The region of Trotsky is massive, with various villages and castles scattered throughout, connected by dirt roads that wind through dense for??ests and muddy rivers and streams. It's a beautiful region much like?? the map you explore in the original game. But later on, you'll gain access to Kuttenburg, an entirely separate region centered around the massive city that played a pivotal role in the early 15th century due to its silver mines.

Both regions are peppered with dozens of side quests that not only give you ways to level up, acquire some loot, and earn some Groschen (money), but also flesh out the immersive world of KCD2. Every piece of dialogue is fully voiced acted, and features perhaps the best voice acting ever in a game. Seriously, I wish every game had the quality of voice acting that KCD2 has. Have you ever been playing a game where the response from an NPC catches you off guard, but then you go, "Actually, I could see someone saying that if they were really in this situation!" Well, that's every line of dialogue in KCD2. It takes the immersion a step further, which you?'ll notice is a common theme th?roughout the entire game. Realism.

Speaking of the world, it's absolutely stunning. I'm playing on PC, on an AMD 7700X CPU and an AMD RX 7900 XT GPU with FSR, and for the most part, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 runs as smooth as butter performance-wise. It's very impressive just how good the game looks visually, and while I r???emember the original having a ton of performance issues, at least early on, that's not the case. There are some minor FPS drops here and there around Kuttenburg, but that's about it.

Of course, we have to talk about the elephant in the room: bugs. If you've played a massive open-world game before, you know bugs are simply part of the package. When you have so much going on at once, things are bound to break from time to time, and break they do. Most of the bugs I've encountered in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 were v??ery minor; in fact, some added some extra charm and even welcome comic relief, like one I kept experiencing where my horse would for whatever reason consistently try to turn and run in on itself. No matter what direction I'd turn or look, as soon as I'd try to move forward it would snap around towards itself and continue doing so. This was a quick fix; jump off the horse and back on.

However, I also encountered some bugs that were pretty annoying, mainly due to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's finicky Saviour Schnapps save system. It's the same as the first game, meaning you only save when you sleep in a bed or consume a limited consumable called Saviour Schnapps. You also get one single "Exit Save" that occurs ev??ery time you exit the game. I get why Warhorse Studios chooses to handle saves this way; it adds to the realism by preventing save scumming, especially when your choices mean so much.

But it can be quite annoying when you're traversing through a long quest only to have your character clip into a random doodad like a wagon and get stuck, unable to move. Or when you engage in combat with several enemies only to clip into one and get stuck in a perpetually never-ending rotation of the camera as it tries to pull your body out of theirs while the enemies continue to carve you up unti?l you die and have to reload and lose some progress.

There are a lot fewer bugs in KCD2 compared to what the original launched with, and in the few weeks I've had access to the review build of the game, Warhorse Studios has released several patches fixing ton?s of bugs. Like I said, in a massively open-world game like this, it'd be silly not to expect some bugs. And for the most part, I didn't encounter anything too game-breaking, only variable levels of annoying.

I wasn't too far into KCD2 when I had somewhat of an epiphany. I had encountered a group of Cumans, ??which Henry has come to hate seeing as they were responsible for destroying the village in which he grew up and killing his family. After speaking with the leader of the group, I started to change my view on the situation a little bit. As he explained it, he was just trying to get by himself, serving a lord and doing what he was ordered to do. He was very blunt and direct about everything, while also having a comical tone. A very entertaining character, to say the least.

Not long after, I was with the Cumans at their camp, getting completely drunk, and sharing tales. Turns out that this group very well could have been part of the group that attacked Henry's village back in the original. After many drinks, Henry and the Cuman stumbled their way into the woods, where the leader eventually tripped and passed out, completely w?asted. Curious, I looked at the Cuman lying on the ground to see if the game would let me loot him while he was drunk. I could, of course, but more interestingly, I had the option to murder him.

This revelation is what triggered my epiphany: a game like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is one I often dreamed of existing when I was growing up watching a ton of medieval-time movies and TV shows. One where you get to actually make decisions, and have complete control over your choices, right or wrong. To help drive this point home, I feel it's important to note that this wasn't some main quest decision or anything like that. It was a side activity amongst many throughout KCD2, and I'm pretty sure someone else co??uld play through the entire game and not e?ven encounter this group of Cumans or have to make this choice. A true open-world RPG in every way.

If the open world is half of the formula for Kingdom Come: Deliverance, combat in that open world is the? other half. A similar yet refined style of combat system is at play in the sequel, once again featuring a crosshair-style indicator over your enemy when engaged in combat. The indicator has been somewhat simplified; instead of a star-like indicator with five points, the bottom two points have been merged into one. This means that you still ha??ve the left, right, and overhead stances of holding your weapon, but the bottom choice now symbolizes a stab or thrusting attack with your weapon.

