Kingdom Come: Deliverance is the latest invader to land on our shores, readying its blade to take Skyrim's crown. Much like The Elder Scrolls before it, this is a first person RPG of epic proportions, with a massive game world to explore, side quests aplenty, and as many systems as you have hair follicles on your head.
But it's not just a direct copy and paste of what The Elder Scrolls does best. Kingdom Come: Deliverance isn't interested in wizards, dragons, and fantasy landscapes. Instead, it wants to tell a realistic story set in 15th century Europe – and we damn well mean realistic.
From the very first moments the game just oozes research. We fully believe that this is what life would look and feel like during that period, with its shoddy wooden fences, peculiar looking shoes, and ridiculous hair cuts. There's a very real sense of your lowborn character's place in the world too, and you'll feel it extra keenly as soon as you encounter nobility.
That's an area in which Kingdom Come: Deliverance already has Skyrim well and truly beaten. Not only does your character feel far more fleshed out (though to its credit, The Elder Scrolls relies on your imagination to fill in that gap), but the world around you just feels so much more alive because it's based on historical reality.
It's not just that, though. An awful lot of effort has clearly gone into making this experience far more real and immersive than anything before it besides The Witcher trilogy, and that's thanks to the developers dogged attitude. Seriously, you get the feeling that the studio's thought of absolutely everything.
Don't sleep for days? You'll start falling asleep as you walk, and won't be as effective in combat or conversation. The same can be said for hunger, too – this affects your energy levels and if you eat too much you'll act more lethargic than usual.
You have to take care of your weapons as much as you do your relationship with literally every character in the world. If you don't sharpen your sword often it will be as blunt as your haggling ability once you've irritated a trader. When that's as easy to do as accidentally unsheathing your weapon in public or wandering around with dirt and blood on your face, you soon realise you have to be really careful and think of everything.
We realise already that this won't sound appealing to everyone, but the lengths that the developers have gone to just to draw you into the experience is admirable. It helps that the plot is as engrossing as the many systems, and the fact you're a lowborn blacksmith's son is a neat starting point, as you learn all about its complexities as he does.
Also, the plot focuses on the right areas: the people by your side. You learn about the war (that's not a spoiler, don't worry – it's revealed in the opening seconds of the game) from the people around you, as well as how they feel about their husband and what they prefer to eat for tea. Again, you might not want to hear all this stuff, but if you embrace it you'll feel a level of immersion you don't often get outside of an indie adventure game.
That brings us nicely to one of our more negative criticisms of Kingdom Come: Deliverance so far – that, like a low budget indie hit, it's a little janky at times despite its heart being in the right place. Loading times are a particular issue, and there was this laughable moment where we had to endure a 20 second one just to say no to a character who asked us a question.
Characters also don't tend to move their mouths with the dialogue, and it can end up looking like a badly dubbed '70s Hong Kong action flick. Oh, and when you pick up an item, you'll see your character grabbing it, but it kind of looks like an alien hand has burst out of your chest to steal an apple on the table in front of you. It's a bit disconcerting at times.
Combat, so far, seems like a strong point. This isn't the hack and slash of Skyrim – far from it. In fact, it borrows more heavily from Mount & Blade or multiplayer battler War of the Roses. You and your enemies can attack and block in any direction, so combat becomes a dance of blocking and retaliating. Against the best opponents, you'll have to really try and trick them to get a few hits in.
We haven't seen an awful lot of it so far, and the fights we have had have ended in our swift defeat, but it seems to have an awful lot of depth and realism. We get the feeling that by the end of the game, we'll really feel like we've mastered the art of combat, rather than levelled up and beefed our strength stat to max.
That's not to say that stuff isn't in there, it's just delivered a little differently than we've seen before. Rather than go into a menu to increase your stats by killing a few rats to level up, you increase your attributes by, well, doing stuff. Hit things with swords, forge weapons, stuff like that. The same can be said for abilities, too. Simply by talking to people, you increase your speechcraft, and fighting enemies improves your swordplay.
Modern Fallout and Elder Scrolls systems do feature, though. For example, once you've increased enough skills you gain a character level and get to choose a perk that improves your character in a variety of areas. At least that's what we think happens. We haven't actually levelled up yet, and were told that in a popup hint.
