which is the more politically correct term but I’m guessing not so well-known in 15th century Bohemia. This group is important to a number of quests and generally shown in a positive light. A major side quest in the region has Henry helping one of the young women who has eloped with a boy outside the tribe and is hiding from her family. Her brothers attacked her paramour and some of the locals attacked her brothers in reprisal — killing one. Though presented sympathetically, there are still hints of why these nomads were disliked. Henry can even sell stolen horses to them which is another example of why there has been a historical antipathy to this group.
Whenever the player finally decides to go to the wedding, the story quests will begin to progress faster; especially if like me, you had already exhausted much of what the region had to offer. It is here that things get a little confusing with discoveries made at the wedding and then on finally meeting von Bergow, revealing the mess Hans and Henry got into at the start was one of misunderstanding. They meet Jan Zizka who is not only a major character but a real historical figure considered a national hero in the Czech Republic. I don’t know much about this historical period but Zizka is a significant figure in the Hussite Wars that follow events that form the background to the story. Another character Katherine, who Henry briefly meets at the beginning, is properly introduced around this time too. One thing to note about her is she alone seems to be designed outside the modesty standards of women at the time (as well as within the game; wearing a dress that exposes ample cleavage). She is also another early hint of what is to come being the first of a girl-boss trope along with another major character. This is minor though as she is still feminine and an interesting character and would not have been much out of place in the original.
These events lead up to an encounter with Sir Istvan Toth, Henry’s nemesis from the original which resolves the one unfinished narrative thread from Henry’s adventure in the first game. It is also soon after this point where Henry travels to the Kuttenberg region where really the bulk of the game takes place. This is perhaps the major improvement that KCDII has over the first; having not one but two large maps. I didn’t realise this going in and explored much of the Trosky region expecting to find the city of Kuttenberg to no avail.
This significant increase in scope does come at a price as the second reason (including many parts of Kuttenberg), feel more empty and under-developed. One aspect of the original that made it so special was there were very few limits placed on player exploration. I can not think of one building that was inaccessible in some way if you had the lockpicking skill; if not the key. On arriving in Kuttenberg, I was presented with quite a number of inaccessible buildings and stranger still, almost every church in the game cannot be entered. There are a few exceptions but these are mostly smaller chapels. I even discovered after completing the game that there is an entire monastery north-east of Kuttenberg that is walled off as well as a number of smaller settlements with only side quests or activities.
Once in Kuttenberg, I tended to focus on the main questline above all else and only stopped for side quests when encountered naturally within the story. It is here that the conflict with King Sigismund of Hungary drives the narrative. Where it was the background to Henry’s journey before, it now has more prominence with Sigismund himself appearing dramatically at one point in the game. It is also here where the narrative becomes significantly more “modern”. Henry has (what I assume to be), the first dialogue option that leads to sodomising teenage Hans at Trosky Castle but the diversity and inclusion becomes much more apparent in the second region. For the average player, this could be anywhere from twenty to forty hours into the game and well beyond what Steam allows for a refund — which would likely expire around the end of the game’s tutorial.
One of the first is Henry visiting the “Jewish Quarter” of Kuttenberg which the game’s Codex openly admits didn’t exist in any form until 1881. One is then tasked with “infiltrating an anti-Semite meeting” though the word ‘anti-Semitism’ didn’t exist until a year before the synagogue. I saw at least one commenter wryly observe that pretty much any two Europeans having a conversation in the middle ages would constitute such a meeting. As it turns out, the meeting didn’t exist but not for its historical absurdity and more because of deception by the Jew Samuel who sends you to this meeting. Warhorse gets points for this at least.
Samuel and the Jewish Quarter were not part of the early leaks but they do form a significant part of the game that Henry cannot avoid during the main questline. This even sees him rescuing all the Jews that didn’t live there from a pogrom that couldn’t have happened. Samuel is even later revealed to be the son of Martin the blacksmith who raised Henry as his own son before he is revealed to be the bastard son of Sir Radzig Kobyla in the first. Henry also meets his stepfathers lover and Samuel’s mother who was forbidden from marrying a gentile. This at least is historically accurate though little else in this part of the questline is. These unlikely narrative contrivances are rife throughout the main questline.
