“Snake Eyes!” A Sort of Hands-On with Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

Actually, this is more or less a very large and in-depth interview with Warhorse Studios full of great information, with a teeny, tiny bit of hands-on...

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is a dauntingly large game. It’s not scary, but the depth of choice and consequence, and the opportunity for truly lateral thinking when it comes to approaching any and all of its moving parts is, on the surface and after a short hands-on session with the game, massive.

We were given a chance to play and then to chat with Warhorse Studios’ Tobias Stolz-Zwiling who has been with the team and IP from the start and is now its roving studio PR manager and who might as well also be credited as a dev. What we played was a single quest not part of the game’s main narrative, and one in which there are many different ways to go about the task at hand, which is to steal a sword, place it somewhere else to cause a ruckus, then challenge a fighting school alongside your companion to prove who has the better sword skills and martial practices.

The thing is, we triggered the quest and enjoyed a bit of sword play ourselves (see our “Would you like to know more?” box out for more), we even had some fun with the game’s interesting dialogue system, but when it came time to go off and do the thing… well, see there’s this dice game within the game and it was right there. We played a lot of poker in Red Dead, a lot of Gwent in The Witcher III, a lot of Orlog in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, a lot of… well, you get the idea.

So yeah, we got side-tracked playing dang dice for the duration of the hands-on session not realising we’d eaten up all opportunity, time-wise, to test out the full immersion and opportunity available to us in the world. Thankfully Tobias does his job very, very well in that he not only knows the game in and out, but truly loves it, meaning what we missed above, is touched on in significant measure via our Q&A below. But rest-assured KCD II fans, we can tell you with full confidence that Bloody Dice within the game’s various regions is fun, deep and super engaging. Now, onto the actual information you’re really here for…

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

Genre: Open-world action-RPG
Developer: Warhorse Studios
Publisher: Plaion, Deep Silver
Release Date: February 4, 2025
Classification: TBC
Author: Stephen Farrelly
Date: December 18, 2024

So the game is open, but you also used Red Dead Redemption 2 as a bit of a comparison at the top (of our presentation), which I think is a really good way to explain to people, “look, there is going to be this Golden Path that is really strictly specific, but with an open-world embedded around it”. Which we think is what you meant. But there seems to be a lot more immersive sim stuff going on here … so we guess the query is how tangible is the world and how much does your decision-making go about affecting it and that so-called ‘Golden Path’?

So the main storyline is the one that you would call a ‘Golden Path’. So that's the historical elements that you push forward through. So if you go through that [it] is more straightforward than the other quests. But still even there, there's a lot of room for changes and for decisions. What you can't do is change history. 

However, in many elements of the game, in many parts of the game [we] explain how these things happened or how we got to this point. There's a situation that you can use where you have to attack a fortification with your gang members and you have a decision to make.

If we go straight away and attack them, then you might endanger the mission and the people in the village because it's full of guards… or a garrison. However, if you did something bad [earlier] like [choosing to] attack that village… [actually] it's not like you randomly attack places -- this is just a story decision you make [in this instance]. Then you can attack and harm innocent [people]. However, it'll drive out the guards and the garrison and you will have a much easier time to attack the castle. 

Now when you think back Kingdom Come I, this is exactly what happened to Henry in his hometown. His village was not a military target, it was just a distraction for something else that was going on. So you are now being put in the same shoes and now you have to make these decisions and now Henry has to understand that war is of course terrible, but why these things are happening and why these decisions are made.

So what I'm trying to say with all that is that even the main quest line has those branching decisions you can do and they will influence a little bit of something, but all the side quests are where you can go completely bonkers. They're usually the funny ones. They can completely fail, they can be completed in different ways, they can have huge variations [in how they play out]. And we don't tell the player, I think at all, what the right or wrong way is. And you don't even have any repercussions in that sense. 

I mean if you do a lot of stealing for instance, then you can get branded. But it's all an RPG thing. You can get branded; the brand of a thief [for example] and at the beginning it's a debuff. It hurts you and you will have lower stats and everything. [And it’s] a mark that stays. And when you have that mark, traders might not want to trade with you or the situation will change, but maybe some other characters might realise ‘he's one of us’ or something like that. And this will open up other branches. So there's not really a right or wrong, there's more like a tell your own story kind of thing.

And you are free to come up with it. And we, gameplay-wise, there's no GPS or direct path for when you are stealing that sword, for example, that we tell you -- there was no ‘go in that room and it's there on that wall’. It was me standing behind you showing it, but I'm not coming with the game. So you as the player have to find out yourself [how to do it]. And that is I think kind of the beauty of the game, [it’s] the way we think of the gaming because we, on one hand, don't want to waste your time as a player. So everything you do will have some kind of consequences or will somehow continue. But also we don't think of you as fools that need to be dragged through the game and you just point and click and stuff. So it's more like [as I] said in the presentation, an interactive Netflix series where you are in charge of the narration.

