Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is kicking off a ridiculously busy February, full of big game launches. And what a way to begin: a gargantuan historical epic full of armour-clad duels, bawdy bants and a very good pooch. Henry's second Bohemian misadventure is twice the size of the first, introduces firearms and crossbows, and you can expect to spend far too many hours diligently creating horseshoes and swords at your blacksmith's forge—really living the dream.
We'll be posting news, features, our review and our performance analysis, and you can keep track of all the important stuff right here in our liveblog, along with launch reactions and probably quite a few pretty silly videos and gifs. So keep checking in!
20 hours with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
Our Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 review is coming later today, but in the meantime why not check out what our reviewer Josh thought about his first 20 hours with the game?
I've rumbled with Cumans because I chose the wrong outfit; had my painstaking plans of attack disrupted by roving NPC caravans; gotten embroiled in fights that turned into grand, violent katamaris as more and more people joined in to help or hinder me; and lamented my lack of save-game potions more times than I can count. It's tremendous fun, with all sorts of bizarre variables feeding into the emergent adventures I get into. With about 20 hours in the game so far, I've barely made a dent in the main quest, so preoccupied have I been with poking at the world and seeing what reactions it spits bac
Our OG Kingdom Come: Deliverance review
We published our review of the first Kingdom Come: Deliverance back in February of 2018, seven years ago. It was a bit janky—Warhorse started developing the game with only 11 people—but had the scope and the looks of an RPG from a much more experienced, and larger, studio. We were pretty impressed at the time.
Kingdom Come is a mess of bugs, and there’s the constant feeling that independent developer Warhorse is biting off more than it can chew. But there’s a charm to its scrappiness, and it does enough interesting stuff that I’m willing to tolerate the creaky framework struggling to prop everything up. It’s one of the most satisfying, rewarding roleplaying experiences I’ve enjoyed on PC for a while, but the inconsistent performance and the game’s tendency to completely break does test my patience from time to time.
We ended up giving it a more than respectable 84%. And in a few hours you'll be able to see how the sequel shapes up.
"It seems like someone is always trying to brand us somehow, and we are just trying to make a cool videogame."
Ahead of tomorrow's launch, we spoke with Warhorse's global PR manager Tobias Stolz-Zwilling and senior game designer Ondřej Bittner about the series' focus on historical authenticity. In the first game, which is largely set in rural Bohemia, this led to most of the stories being focused on white, Christian characters. The only exception were the Cumans, Turkic mercenaries, who were largely presented as barbaric raiders. Coupled with game director Daniel Vávra's conservative views and support for Gamergate, this led to KCD being characterised as a champion for "anti-wokeness"—this was despite the protagonist, Henry, being a relatively progressive character, given the historical period.
But Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's change in setting, where we get to explore a much more cosmopolitan city, Kuttenberg, allowed Warhorse to explore a more diverse set of characters, while also digging into the Cumen mercenaries, who are no longer simply villains. Unfortunately, this has inspired right wing reactionaries to attack the game for becoming "woke".
"Several years ago, we were branded differently," says Stolz-Zwilling. "Now we are branded that way. It seems like someone is always trying to brand us somehow, and we are just trying to make a cool videogame."
Warhorse has employed the same historical consultant since it first started developing KCD, but now that it's an established studio with more resources and a well-known game under its belt, its been able to spend more time digging into the history of Bohemia, with helps from universities, museums and academics.
"Everything makes sense. Everything we put there was double and triple checked," says Stolz-Zwilling.
And it makes even more sense because of the larger scope and the urban setting that we get to explore in the game's second half. Kuttenberg was one of the most important cities in the Holy Roman Empire, a location where people from all over Europe and beyond came to learn and trade. And during this time of civil war, with mercenaries and soldiers flooding in, its denizens are even more varied.
"Because there's a city, there's loads more effort to show how these people actually view the world, which is, I think, way more important than showing their fashion choices or or how they look," says Bittner. "It's how they view the world and the society around them, which is predominantly Christian and Czech-speaking. I think that it's important to not just include these people, but their vision of the world, which can sometimes feel lacking in games or media that call themselves diverse."
Ignatius the sheep is the GOAT
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has plenty of great characters, but none of them have stuck in my mind quite like Ignatius the sheep. I do not know who decided to get a voice actor to record his replies, rather than using the realistic animal noises that you'll hear throughout the rest of the game, but it was a sublime choice. I would die for Ignatius. In fact, I have died for Ignatius. Defending him from a pack of wolves until my last breath. I love you, little buddy.
