Last week, we were invited to a first presentation of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Six years of development, a team of more than 250 people, this sequel represented everything that the first opus had not been able to do due to lack of time, resources or experience, according to its game director Daniel Vávra. This first glimpse was above all an opportunity to introduce us to the town of Kuttenberg (or Kutná Hora in Czech), a large urban center and central piece of the universe of KCD2which the director will even describe as “too big for his taste” and its surroundings, which will serve as a framework for this new project. As with the first, there is no question of showing a dark version of the medieval era and it is a green and luminous nature that we can discover in the different extracts presented.
We will play Henry again, as Sir Hans' squire and the game will develop the “bromance” between the two characters, while the protagonist still seeks to avenge his family killed in the first opus. Warhorse announces two hours of additional cutscenes with a longer story and a desire to make it more epic. The crime system has also been overhauled with NPCs who react differently depending on your actions and your reputation. New weapons and refined combat will also be on the program, with always in the background, the most important word when it comes to talking about Kingdom Come : the immersion.
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Kingdom Come and then go
Seeing this presentation, it's difficult not to remember the hours spent on the first opus, where we sometimes came up against a desire for immersion and realism (relative of course) which made certain aspects of the game quite rough. A major challenge for Warhorse which will be scrutinized and still relevant with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2namely to find the right balance between this search for immersion at all costs and systems that are sometimes too complex for their own good. “We're trying to portray how it would have looked or could have happened. To the best of our knowledge at least. We never sacrifice fun for realism. Realism or historical context is rather a special container. »
Except that KCD2 comes out in a very different context from its predecessor. Games such as Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring have been there, with this desire to break the dirigism previously inherent in games. open worlds. Even if its popularity is not as significant and still difficult to truly assess, the success of Dragon's Dogma 2 shows us that there is a certain fascination for these games which throw players around without giving them all the context or all the keys to understanding their world and their game mechanics. In a sense, Kingdom Come first of the name proposed an experience in this vein.
A balancing act
However, Warhorse is well aware of the ways in which his first opus is perceived. Infinite time vacuum cleaner for some, too crude a game that falls out of the hands for others. “Kingdom Come: Deliverance is very special in the way it approaches itself and thinks about itself, and we looked at what worked well, and what was maybe a little overdone, to try to make the experience smoother overall for everyone, without sacrificing the true soul of KCD. Old-time fans will feel right at home, and newcomers should be excited for a truly immersive experience. »
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Unfortunately, even if the presentation showed us many aspects of production and some combat phases, it was difficult to see the concrete results of this wishful thinking. Can Warhorse succeed in offering a combat system as qualitative as that of Chivalry, while doing without this absurd and slightly humorous dimension inseparable from the latter? In any case, with a release planned for 2024 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series, we hope that the first to complain when they see walls with yellow paint in video games will be there.