If Kingdom Come: Deliverance was a coming-of-age story for peasant-turned-knight protagonist Henry of Skalitz, then Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is his mid-life crisis. I recently visited the Czech town of Kutná Hora – formerly known as Kuttenberg, where most of the sequel is set – to play four hours of Henry's latest adventure, and in that time he loses nearly everything he worked so hard for in the first game. But hey – falling off a cliff, losing your pals, and being showered with the contents of a castle's communal toilet bucket tends to have that effect.
If there's a silver lining, it's that Henry – often reeking, always bruised – doesn't seem too bothered by his string of misfortune. He's as cheery as ever, and developer Warhorse Studios has clearly had a lot of fun picking his story back up. There's a lot for the Czech studio to feel good about – Kingdom: Come Deliverance 2 is shaping up to be a deeply ambitious sequel, which doubles down on everything that (for better or worse) made the first game memorable.
Bohemian like you Though Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 opens with a flash-forward of Henry's allies besieged in a castle, it picks up in earnest mere moments after the first game ends. Henry and his immature lord-in-waiting Sir Hans Capon, flanked by their entourage of knights and servants, are on a diplomatic mission to unite Bohemia's lords against the king's half-brother, Sigismund, who plans to invade and ransack the kingdom. For all of five minutes.