Our Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 review – A new RPG classic
After some 70 hours traipsing around Bohemia with his dog (and horndog Hans), our Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 reviewer Josh Wolens has rendered his judgement on Warhorse's RPG. Good news: it's fantastic. Here's a little taster:
It's the game's systemic ambitions that really elevate it, though. There are times when Warhorse's simulation of a medieval world approaches Stalker-levels of zeal. Stole something from someone's house without being spotted? All well and good, but if someone spied you hanging around there they'll still put two and two together and report you to the guards. I once got chased out of a fortress because I'd absent-mindedly equipped a stolen ring and walked past the schmuck I took it from.
It's that kind of world: A world of rules, a world that feels interested in itself for its own sake, and that feels to some extent like it happens independent of you, the player.
By the end of the game, when you're teeming with perks and fancy gear, you'll be a rambling Bohemian Cuisinart turning all your foes to shreds, but even this feels like a more earned and systems-driven process than it does in your average Skyrim-inspired RPG. You're not just inevitably climbing a levelling power curve, you're feeling out the edges of the game—what's possible, what's impossible, what's expected from you.
Without a review deadline looming, I've had the luxury of traversing the Bohemian countryside and the bustling city of Kuttenberg at a more leisurely pace (for 50 hours, so far), and frankly I don't want the adventure to end. I haven't had this much fun roleplaying since Baldur's Gate 3—though they are very different RPGs. Yet, there are some important similarities: the immersive sim qualities, the attention to detail, the potent storytelling.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has more than earned its 90% score.
Dozens of hours into Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and still feeling like a newborn
Not a horse door. Got it.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 review roundup
The Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 reviews are in—including our own—and the broad consensus seems to be that it's a very good time.
- IGN: 9/10
- Gamespot: 9/10
- Shacknews: 9/10
- VideoGamer: 7/10
- TheGamer: 5/5
- VG257: 5/5
- Windows Central: 5/5
- GamesRadar+: 4/5
- Eurogamer: 3/5
Let's play a game of Try to Guess the Accent
Excuse me?
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 performance testing
Good news if you're planning to jump into Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 when it launches on Tuesday: We've not only given the sandbox RPG a hearty recommendation in our review, it's gotten a separate thumbs up from our hardware team, which put the RPG through its technical paces in our Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 performance analysis.
The short version is that the CryEngine game can, as you'd expect, give any GPU a hard time at max settings and high resolutions, but scales well and is stable. Hardware Writer Nick Evanson didn't experience any crashes during his testing.
The charts below show the performance you can expect on the medium quality preset for 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. There's much more testing in Nick's full performance guide, as well as recommendations for which settings to tweak.
When does Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 release where you live?
We've entered the final 24 hours before Kingdom Come 2's release. If you're staring at your Steam client waiting for the big green "play" button to appear, take a gander at the official release times below so you know for sure when it's unlocking in your region.
- Los Angeles: 8 am PST on Tuesday, February 4
- New York: 11 am EST on Tuesday, February 4
- London: 4 pm GMT on Tuesday, February 4
- Berlin: 5 pm CET on Tuesday, February 4
- Sydney: 3 am AEDT on Wednesday, February 5
- Wellington: 5 am NZDT on Wednesday, February 5
Fun with console commands
Yes, Kingdom Come 2 has console commands.
16 seconds...
That's how long it takes to load this reinforced crossbow I found 40 hours into Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Every other crossbow I've seen so far is a bit quicker to load because Henry can pull the string back himself, but this monstrosity needs a built-in crank.
I haven't fired this thing at a human yet—you can go a long while without having to fight anyone in this game, it's nice—but I hope it's worth the trouble.
You don't need the latest graphics technology to have a great-looking game that also runs well
At a time when ray tracing is becoming increasingly compulsory and even the beefiest cards around can't run games well without DLSS, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a reminder that it doesn't have to be this way. As the hardware team's resident performance guru, Nick is constantly dealing with games that demand a lot and still come laden with countless performance issues. But KCD2's relatively old-school approach impressed him by giving us a striking game with smooth performance that's scalable across all sorts of different setups.
Rather than trying to shoehorn in as much graphics tech as possible, Warhorse Studios has just worked on improving what the original did well. Forests are vast and luscious, animations are smooth, heck even the skybox looks great. It's a landscape that begs to be explored (then promptly get lost in and mugged by a bunch of bandits).
The game itself is packed with tiny details that you wouldn't complain about if they weren't there, but as soon as you notice them, it makes you wonder why other developers don't pay as much attention to the little things. For example, if you try to ride your horse under a low bridge or building, there's a good chance your head will connect with the stonework and doink! You end up on the floor. Silly but brilliant.