Our initial feelings towards Kingdom Come: Deliverance err more on the cautiously optimistic side than the outrageously negative. It's an incredibly admirable effort to deliver an engrossing and historically accurate open world RPG that does things a little different to your usual fantasy titles. But that level of ambition does result in occasional jankiness, like badly dubbed dialogue, alien stomach hands, and unforgivable loading times. We're hoping some of that can be patched out later.
However, at only a couple of hours of play, we're yet to experience the wonders of the open world and the depth of combat, as well as the rest of the title's intricacies, so you'll have to wait a bit for our full review. That said, our initial impressions are positive, and we're quietly optimistic about this one. Stay tuned.
Are you looking forward to Kingdom Come: Deliverance? Keep that sword sharpened in the comments section below.
Comments 25
As I said before I like the sound of this game but I have that feeling that it will end up like No Man's Sky or For Honor. All the hype and then the game just won't deliver. Might rent this one after I finish Secret of Mana, Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2.
I hope this might turn out to be a new The Witcher. Ambitious, janky, but laying a foundation that can be perfected upon in its seuels. I can easily forgive a game as ambitious as this some shortcomings.
Whe I first saw this a long while ago I thought it looked great, thr recent gameplay was pretty amazing, the systems at play are what was probably missing from Andromeda. I'll likely drop my backlog and dive straight into this.
@Tasuki I'd say it pretty much delivers exactly what any reasonable person who followed the project might expect: hugely ambitious and complex but also pretty divisive and janky with some performance issues. I've been following the game closely for a few years now and I took a leap of faith, ordered a few days ago and my copy arrives today, can't wait to get immersed in the world!
On a side note, what really bothers me is that some big budget productions like Fallout or Elder Scrolls and even the Witcher get a free pass on the numerous glitches, bugs and such while the smaller productions often get torn to pieces because of the same reason and get really low scores.
Sounds interesting. As someone who is desperate for Elder scrolls 6 to happen, this may scratch that itch. The skill leveling system sounds similar to Oblivion. On a more cautious note, most of those that play RPGs do it for escapism, rather that to mirror the minutiae of everyday reality, so we shall see.
I hope people have reasonable expectations of this, which I know is too much to ask for where mainstream media and their players are concerned. People genuinly looking for something different and unique, and are not just looking for a hype-train, will probably find something to enjoy.
I have a strong dislike for first-person sword-fighting, however you can use different kinds of weapons I'm told, like bows and polearms, so I'm optimistic.
The game has limited appeal based on its setting alone, I doubt American media and gamers will be interested in it, as they often complained about the Europeanness of the Witcher 3. The lack of magic and generic Fantasy will limit the appeal even more.
I started this this morning and I can say it's amazing, to the guy who said it'll end up like for honor then I hope it does because I play for honor everyday and where getting season 5 on Thursday, name another game that Constantly freely updates the game every few months that's as unique as it is
@Lurker Regarding your observation of the Free Pass: that is an uncomfortable pattern our gaming media don't wish to explain or be held accountable for. The fact that games are not judged on an equal basis.
Games that come from non-English speaking countries in particular, are usually cursed by negative preconceptions in our media. The same goes for medium-sized productions: games that have higher budgets than most Indie titles yet not as much as the triple-A ones. Where our media goes wrong, is where they compare these games to big budget ones. Are they even aware of these difference or are they simply ignoring them?
A rational person should take the production budget into account whenever reviewing something, after all you have different expactations from a Steven Spielberg movie than from a small Indie movie.
This has always been a problem with the gaming media, but especially so in the last 10 years or so. In the past there was a stronger recognition that perhaps these games should be compared separately, similar to how Indie games are judged separately today. Perhaps it is simply the quality of gaming journalism that has deteriorated.
@Bonbonetti You're exactly right, it's the area between AAA games and indies that suffers the most. It's a shame too, since many gamers straight up dismiss those games just on the basis of the all important scores.
Another aspect that in my opinion plagues the gaming industry (or pop culture in general to an extent) is that we rarely give enough praise to games that go against the grain and try something different (like this game or the upcoming Vampyr) instead of streamlining the exprience to reach the mass audience.