Later events have Henry needing to infiltrate a military camp in the area where he meets his new negro friend Musa of Mali. I do mean “friend” too because the player has little choice in the matter from the moment he is introduced. Vávra claimed in a message I posted above that “every character in the game has a clear reason to be where they are” which we’ve already established with the existence of the Jewish Quarter alone — was a lie. I still could not believe Musa was in the game until I came across him and even then, he stood out like a black thumb. He is revealed to be working as the physician in Sigismund’s camp and is very smart and can speak multiple languages. He also chides Henry a few times with the exact dialogue revealed in early leaks that were originally “fake”. At one point in the camp quest, Musa is accused of murder and must be defended. And he must because unlike pederasty, this is not a choice the game offers you. He is innocent and there is no option but to defend him from the charge. Even ignoring Musa’s presence, this particular quest is more than a little silly. Henry has infiltrated an enemy camp and so anything bad that happens to anyone within can only be good for Henry’s side. Why he would care about anyone inside of the camp (outside of Katherine who is also spying as a bathhouse maid), stretches credulity. His only task is to find out when a large canon is going to be moved so Zizka can arrange an ambush. Whether Musa lives, dies or goes back where he came from shouldn’t matter at all.
The first game involved historians of the period who assisted Warhorse in development and who according to Vávra himself, “laughed” at the idea that any blacks were present in Bohemia in 1403. For the sequel, it seems the writers were satisfied with Wikipedia. In the Codex, Musa is a combination of two historical figures. One is the King of Mali during the period who was named ‘Musa’. The other was a Berber explorer named ‘Ibn Battuta’. In the current version of the latter’s Wikipedia article, it says he,
Ibn Battuta visited much of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Iberian Peninsula
In Warhorse’s totally well-researched Codex it says,
He visited countries of North Africa, the Middle East, India, China and Europe
I believe whoever wrote the Codex has lazily paraphrased from the Wikipedia article and the changes in bold are not un-important. In the same century the game is set, the Spanish were still fighting their centuries long Reconquista by driving the invading Moors out of the Iberian Peninsula which was finally completed in 1492. It was then very plausible that a Berber travelled to the Iberian Peninsula but there is a big geographical difference between that and Europe; especially at the time. So even the closest historical figure they could find to jam into the narrative was not only not a sub-Saharan African but wouldn’t have come anywhere near eastern Europe let alone Bohemia. Mali was also major market for the Muslim slave trade at the time, so if someone that looked like Musa came at all, it would not have been of his own free will. The laughable appearance of Yasuke in the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows is more historically plausible than Musa.
One of Musa’s most outrageous inclusions is at a Church Council which includes clergy ,a visiting Cardinal as well as nobles to settle a local dispute. That a Muslim would be allowed to sit in (let alone contribute) to such a council is beyond absurd. Even today it raises eyebrows when Protestants are brought to similar meetings. This meeting also provides more opportunity to learn how great Musa is and how superior Mali (which he left) is. He joins Henry’s group and remains with it even after the credits roll stating his intention to hang around though we’re told Mali is superior. I’ve noticed countless comments online dismissing such concerns but these really do matter as they are evidence not just of Warhorse’s bait-and-switch but the sloppy way in which they’ve done it. None of this is historically plausible in the least.
So Henry has a Jewish friend, a black Muslim friend, a strong female friend but this is not enough. Zizka had also earlier tasked Henry with bringing together an outlaw group which is more European but multicultural. Of note is the Pole ‘Adder’ who only speaks Polish and causes much of the scripted drama for the remainder of the game. Henry had earlier linked back with characters like Jobst who appeared in the original’s Epilogue as well as Hanush and Radzig but I have focused on the anachronisms that were absent from the original.
The last eight or so quests of the game progress linearly and there is no option to do anything else once started. The game does warn about this but I was certainly not expecting it to go on as long as it was. This brings the narrative to a close but the vast majority of these quests are tedious with the group being under siege in Suchdol Fortress for the last hours of the game. This is not helped by most quest objectives having Henry running to various quest markers to talk with characters. This is made more irritating with the multilevel fortress and the sometimes obscure places the characters are found. There are some combat sections but the final portion of the game does not play to the game’s strengths and I imagine this would be a worse experience on any subsequent playthrough.
Although I warned about spoilers, I’m not really spoiling where the game ends as this is actually shown through the eyes of Fr. Godwin during the game’s opening. Fr. Godwin is the debauched priest from Uzhitz in the original who had lost his parish for very understandable reasons given he was a drunk living openly with a concubine and a quest in the original has the option of convincing him to break the seal of the confessional. There are a few notable points in the story where the player is put in control of Godwin who is originally tasked with finding the whereabouts of Henry and Hans by Hanush and Radzig. Although I didn’t much like him, he was also a very popular character so it is understandable Warhorse had him return. The few times you control him in KCDII are all short enough to be diverting. Given contrivances like this, as well as the inclusion of Musa, it is further hard to understand why Warhorse couldn’t have worked the equally popular Theresa into the narrative.
Though the final part of the game is a slog, the ending is rather satisfying. The only real issues come down to a few portions of the Epilogue. I am not sure if the player has any agency in this but Samuel the Jew died in my playthrough. What made this ridiculous was the group of Catholics (who admittedly are of wildly varying degrees of piety), who worried about giving him the appropriate Jewish burial rites. Yet another anachronism that kills immersion. Other than this, the game had a well crafted ending and the choices you make throughout do affect it.
