Josh LaBella – News Editor
Knights and fair maidens gather round. Kingdom Come: Deliverance brings back chivalry to a landscape barren of historical medieval role-playing games.
Released just two weeks ago, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a largely anticipated medieval game which boosted realism as one of its main components. Taking place in 1400’s Bohemia, the player finds themselves in the shoes of Henry – the son of a blacksmith whose family is killed in an attack on his village during a time of civil war.
Right off the bat the player can notice the pace of the game is much slower paced than other RPGs. One might even call the game medieval travelling simulator, as the majority of time in the game is spent travelling the region.
That is not to say it is a bad thing. KCD is a beautiful game. The countryside is lush with flowers and rolling hills. As a player combs the land searching for bandits or solving quests there can be no denying the vibrancy of the world that Warhorse Studios built.
The game has extensive detail in every manner of speaking. The whole map was built using historical records of the region, and all the cities are laid out as they were 600 years ago. Castles and villages are beacons of civilization among the wilderness.
While I bought the game on Xbox One – where the graphics are good but the rendering distance is quite short. I also spent time playing it in 4k on a PC. The difference was stark and the game ran much better than on console.
One of the more unique aspects of the game is its combat system – which is complex to say the least. Instead of button mashing like many sword fighting games. A player must use timing and skill in order to fight enemies – less they die very quickly.
The system requires the player to learn a myriad of button combinations if they want to have any chance of succeeding and in some cases combat can seem overly complicated. After 15 hours player the game I had only killed 27 people – compared to games like Elder Scroll V: Skyrim where you kill that many enemies in the tutorial.
The quests in the game are quite compelling. Henry is searching for revenge on the men responsible for his parent’s death. An officer in the Army of Sigismund, who is the leader of “bad” side of the civil war, is undoubtedly going to be the final boss.
There are many fun quests along the way. At one point I found myself drinking, fighting, and womanizing with a not so holy priest. At a different time I was scouting out an enemy encampment to prepare for a large-scale assault which turned out to the most exciting part of the game so far.
The game is not without its bugs. After buying an 1,100 “Groshcen” set of horseshoes for my mighty steed Pebbles, I was dismayed to have them disappear from my inventory without a trace. In a different glitch I was terrified to see a number of NPCs walking around without heads.
There are a lot of components to Kingdom Come: Deliverance. The combat system is the most starkly distinctive. But the world is gorgeous and its story captivating. While there are some technical issues to work out – for gamers who like history or role-playing games it is definitely worth the purchase.
Photo Credit: Josh LaBella