Would you like to know more?
Swordplay in the game is unique in the space as we're not only in first-person, but it also has depth and a sense of timing and martial patience. You can *try* hack your way through it, but the game wants you to learn the nuances of the art. It has all been designed with a rock, paper, scissors base for ease of entry, when it comes to what weapons best what weapons, but add in the RPG elements, crafting (or Blacksmithing) and then just being very good at understanding stances, sword/weapon types and fighting styles and suddenly it will click and you'll grow as a middle ages sword slingin' BEAST. (Read: it's very good and rewarding.)

Reputation seems to have a big play in all of that, whether it's quests, the Golden Path as we've talked about. And then even your interactions with people. When you talk about decisions and the consequences players have, how far does that reputation system go against so many? I mean there's obviously different factions and different groups and different areas that might lock you out and might not allow you in. And then how does that affect your freedom within the game and your decision-making?

So this can influence the smaller things. Like for instance, prices and shops -- when they like you a lot they will [do you a] favour; ‘hey, I’ll give you a little sale’ or whatever. So that's the one part. But for instance, if you do a lot of bad stuff, then the area will react to that. So if they know it's you, then you get that reputation system down and it's like, oh, Henry's coming or whatever. And skill checks will be harder. They will start varying weapons or whatever. But what's interesting is if they cannot tie the crime(s) directly to you, so if you just, I don't know, murder someone and get away and no one knows it was actually you [then] even still the area where the crimes are happening will be more vigilant than it was before. So even then people start to be more suspicious and they will start to carry and ready weapons and so on.

So ‘Jack the Ripper’ being in town means that everyone is more careful about what's going on. And this ties into when I said that the game tries to be really responsive to what you as a player decide or what you do. And this should all create this immersive world and this feeling of that it's kind of living and breathing, it's kind of happening. You are not the centre of the universe. You are not coming somewhere and they're, like, ‘oh Henry, thank you. You're here and now you're saving us all’. Usually they treat you very badly. ‘Who the heck are you and what the F do you want here?’. So I think that is what makes it so intriguing and so interesting that it's really trying to respond to what you're doing. And then as you said exactly, in every town and every place there's different, let’s call them factions or types of people and they are responding differently to what you do and what you do not do.

Going back to other open-world games like the Red Dead example, if you get too ‘Wanted’, you get bounties on your head and you get bounty hunters coming after you etc, is there a system with law and where maybe you can be hunted as well where you can pay off…

Indulgences. So if you pay the church, everything is fine. That is how it worked in the middle ages. The rich men were the ones who were kind of above the law. So there's a way if you really F up terribly and everyone hates you or whatever, there's a safety net and that is if you pay indulgences to the church, you can kind of buy your way out. But that's like a safety net.

But you can also face judgement. So there's several layers of that. You saw it probably if you did some crime then you can get in the stocks for quite some [time]. Again, this gives you a debuff, you can be whipped; it gives you a different debuff and so on. And the worst case is you're being hanged, but that is a game over. So…

So there are hard fails?

Yeah there's hard fails, and you’ll have to reload. [But] that's like if you really over do it, if you start killing and they catch you, you can just buy your way out. But what I like a lot about the crime system here is that we are talking about rapid redemption because it's much like GTA, of course the same company (as Red Dead). It's not like you have six stars all of a sudden and now the military is hunting you and everyone knows that you are the bad guy. They're spawning everywhere, the police and so on. We are actually trying to have something, I don't know what that is called in English, that game kids play where you say something in the ear and then you have to tell it to the next one and the next one…

“Pass it on…”

Okay, so that game.

So messages spread like that as well. So if you in one corner of the town commit a crime and you run away or whatever, the guards on the other side of the city will not know that you did anything. So you have the ‘Wanted’ that you did something because the game gives you an indicator that you did something and they're looking for you and there's a crime. But you can stand happily in front of a guard and he will look at you and greet you or whatever and then continue. If you skip [time] for 24 hours, the same guard in the same corner of town that I was just mentioning will then absolutely try to approach you and say, ‘hey, wait a moment, aren't you that guy?’. 

So I think that is also really interesting and ties into this immersion thing. So when you're stealing the sword in that quest and they find you and you run away from the guards that are hunting you, you can still finish the quest quickly, hang the sword to tell Manhart and continue without them knowing that it was you. However, if you wait too long, then they will absolutely call you out and say, ‘hey, you are the guy who stole the sword. We know this’. And the counsellor will say, ‘yes, yes, I heard this as well’. And so yeah, living and breathing, right; we’re really trying hard to make this all plausible and interesting.

So with that, what's the depth with all of the towns and villages and the townspeople, do they all have jobs, do they have schedules? Could you follow a particular NPC all day and see something different?