You'll spend much of the early game playing a sort of patient game of rock paper scissors, often waiting for your opponent to attack first, so you can block it, then following up with a counter-attack on the side they left unprotected. It's similar to the original, but also much more fluid. Attacks with your weapons respond immediately where they connect with their target, rather than seeming like a timed animation going through the motions. And much of the major combat-assisted systems from the original are still here. For example, a successful block from a shield will see that shield take some wear and tear, with wooden shields splintering and breaking over? time.

It's such a satisfying and rewarding combat system, and I think the decision to make it mostly similar to that in the original was a good choice. After all, we're playing a more experienced fighter this time around with a more ?knowledgeable Henry, and with all the enhancements to the combat system, it naturally feels that way.

There are some new weapons as well including one of my favorites, the Crossbow. I wasn't a fan of the bow in KCD, probably because I sucked with it. But in KCD2, the Crossbow feels a lot more accurate and effective. You still have to account for uhh... bolt drop, of course, but it feels ?as though you could focus primarily on using the Crossbow and have decent results with it. I chose to use it alongside an axe and the occasional longsword, as the combat style is so diff?erent with each weapon that it was fun to switch it up from time to time and get better with a variety of weapon types.

Speaking of which, alongside just practicing and getting better at combat, there are two other major ways to improve your combat prowess. First, there are multiple combat experts throughout the world that you can visit to train with. Doing so will unlock new combos and? skills that you can use in combat, some of which really change things up.

You'll also increase your skill level with each wea??pon type and gain Perk Points as you use that weapon type. There are six combat skills in total: Warfare, Swords, Heavy Weapons, Polearms, Unarmed, and Marksmanship. Each combat skill has over a dozen perks you can learn for them that make you better at that specific type of combat. For example, Polearms have a perk called First Strike that makes your first attack in every fight with a Polearm weapon 35% stronger. The Heavy Weapons combat skill on the other hand features perks like Shieldbreaker that make your heavy weapon attacks harder for opponents to block as a shield, as well as increases the damage you do to shields with your heavy weapon attacks.

Combat skills aren't the only skills with perks in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, however. There are skills and perks for Thievery, Survival, Stealth Scholarship, Houndmaster, Horsemanship, Drinking (yep, drinking), Craftsmanship, and Alchemy. Speaking of which, Alchemy and Blacksmithing have their own new and m?ore intricate systems.

For Alchemy, you can collect herbs and other materials before visiting an Alchemy Bench and concocting various pot??ions and elixirs. It's a pretty complex system, with most recipes requiring you to use a certain liquid as a base, and then bring it to a boil over a pot before adding a specific amount of ingredients and boiling it for a specific amount of time. The better quality materials you use and the closer y??ou are to the exact boil time, the better quality the potion you make will be.

Blacksmithing isn't as complex as Alchemy, but is a fun and honestly relaxing reprieve from gallivanting around Bohemia. Once you've gathered the necessary materials for the recipe?—oftentimes various metals—you can head to an anvil and begin the Blacksmithing process. First, you'll have to heat the metals over a furnace, bringing the metals to a bright yellow ??glow. Then, you move the metal to an anvil before shaping it with your hammer. The goal is to spread out where you hit the metal with your hammer, though it can be tricky to do without any sort of indicator of where your hammer swing is going to land. I actually made a good bit of Groschen throughout my playthrough by heading to the anvil in between quests and blacksmithing what I could with the materials I found.

Overall, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 exceeded my expectations in every way. Henry has cemented himself as one of my favorite game characters, and the world of 15th-century Bohemia that the developers have crafted will certainly be one I will always remember. Many games these days proclaim to have a living breathing world full of choices that matter, but few actually do. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 gives you that lively and immersive world full of choices and ??????????????????????????then implores you to make the wrong ones, and it's a hell of an experience because of it.

While Kingdom Come: Deliverance was a solid title worthy of being called a great open-world RPG, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 essentially redefines what it means to be a great open-world RPG. It's one of those worlds you not only want to tell your friends about, but you want to watch them explore it as well. I'm so torn on what I want to see Warhorse Studios do in the future. On one hand, I'd love to see what such a talented studio can do with another setting. On the other, they're absolute masterminds at crafting such an immersive and realistic early 15th-century medieval world that I just want more of it. The year just started so it's too early to be talking about GOTY, but for me, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is already at the very least a contender.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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