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."

To achieve this degree of immersion, Warhorse employed a large number of experts to further direct their worldbuilding efforts, including historians, university professors, and reenactors. (Ziegler also says that they consulted with experts from the different ethnicities and religious beliefs depicted in-game).

These authorities often revealed facts about daily life in 15th century Bohemia that rub sharply against our cultural idea of the Middle Ages. As an example, Ziegler says that Bohemia had not yet introduced the potato in Henry's time, but that the region did have watermelons.

Naturally, Warhorse also brought in fencing and weapons experts to supervise certain aspects of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II's combat, going so far as to bring them to motion capture sessions.

Speaking of combat, players who are used to effortlessly crushing bandit skulls and tanking dragonfire with a healing potion or two in other RPGs might be in for a rude awakening when they wade into Kingdom Come: Deliverance's melee fights. A handful of sword swings are all it takes to lay you low. Thoughtlessly mashing the attack button over and over will tire Henry out, leaving you open for serious damage. Your skittish horse might buck and dump you to the ground at the first sign of violence, and armor is often the difference between a nasty cut and a fatal wound.

Ziegler says that Warhorse has looked at ways to make the combat more approachable for those who struggled with it the first time around, while still remaining true to the "realistic" approach that players enjoyed.

"We’re introducing many iterative changes to the combat, some aiming to make it more accessible to people for which it was too complex in the first game—and in the other direction, some making it even deeper for players who enjoyed it already and are looking to engage with it even more intensely in the sequel," he says. "In addition to all of the weapon classes from the first game, there are also crossbows and rudimentary gunpowder rifles now, [which bring] their own tactical implications."

One of the elements of Kingdom Come: Deliverance that really helped it stand out was its approach to nonlinear quest design. Ziegler notes that the main story of the series is more "directed," so Warhorse tries to give the player as much freedom as possible when it comes to Kingdom Come: Deliverance's many side quests.

Depending on the mission, you can stealth your way through a hostile situation without ever alerting your foes, use poison to silently end them when you're not even in the room, or pick them off with arrows from afar. (Of course, rushing in with your sword and heavy armor is always an option.) In some side quests, you can decide the ultimate fates of all the key characters involved depending on how you feel about them, which isn't always an option even in the best RPGs.

"I really like our approach to quest design, especially in our side quests, in how we’re trying to provide a lot of freedom for different players to approach things in their own ways and for the game to be able to respond to them," Ziegler says. "I like how the emergent storytelling evolving from that complements the more linear and directed narrative of the main questline."

Though Kingdom Come: Deliverance II remains a steadfast role-playing game, Warhorse did streamline certain aspects compared to its predecessor in order to improve the experience overall. Ziegler says that Warhorse merged some of the first game's skills together to keep it a bit simpler, and players can now change Henry's armor quickly if the situation calls for it.

He also cites the studio's improved NPC tech, which generates characters that have unique in-depth characteristics that stand out during a playthrough. For example, a blacksmith might have a higher strength stat, which means he'll stow a strength weapon like a hammer in his pack for any combat that may arise—and he's more likely to put up a fight when you try to threaten him when compared to the old scribe sitting next to him at the tavern.

Ziegler says Kingdom Come: Deliverance II's impressive NPC behavior is key to the sequel's improved sense of immersion. Every character that Henry meets has a Shenmue-style routine that they follow from day into night. Certain world events or factors might affect these clockwork paths as well, giving characters even more depth.

"If you follow them around, you can see that they behave quite like you would expect a real person of the time period: they eat their breakfast with others, leave for their particular work, perhaps shop a bit, chill down in the evening in a pub or on a walk, maybe interrupt their agenda when they unexpectedly see a street brawl, meet a friend walking by, or watch some vagrant being publicly punished at the town square’s gallows," Ziegler says. "They will alter this routine if there was violence or theft in the region recently—perhaps stay home instead of going for a beer, maybe carry a weapon with them or call for increased patrols in the area. And all of this is happening continuously in the entire world, whether you are there to see it or not."

In crafting the side quests of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Ziegler says the team focused on the everyday aspects of living in medieval Bohemia, from "a squabble between two villages" to a missing person. "Experiencing how these everyday issues were happening a lot differently in medieval times is an important aspect of our core vision of transporting the player to that time and place," he says.

Likewise, when working on Henry's main quest, the team tried to focus as much as possible on anchoring the narrative in the real historical events that the narrative is based on. With that said, Ziegler notes that those events are ultimately a "background" for Henry's own fictional story. True to Kingdom Come: Deliverance II's grounded approach to the RPG, the player enjoys profound agency over side quests and the like, but the main quest remains a kingly struggle taking place far above his station. Henry participates in it, but he can't dictate the outcome.

"The politics and the violent conflict related to them in our specific time period are indeed at the core of the main storyline," Ziegler says. "They’re taking place through your particular story…you can also see them everywhere around you just as you explore the world. There are bandits in the wilderness, foreign mercenaries brought to the country by an invasion, and the locals are reacting to all of these."

"One of the challenges was to make your character, Henry, play an important role in these events (so that you can feel that you have an impact on the story) but at the same time remain true to the reality of Henry being just a son of a village blacksmith, who in the social realities of the times would only have a very limited agency to impact anything. In the end, I think that we did figure out how to strike that balance and keep the best of both."

Warhorse's grounded approach extends beyond narrative and combat. According to Ziegler, the team tried to emphasize the physical reality of medieval Bohemia in almost every aspect of the game to make it as intuitive and relatable as possible. He cites Kingdom Come: Deliverance II's hunger and light subsystems as examples.

"On one hand, it helps explaining the mechanics to the player, because everything that you can do in the game is based on a real concept and quickly relatable: you should eat so that you do not starve, move slowly to avoid attention, take a light source with you if you’re going to explore a dark place, and so on. On the other hand, claiming a stake [with] AI behavior realism within such an open-ended game raises player expectations very high."

Back in 2018, Kingdom Come: Deliverance was a bit of a sleeper hit—a game with a somewhat niche premise that managed to garner a wider audience than expected. Now, six years later, its sequel is set to find thousands of eager fans ready for an "authentic" medieval experience that you rarely see in games. Ziegler says that Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is the product of a more mature studio, and he hopes that those fans will enjoy the bigger battles and the greater sense of immersion.

"I just want to take this opportunity to thank all of the players who are letting us know how they’re looking forward to the release," he says. "It is really energizing and motivating us to do the best that we can."

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 will release on the Epic Games Store later in 2024.