War, war never changes—though we might romanticise the age of knights and chivalry as a period of glimmering banners and full-plate heroes, it was, inevitably, pretty nasty—filled with violence, prejudice, and poo. The Kingdom Come: Deliverance hasn’t, from what I’ve heard, ever shied away from the cruelty of 15th century Bohemia—sometimes to its credit, sometimes to its controversy.
The first game also didn’t shy away from the doldrum of pastoral life, seeing protagonist Henry mulling about in his village and chatting with his mates, before an army sweeps in and messes everything up. Judging by this story trailer, though, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 isn’t wasting any time getting into the war stuff.
This time, you’re going right up against Sigismund the Red Fox as he and his allies wage war—which means the stakes are a lot higher. While a trailer’s a trailer, it’s all looking very cinematic, and PC Gamer’s own Fraser Brown’s stint with the game in August seems aligned with that. In his own words: “I rush along the walls kicking and hacking at the soldiers clambering up them, with the din of battle filling my ears.” Even the lad-like lark he describes as serving the character creation screen gets interrupted when “some soldiers arrive and start cutting down peasants”. I might be wrong, but it seems like peasant-skewering is going to be a theme.
I’m mostly curious as to how developer Warhorse Studios intends to preserve the historically accurate vision of the first game while marrying it with higher stakes. Even the most high-concept fantasy stories struggle with spectacle creep—see Final Fantasy 14 fumbling a thematic reset after you spent the last expansion punching the embodiment of despair in the face—but for something like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, the risk of breaking immersion is even higher.
As the trailer for the #7 game in today’s PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted revealed, Deliverance 2 will be arriving sooner than expected. While Steam promised it’d come out February 11 2025, I’m pleased to announce it’ll be landing February 4, one whole week sooner. ‘Huzzah!’, as my book of period-appropriate exclamations of joy might say.
That seems like a bold decision when the first game was also known for some performance problems and glitches, but one week isn’t a lot of time in development, so I’m not sure it would’ve made much of a difference anyway. We’ll see how successfully Warhorse Studio manages to avert history repeating itself while trying to, well, repeat historical fiction in just two months.