Given that money isn’t exactly easy to come by it’s not an area you can overly invest in, so if you hit a technical issue and have to go back an hour… well, you’re going to be mad. Most of the time I wouldn’t mind this, but Warhorse’s system is so out there it can be annoying.Īlthough the game will save at certain key points, if you want to do it manually you have to buy an expensive drink and neck the thing. The sheer size of the project also results in a tirade of bugs, and while more often than not these can just be laughed off, I’ve encountered a few which have meant I’ve had to reload a save. You just continue to ‘do’ and see where it takes you. There just doesn’t seem to be a ‘eureka’ event that all of a sudden fires the flames. There’s a set of rules in place that will see you get arrested if ignored, lords respond kinder to you if you’ve bathed and brandishing a sword in public is taken very seriously indeed. That doesn’t mean Kingdom Come: Deliverance can’t surprise you as your own story can veer off unexpectedly. A worthy cause, but it mostly plods along at a very slow pace rather than grabbing you by the arm and throwing you into all matter of shenanigans. Upset by this, naturally, he decides to do his bit and fight the good fight.
You play Henry, a son of a blacksmith whose family has been murdered during a breakout of war in Bohemia. The story here is interesting in some sense, but it never really develops either. It simply doesn’t exist.Īll of this makes the minute-to-minute gameplay very odd and mundane because, more or less, you’re just going through the motions. On occasion you may be attacked by an animal, but it’s not like you’re ever going to stumble across something incredible. You can appreciate the green fields and soothing horizon, but ultimately you’re just walking from point a to point b because you have to. The setting is huge, very detailed and well realised, but there just doesn’t seem to be enough to do within it, simply because of this desire to never embrace the idea of ‘fantasy’. This is replicated in the environment you find yourself in, too. Whatever would happen in the real world will happen within this world of make believe, right down to choosing to wear a helmet and your vision being severely impaired. Such an approach does allow fighting to be satisfyingly brutal, which ties into the realism Warhorse is desperate to convey. If someone smacks you over the head with a weapon, you’re more than likely already dead. You have to be meticulous, patient and constantly thinking – a moment’s lapse will see you killed, and believe me, this is unforgiving to a fault. But if you just want to be given a sword and then smash away at one button, you’ll hate this from the outset. It does get easier the more you play, and it’s certainly not unlearnable. This isn’t helped by the fact the combat system itself is bizarrely complicated. It expects you to use your own intuition to figure it out, and that’s as refreshing as it is frustrating.
Within the first few minutes you’re asked to engage in combat, but you’re never really told how to do that properly until after the fact. In fact, Kingdom: Come Deliverance almost goes too far the other way. Too many games these days are keen to treat the player like an idiot, hamfisting tutorials in a way that feels almost patronising. Order Kingdom Come Deliverance from Amazon UK Obsessed with re-creating the 15th century as realistically possible, there’s no pizazz no sense of wonder no mucking around. Manifesting itself in both positive and negative ways, Warhorse Studios’ massive open world RPG is unlike any other game of its ilk simply because of how understated it is. Kingdom: Come Deliverance has been in development since 2009 and it shows.
Heart protection novel.Available on PS4 (version tested), Xbox One and PC