Not that there's anything silly about the game's performance. How does an average frame rate of 96 fps, with 1% lows of 83 fps, at 1080p with the High quality preset sound? Good? Bad? Well if I tell you that's with a Ryzen 5 5600X and an Intel Arc A770, does that change your opinion?
"We knew it was going to be a meme weapon, but we were cool with it."
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 chucks guns into the mix, and they are pretty terrible. Really just a huge pain in the arse to use. And I love them. We had a chat with Warhorse about why it decided to include them this time, and it turns out it's mostly just because it would be pretty funny.
"Just the idea that someone goes through the forest, he's attacked by bandits, and he takes out a boomstick—that's ridiculous," said senior game designer, Ondřej Bittner. "So we knew it was going to be a meme weapon, but we were cool with it."
While the context of their use in KCD2 doesn't really make much sense, there's still this air of historical authenticity. Firearms were being employed at this time, and would have been used in pitched battles, where their slow reload time and lack of precision would not have mattered, since there would be rows of troops firing them into charging foes. So someone like Henry could have gotten their hands on a firearm and used it to hunt down bandits in a forest—it just wouldn't have been a very good idea.
Even your favourite game studio is excited about KCD2
The release hour is here, and all and sundry are gathering on social media to congratulate Warhorse on KCD2's release. First up, CDPR has some special, Witcher-y artwork to celebrate the release.
Ahoj @WarhorseStudios!Congratulations on the release of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II! May your blade always be sharp, cup never run dry, and the path stay safe!And remember, if you ever find yourself facing monsters – we'll happily lend you a silver sword ⚔️Audentes Fortuna… pic.twitter.com/jOegANBUDZFebruary 4, 2025
Which really opens up some exciting avenues for shipping.
Also doing some well-wishing: the devs behind Mount & Blade, who presumably feel great kinship with KCD2 as another ambitious medieval unpleasant-time simulator.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II releases today. We raise our swords to @WarhorseStudios - best of luck with the launch!⚔️🖤February 4, 2025
Stalker 2, as another systems-heavy sandbox, albeit one with more radiation and horrible bloodsucking monsters (if you discount KCD2's aristocrats, ho ho), had some kind words and a bit of mash-up artwork too.
⚔️ We wish you clear skies over Bohemia and only the sharpest swords! Congratulations to @WarhorseStudios on the release of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II! Let your story be as thrilling as the first discovery of an artifact in the depths of the Zone. pic.twitter.com/GrWr0E4IFzFebruary 4, 2025
Bohemia Interactive and 11 bit Studios, fellow Central European devs, have also celebrated the game's release. Fairly certain Bohemia Interactive kind of has to, given, you know, Bohemia.
When you're working on the best military sandbox during the day but can't wait to play @KingdomComeRPG later at home. 🤩Congratulations to our friends at @WarhorseStudios on today's release! 🎉P.S. Feel free to send a Collector's Edition to our HQ. 😜#KCD2 #gamedevs… pic.twitter.com/mwwEL5ZGiuFebruary 4, 2025
Huge congratulations to @WarhorseStudios on the successful release of #KCD2! Fortune truly favors the brave 🙌⚔️ https://t.co/pvCtjZbjAxFebruary 4, 2025
And last but not least, while you're roaming around Czechia, know that Baldur's Gate 3's music director is out there with you in spirit.
Let the Preload start now! Congratulations for the release guys! @WarhorseStudios pic.twitter.com/rwJLv3HC9rFebruary 3, 2025
It's only day one, and here come the modders already
If I had to guess which feature of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 would be pounced on by modders first, it'd be the save system, which requires you to either find a bed to sleep in or craft a potion to chug to save your progress. I don't mind the system, mostly, but there's something to be said for the elegant simplicity of a quicksave key. That's what the "Unlimited Saving 2" mod does. Install it and you can tap F5 to save your game instead of scrounging around for herbs or finding a warm bed to sleep in. More info here.
Everybody Loves Henry: KCD2 has 94% positive reviews on Steam, nearly 160K concurrent players
Let's pretend I didn't punch some flour merchant in the face and then start grappling with him in the picture above. Let's pretend that picture depicts a friendly hug and not a vicious brawl. Are you pretending? Good. That friendly hug represents Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's reception on Steam, where reviews are currently "Very Positive" and hovering around the 94% mark. A handful more could get it up to "Overwhelmingly Positive," so we'll see what the next day brings.
The medieval RPG also drew a huge crowd of players: KCD2 peaked with 159,351 concurrent players on launch day, which made it the 8th most-played game on Steam today. I expect those numbers will grow as we head into the weekend, when more people are free to spend some time hugging merchants, soldiers, and bandits all across Bohemia.