I always like the idea of games like this, even Skyrim and the Witcher. But then I play them and I can never get into them. I like games to be simple. I don't want to spend hours in menus managing my food, sleep, 100 different attributes or 1000 different ingredients. I never understood when games try to be realistic, but then you end up carrying around 100's of pieces of clothing or 50 different weapons. It's like a half way house because at the end of the day, it's a game and it's meant to be fun.
I've started playing The Last of Us this weekend for the first time ever, and I like how that does it. Seems plausible the amount of items/weapons you can carry, and the crafting is nice and simple. That style is definitely my preference.
The concept sounds interesting, although I’m not sure I’m in the mood for a Skyrimesque epic right now. When I watched some gameplay it looked like a lot of time fumling through menus and managing inventories, which is about right for the genre. I’m just not sure that’s what I want right now, but we’ll see. I’m not ruling it out.
Thanks Glen for the first impressions. Very helpful to have this since it may be a while for the official review, this helps.
@Th3solution Thanks man. If it helps, the menu fumbling is actually at a surprising minimum. I've found I've probably spent most time watching cutscenes so far, but they're all so well made it's been a pleasure. If you're more in the mood for a story driven epic, you'll get a lot of enjoyment out of this.
@FoxyGlen That’s encouraging. I’m warming up to the idea of exploring life in the 1400’s. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for more info on the site as I continue to peck away at my looming backlog, which is the real obstacle to being ‘all in’ on KC:D just yet. I will say the release time frame for this game is pretty favorable, seeing as it beat the big boys (GoW, Detroit, SM, etc.) getting out of the gate (hopefully not at the expense of being unfinished) and is just having to compete against MHW, DBZ, SotC, which is still a daunting task. But it’s a game that seems like it could easily fall through the cracks later in the year if it is not received well.
@Lurker Pixelated indies and certain AAA games get a free pass. AA games are the ones that get unfairly judged.
I need that eurojank in my life. Always try to support A or AA level tier games - Witcher, Mass Effect, the Tom Clancy series, all of them started from this sort of level.
Sounds like a fun game...however, I just recently bought the Witcher 3 and Monster Hunter World, so may have to wait a bit before delving into this! However, this will definitely be a game on my radar and will definitely be added to my over-grown library of PS4 games (seriously, too much of a backlog of retail and downloads)...plus, also need to get ready for Kirby on Switch (finally wipe the dust off of the system) and we're finally purchasing an Xbox One...so with all of that, there's going to be too much time consumed. Possibly, a game to wait for the price to go down, purchase, and get into it next winter when we're all stuck indoors!
Is black adder in it?
@Lurker That is how I see it as well.
On one hand, a large number of people are frequently complaining about the lack of unique and original games outside of the Indie scene. Yet it's often these mid-level developers who come up with new ideas, rather than the big triple-A studios.
What happens next, is that certain media channels and gamers immediately start obsessing over the fact that these games don't have a triple-A production. The dialogue about the game becomes an exaggerated dialogue about money, not about what the game actually offers. All the creativity that went into these games is more or less reduced to nothing.
Imagine if Indie games were treated in the same manner.
@Krest_arisen lol, yeah, I guess that depends on where you live
Another thing that I have reservations about, is that not having the usual Mage, Warrior, Rogue type characters takes away the replayability.
So it's Skyrim written by Mark Corrigan.
Got it.
@Johnnycide Ha, he needs to be an extra in the "lore" section or something.
@Shellcore that or the voiceover in the tutorial. I'd buy it just for that.
I've been watching streams of this. It looks very buggy, slow paced and the voice acting often sounds terrible but I just know that I'll love it!
As someone who thinks the quest for realism sometimes really hinders actual fun gameplay, this seems like a title that could REALLY annoy me. On the other hand, I'm a sucker for medieval themes, so I'm torn.
got it today and really been enjoying it, yep its got problems and bugs but the world is so alive(in cities etc). the lock picking minigame is awful and can easily send you into a fit of rage!
i do find it strange that the elder scroll and fallout games that are just as bugged at launch are always giving a free pass, while others are not. but i do think its going to be a marmite game and sadly will not get the recognition it deserves
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