
KINGDOM COME: DELIVERANCE 2 Preview - Henry's come to see us!
War and peace, plot twists and surprises, simple peasant life, late night sneaking around like an outlaw, odes to camaraderie, misunderstandings that can destroy even the strongest of friendships... all set against the beautiful greenery of 15th century Bohemia. These are just a few of the things we encountered in the highly anticipated Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 as part of our preview engagement with it. This preview features roughly the first 9-10 hours of the game and its main story, but it's by all accounts indicative of what we can expect from it afterwards. So take out your Longsword, your expensive Magdeburg Cuirass and your Milanese gloves, get on your trusty steed and return us with us to the magical world that Warhorse Studios triumphantly introduced into our lives back in 2018.

In this case it's a "return" in every sense of the word, as the events of the main plot of KCD2 start exactly where we left them in the first game's ending, with Henry, Sir Hans and their armed escort travelling from Rattay to Trosky Castle, to deliver to its master, Otto von Bergow, a letter regarding his intentions on the dynastic conflict that casts a shadow over everything that happens in these games. Things, quite predictably, don't go according to plan - in fact, everything that could go wrong does, as after the first few hours of play Henry is not only denied entry to Trosky but ends up half-dead, alone, penniless and without his horse!
As is easily understood, the first few hours of the game after the prologue events are all about Henry's comeback, both financially and in terms of his abilities. Those abilities are at a fairly high level at the beginning of KCD2 (after all, Henry is no longer KCD's naive, inexperienced noob peasant but a hardened warrior in the service of the Nobles) and after the prologue they drop back slightly, but not completely. However, even so, this time leveling in the early stages is pretty fast I'd say, which makes sense in the context of the plot, since Henry is supposed to be practicing and "remembering" the skills he already knew.

So as part of this comeback we start exploring a new area in the magical world of early 15th century Bohemia, an area that includes Trosky Castle and its surrounding lands. And, after the first few strolls around, it becomes clear that things are exactly as we remembered them in KCD and even better. The picturesque villages with their farmers, merchants, priests, guards and other inhabitants, the inns, shops, hilltop fortresses, lush green meadows, rivers, dense, dark forests hiding various points of interest, wandering travelers, bandits... Everything that made the open world of the first game so great is also present in KCD2, and even further enriched.
On the road to economic recovery, we interact with the peasants and undertake quests and tasks of varying content on their behalf (usually, of course, these quests are about their difficult daily lives, as well as their passions and superstitions). In the context of this interaction, the familiar and new touches that KCD2 introduces in the gameplay area are progressively revealed.

In an initial attempt to increase Henry's meagre groschen, I resorted to the easiest option: gambling. So, as soon as I could visit the nearest tavern, I found the local gambler sitting on his table and started playing dice with him. A new feature appears in the dice mini-game: the possibility of gambling using Badges. These are items found in the world, usually as rewards in quests or as loot from enemies, and offer a one-time bonus during one turn of dice rolls. For example, one badge allows Henry's points to be doubled for 1 round, another offers a starting bonus of points, one other allows up to 3 dice to be rerolled in a round, etc. Obviously, Henry's use of badges means that opponents can use theirs accordingly, so success is far from guaranteed, but if anything this aspect occasionally adds more interest to the game at hand.
Since I could only gamble 3 groschen per match at this stage, it was best to seek other ways of gaining wealth. So I remembered the teachings of KCD and, as soon as it was nightfall, I ventured into the woods in search of a bandit camp. It didn't take long to find one (bandits everywhere... what is the world coming to), and I fell upon it like a shadow of death. I managed to kill 2 bandits in their sleep, and the loot they carried allowed me to equip Henry with decent weapons and armor, along with expropriating the money they were carrying. But then a third bandit appeared, returning from patrol, and his shouts woke up a fourth bandit who was still asleep!

The ensuing battle was perhaps the clearest proof that Henry is no longer early-game KCD's terrified pushover. He may have lost some health but he managed to kill 2 opponents in combat at the same time with relative ease, something that only happened in KCD in the mid to late stages of the game. I picked up all their loot, defiantly slept like a log in their empty beds, and when morning came I made my way to the nearest merchant to sell the bandits' weapons and armor. At last my groschen were starting to multiply.
Given this progress on the economic and equipment fronts, it was time for the next 2 steps to total recovery: find a horse, and find Mutt. Working towards the first goal, I began visiting villages in search of horse traders, doing the occasional quest on the side. Eventually I found a horse trader, and while preparing to investigate horse prices Henry realized that among the trader's herd was Pebbles, the horse he lost in the prologue! The trader gave no convincing explanation as to who sold him the horse, and demanded extra money to return it to us. Fortunately, with the appropriate Speech roll, Henry managed to convince him that it was the product of theft and so he returned it to us completely free of charge.