So the major issues with this game are found in the narrative which really does matter in a story-driven role-playing game. And reflecting on all I’ve said above, I can’t think of any downside to have excluded much of what I’ve detailed from the game. These characters add nothing but groans and tedium and the resources put into including them could have much better been employed elsewhere and KCDII is missing a number of features found in the original. Some have already been mentioned such as the lack of church interiors and inaccessible buildings. As of writing there is no ability to change Henry’s hairstyle or grooming as was available in KCD but this has been announced as coming in an update; along with a ‘Hardcore’ mode which was also curiously absent. Not all employees are doing the same job but this does indicate areas where employees could have been much better employed.
There are some other notable new features that I’ve not mentioned. The crossbow and pistole ranged weapons are new though I didn’t make much use of them. The pistole is much more effective up close and the crossbow is more accurate but both take longer to load which made the bow preferable in most combat situations. These are more novelties to mess around with but welcome nonetheless. Henry can now also craft weapons as a blacksmith which is comparable to the alchemy system that also returns from the original. The dice game has been expanded through the introduction of badges that can give a variety of bonuses and it is now much easier to find a table to play too. These are welcome but there is nothing I would describe as genuinely new or different for anyone that played the original game.
I mentioned earlier that in the later part of the game, there are quests that involve simply following map markers in the fortress to talk with NPCs but other quests do show a similar lack of creativity. There are at least four quests with objectives that have you lifting sacks and slowly moving them from one place to another. Some can be skipped but this is not inventive at all. Then there are quests that have you travelling from one area to another multiple times just to ask a question or obtain something before travelling all the way back. This did happen at times in KCD but even side quests were generally more thoughtful and involved than this. There are still plenty of quests that are both inventive and enjoyable but these more tedious moments do let the game down.
A more general disappointment I have with the sequel is that many outcomes decided by the player in the first game are decided without any player involvement. When events the player had agency over in the first game are mentioned, the game generally assumes Henry made a certain choice. As an example, it is possible to remain illiterate through to the end of the first game but Henry is able to read from the outset here. Simply offering some limited player customisation before beginning would partially have addressed this and perhaps checklist of choices for returning players to set as found in games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Given how feature rich the game is, it may sound petty to complain about missing features from the original, closed off areas and the lack of difficulty options but they did spend time designing, scripting and hiring a voice actor for multiple characters and scenes that had no business being in the game.
I imagine people will take most issue with my focus on the presence of a single African and sodomy within this game. These inclusions do matter though. Today’s Czech Republic remains overwhelmingly Czech demographically with the ten percent that aren’t, mostly of European ethnicity. Sodomy was illegal in Czechoslovakia until 1962 when Kurt Freund (who is Jewish), argued that sexual orientation could not be changed which led to its decriminalisation. As of writing their is still also no “gay marriage” in the mostly irreligious Czech Republic. One does not have to work hard to extrapolate how it must have been seen six centuries ago when consciously Christian. Growing up in my own country, it was unusual until very recently to see someone of a different race frequently until about twenty years ago, depending of course, on where you lived. I still remember being surprised when I noticed someone who was Asian or a Pacific Islander as a child in the 1990s. Sodomy was still illegal in at least one state until the 1990s and was frowned upon or thought of with disgust by many within living memory. It is now assumed that concepts like cultural diversity and sexual orientation are something that have always been when this way of thinking is barely half a century old. During the middle ages, travel was slow and limited which made visits even from other Europeans something of a novelty. And opportunities for, let alone expression of sexual perversion were severely limited. The consequences for being caught engaging in such acts were excruciatingly painful if not lethal. So including an ahistorical African and a “gay romance” within such a setting is a problem as it is not in a fantasy, modern or futuristic setting. This is made worse by the lead director’s original stance on such issues regardless of how he now tries to justify himself.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is still an ambitious, visually beautiful and well-designed game that is mostly enjoyable to play. But it is also one that has serious blemishes in the narrative design that are hard to ignore. If only for the game’s director’s bait-and-switch- leading up to release, I do not recommend purchasing the game. For anyone who is interested, I would wait for all the content to be released and a significant discount before purchasing. I would also recommend modding the game as there is already a patch that removes some of the objectionable content which will no doubt be improve over time. This mod is unsurprisingly not allowed on Nexus Mods though one making Henry black is.
I’m mostly just disappointed that one of the few developers who had major success in openly rejecting modern cultural vandals has succumbed at the very time when people are beginning to turn firmly against them. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II may have sold well and received wide praise from the mainstream media but I doubt history will be any kinder to Warhorse than Warhorse was to history.