Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Preview - Gamescom 2024

Kingdom Come: Deliverance was a breakout hit for developers Warhorse Studios. It was an ambitious medieval action RPG that may have lacked a bit of polish, but more than made up for it through engaging storytelling, interesting design choices, challenging melee combat and surprisingly deep systems. It avoided falling into the "eurojank" category that so many similarly ambitious games unfortunately end up in. Instead, through steady patches and positive player feedback, the developers were instead acquired by Plaion and announced that a sequel is on the way. We had a chance to see and play Kingdom Come: Deliverance II at Gamescom 2024.

The demo available at the show offered about 20 minutes of gameplay, from early in the campaign. The returning hero from the original game, Henry, has just narrowly escaped a forest full of bandits with his friend Hans. Hans risked his life to save Henry, but alas Henry was still wounded quite badly. The pair stumbled their way to a hut, where an old woman agreed to help them rest and recover. But while Henry was still powerless, one of the bandits arrived at the hut and Hans had to save their lives again, though this time he also was injured.

When Henry is finally able to walk, the old woman advises him to get bandaged up to stop some bleeding, wash off in the bucket outside, and come see her after. These seemingly menial tasks are what gave the original game the surprisingly great sense of immersion, and the sequel seems to be carrying on with such designs. We opened the inventory, which looks very similar to the first game, and crafted some bandages from raw materials, and applied them. Stepping outside into the muddy area around the hut, we washed our face in the trough, and returned to the woman. She was tending to Hans, who needed some medicine. Unfortunately the woman used her last batch on Henry, so she asked us to venture to the nearby meadow to find some specific flowers. Also, optionally, she asked us to get rid of the bandit that came to attack us last night.

Not to leave any loose ends in case more show up, we grabbed a shovel, looted the body of the bandit for some more weapons and armor, and picked it up. We walked a short distance to the nearby creek, and buried it (special animations and a fast-forward of time was used by the game). We then went into the small area where the necessary flowers grew. As before, while the game won't leave you entirely stranded, it also won't handhold the players and provide indicators on exact items we need. It's possible to walk around for a while and just pick flowers until we got the right ones, but we chose to go into the codex and see what the flowers looked like, so we could identify them quicker. Not that there's anything wrong with taking your time - even in this small gameplay area, the natural atmosphere of Deliverance 2 shines once again, with great forest scenery created by vivid and realistic visuals and outcrops, combined with chirping of birds and rustling of the grass.

But perhaps we did take too long stopping to smell the flowers, because returning to the hut we found more men had arrived (good thing we got rid of the body). They were not immediately hostile, but demanded to know who we are and what we were doing here. Henry had the option to just go in sword swinging, or to try and talk his way out of the situation. As we were navigating the conversation, the demo time limit had unfortunately arrived.

Sequels are difficult to do, especially after the first game earns a good reputation through word of mouth as much as reviews or sales. But from what we've seen, the core of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II remains intact - with its medieval RPG experience, interesting conversations, and great immersion. We hope that the full game manages to deliver on these core pillars when it launches February 11, 2025 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.