As for Mutt, asking around villages and inns, Henry heard rumors of "a wild dog running with a pack of wolves in the mountains." Following the tips I found the den of this particular pack, with the alpha wolf not too happy about our presence there. The rest of the pack began surrounding Henry and things started to get serious... until an old friend appeared out of nowhere and came to our defense - Mutt! As a result of the ensuing skirmish, we were wounded but with plenty of wolf carcasses around, and, most importantly, with Mutt on our side again. The gang was officially reunited!
Alongside his familiar abilities from the first game and the "A Woman's Lot" DLC, Mutt can now also be used to directly Track an item as part of quests. This is of course completely optional and just one of the available paths to resolving quests. For example, we take on a quest that puts us on the search for a missing girl. Aside from the expected options of asking about it in the villages or searching the place where she went missing, we are presented with the option, if we have Mutt with us, to use the Track command in order to present Mutt with a piece of the girl's clothing so that he can try to find her scent! Then we just follow him and... prepare for the worst.

The above example from a quest, gives me the opportunity to also mention that another aspect from the first game that returns in KCD2 is that certain quests or other events in the world "progress" by themselves if we don't deal with them in time. For example, visiting an inn we find a group of Cuman mercenaries hanging out there, while next to them some drunken locals are grumbling and getting ready to attack them. Here we have the choice to actively engage with the incident (with whatever our engagement might entail), or simply ignore them and leave. If we leave and come back after 1-2 days, we learn how the Cumans and locals got into a brawl, and then we can track down and talk to the people involved about the whole incident. And obviously there are many such examples in the world.
Returning to the main plot, Henry had the money, weapons, horse and dog necessary to survive the world in style, and thus we could get back to the main objective, which was to finally find Otto von Bergow and talk to him. By asking the right questions, Henry learned that he would have a chance to run into von Bergow at a social event, but he would have to manage to get himself invited there first. He could do this through 2 different paths, either by working as an apprentice to the local blacksmith, or by helping a miller ( obviously we can do both quest chains in parallel if we wish).
Through the blacksmith we learn what is probably the most important new feature of KCD2, the crafting system. Essentially a new blacksmithing mini-game is introduced that has us heating up metal and hammering it in order to craft lots of different weapons or other items, either as equipment (for us or the horse) or for quests. This whole system has its own resources and crafting recipes, and relies on the new Craftsmanship skill for the quality of the final product.

Speaking of weapons, let me also mention that KCD2 introduces, among other things, new types of weapons, the main ones being Crossbows, all kinds of Polearms, the new Heavy Weapons skill involving weapons such as Warhammers, and a new, mysterious weapon that allegedly produces a demonic rattle and has the ability to demolish a full-armed warrior with a single blast...
If, along with the blacksmith, we choose to deal with the miller as well, players of the first KCD will immediately know that his quests will involve the shadier gameplay aspects. The lockpicking and pickpocketing mini-games work as you might remember them, and so does all the stealth gameplay, but with some variations/improvements to the AI. For one thing, villagers and guards are much more sensitive to any suspicious changes they detect in the space around them. Does a door or a chest that should be locked, open? As soon as they see it, the occupants will be alarmed and start looking for intruders, along with whether anything has been stolen from the house. Something was stolen and Henry was seen walking around the neighborhood? The villagers will make the connection and guards will stop and search him (with the right stats/skills we can convince them to let us go of course, with a small penalty to our Reputation). Do we keep robbing the same place over and over again? The locals will become so outraged that they will start armed patrols, while the local guard will be reinforced until the crime wave subsides.

It's also worth noting that we can now throw small stones with the press of a button as a distraction to guards or any NPC looking or walking towards us. We throw the little stone behind them, they go to investigate the noise, we run away or backstab them, profit. With these stones we can also knock down nests from trees, negating the need to spend arrows on them.
Other additions I should mention are new armor pieces, new alchemy recipes, some new inventory slots that accept new items, such as the Pouch, in which we can place items (potions or food) that can be consumed during combat. There are also small quality of life additions such as the ability to switch through three different outfits through the inventory with the press of a button, which is SUPER helpful as we can now pre-fill each outfit slot with different gear pieces instead of replacing every single gear piece one by one as in KCD. For example I filled one slot with my wartime gear, another one with my "dark" clothes for stealthy action, and one with my "expensive" clothes for more formal encounters. Overall, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is shaping up as a highly enhanced version of what made the first KCD such a special game, which I think will please all the fans who have been eagerly anticipating it.

But how will Henry's story unfold? Will he complete his mission? Will manage to finally meet von Bergow? And, where the hell has Sir Hans gone? These and much more will be answered when the full review is released in February. Until then, God be with Henry, and with you.