Yes. Every single NPC in the game? Absolutely everyone... lemme just think. Yes, absolutely. Everyone has a daily cycle. They all have a place to sleep. So they go somewhere, do something and none of them just spawn like a police officer behind the corner or something. There's, for instance... if there's a siege or something like that, and you see someone in the background. They're not real NPCs but they're just like fodder. But in the cities and when you play the game and you see them in the quest and they're all NPCs that are doing something and you can absolutely use the daily cycles to advantage. So in the morning they get up, they wash themselves, they go to work. After work, they might go to the pub. In the pub, they might drink. If they drink they might get tipsy. If they're tipsy, you can way easier, say pickpocket them.

So if you follow them around, you can use this absolutely to your advantage. Stealing the sword (for the exampled quest) kind of thing. If you go in during the day, all the doors will be open, but there will be people inside walking around and doing stuff. If you wait until the night, then they will all go to sleep because their daily cycle sends them to bed. But they will lock the door before they go to sleep. So you have to do more lockpicking and so on. If you, for example, if you want to attack a bandit camp or something -- they all have to eat as well. They have the same eating and sleeping rhythm as you do as a player. So if you see their pot of food, you can try to poison that pot of food. And when you wait just long enough, they will eat from that and die from that.

So with all those things in mind, you as a player have a variety of things [to play with]. How you can approach things and role-play the shit out of KCD II. So if you for instance would like to do that poison approach, then you just level Alchemy for instance, learn all those tricks and use that to your advantage. If you say screw that, I don't want to do that and want to do Blacksmithing and create my own weapons and have better swords than you get in the shops and sell them all and get rich or whatever. These kinds of things are there for you to choose from and then shape your own story or shape Henry's story there.

Would you like to know more?
The dialogue system we also mentioned has equally deep RPG mechanics embedded within, which is all also tied to a reputation system built off a lot of what we spoke to Tobias about. Traits such as Charisma, Dread or Coercion (among others) set up the basis, but it can also be the person you're speaking with and their demeanour that you need to take into account. Your appearance also matters, such as if you're still bloodied from a fight which might make some people reluctant to speak to you at all, which means you'll need to go and wash up before attempting to chat to them again. This is definitely the thinking person's experience here.

Okay, so on Henry, it's a good one to finish on actually. Was there ever a reason why you needed to have, I mean I know he's sort of an every-man that's sort of the role that he plays. He's like regular Joe, regular Joe that makes it out. But it sounds like with so much decision and so much opportunity for the player to craft the player that they want to be, why didn’t you just have a character creation system in the first place? And was that ever explored when you went to pre-production with this?

No. So it was never explored at all. We always knew that we wanted to talk about this particular boy that is kind of vanilla. You're right. So that you have the chance to shape him. But it was always meant to be the story of Henry who has a dad who he then finds out is not his real dad because he's the bastard son of a noble and so on. So it's kind of like The Witcher thinking of Geralt, you're playing as Geralt, that's you…

But of course there will be DLC coming with beards and everything. The cosmetics will be in there like hair and beard and whatnot. So again, maybe think of Red Dead Redemption, you have Arthur Morgan, but you can kind of change outfits, change [a bit of his] looks and so on. But you still play Arthur Morgan and his story and [here] you're playing Henry of Scarlets who lost everything to war. But the player has the freedom to make him the way they want. 

Characteristic-wise, all the other characters are given, for instance, Hans Capon, who on purpose is overpainted a little bit, he's a young guy, an overly spoiled brat, he's hunting women and whatever and he wants to have fun and he doesn't understand the seriousness of the situation that's going on. Imagine him being on a business trip for the first time thinking, ‘yeah, great, and now I can travel the world’. But then he finds out that he actually has to work on that business trip and it's not fun at all. Right? 

So with those characters, usually we as devs can go more into exaggeration and make them likeable or unlikable or something. But you want to have this regular Joe that is relatable as a main character. But we never explored full character creation because we wanted to keep it Henry's story.

Cool. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time today, Tobias.  

Very welcome. Thank you.

Would you like to know more?
Immersive simulator or "imsim" titles don't flood the gaming landscape as much as many other genres, and often the very definition of what is an imsim can be debated this way or that. With Kingdom Come: Deliverance II the jury is out on whether it's an imsim, or simply and overly immersive world in terms of its themes and aesthetics, but everything we learn when it comes to choice and consequence has us leaning on the game being in the imsim camp, we just hope its fairly directed main storyline doesn't hamper that path too much, because sometime it can actually be the story that shifts the experience in or out of the imsim world. Which all might sound like semantics, but hey, this is videogames... and we LOVE semantics as players, right?

About the author

Written By Stephen Farrelly
Stephen Farrelly is a veteran journalist and editor with more than two decades experience in the worlds of gaming, entertainment, lifestyle and sport under his belt. He is a proud pug dad, loves art in all forms but particularly street and tattoo culture, and is the director of Swear Jar...
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