Opinion: Why Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 May Not Be Liked — An Alternative Look at One of the Coolest Games of 2025

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 almost immediately after its release received universal love and a huge amount of trust from players. The novelty was forgiven for a lot, sometimes even too much. Most truly competent journalists also agreed that we have one of the main contenders for the title of Game of the Year before us. But what if I tell you that it's perfectly normal not to like this game? What if Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a project not designed for as wide an audience as is being pushed on gamers from every corner? We decided to prepare this article-top with an alternative view on Daniel Vávra's magnum opus and reflect on the shortcomings of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, especially since there are indeed plenty of them.

Let's start with the most obvious — the story. All these numerous lords, King Sigismunds, and other historical features can justifiably be off-putting. The creators decided to make a realistic game about Bohemia, which means they had to include national color. Naturally, understanding the plot will require a certain level of historical preparation (at least minimal), as well as memorizing numerous names, titles, and events.

Moreover, there is no magic in the world of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, so there will be no epic battles with dragons either. The most you'll get is a wall-to-wall battle or castle sieges, which are quite sluggish, by the way. People in armor simply cannot move as quickly as in usual fantasy. Everything that happens in the story could easily have happened in real life. For many, this may be a downside and seem boring.

Realism is the central feature of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. It's both an advantage and a disadvantage of the project. No one is trying to save your time or make the task easier. Most of the time, those around you don't care about your problems at all.

The more often you do something, the more experienced the main character becomes in it. The conclusion is obvious. Want to level up in alchemy or archery? Go ahead and spend a couple of hours of real time shooting at targets or brewing potions from fly agarics and calendula. And during this time, absolutely nothing will happen. This slow realistic pace will infuriate many gamers who have become accustomed in recent years to playing only endless "souls" games with 300 button presses per second.

The visuals in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 are decent, but nothing more. The game is well-optimized on various platforms, but you won't find trendy features here even with the most powerful PC or console. While forests and fields look fantastic from afar, upon closer inspection all the grass and flowers turn out to be flat dummies, many NPC faces repeat in the good old tradition, and various items and objects, including the main character, frequently get stuck in textures.

Everything related to the management of the main character, his items, and quests looks very cool but is too cumbersome. You'll have to switch constantly, occasionally forgetting which button moves the next submenu. All of this seems wild and therefore inconvenient in an era of all-encompassing comfort and simplification. Moreover, in the interface, you'll have to gather not one, but three outfits for different occasions, meaning analyzing three different groups of characteristics.

The combat was intimidating even in the first part, and although it was slightly simplified for the sequel, it's still hard to call the system user-friendly. It's not enough just to pick up a cool sword; you need to actually train with it. Learn combos, special moves, and other tricks. Sharpen it, finally. If you want to switch from a sword to a mace or a bow, you have to start all over again.

And if you're fighting more than one opponent, prepare for a level of tension rarely found in modern projects. You'll have to figure things out for a long time and persistently, and it all looks functional rather than spectacular. The main character learns to win effectively, not beautifully.

The dialog system in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is quite advanced but not the most conventional. You have a lot of response variations, but it's not enough to just choose the highest characteristic. The success of a particular response is influenced by your appearance, the cleanliness of your clothes and the main character, how he smells, and what he has done before. Plus, the situation in which everything is happening also plays a role. This means that sometimes it's extremely difficult to predict the outcome of a particular check. A true nightmare for the modern gamer.

It's hard to believe, but in a 2025 game, there are a huge number of dialogs, both for important reasons and without. Most of them are not worth skipping because characters can share significant information that won't be on the map. So you really have to keep in mind the sparse explanations of a peasant and navigate by them.

Many have already mentioned this, but the save system in the game is truly hardcore. You can save your progress through a specific type of alcohol (schnapps), which you still need to find or create. No booze? You can only save by exiting to the menu. Is it annoying? Very often.

Despite good optimization, bugs are present in the game. Most of them are minor, but there are some that block progress until a reload. Several times I just couldn't understand whether an animation wasn't playing or if I made a mistake somewhere. Such moments stretch an already lengthy playthrough.

Despite the overall maturity and seriousness of the project, some aspects are bashfully ignored. For example, throughout the game, there isn't a single truly normal intimate scene, even though the main character builds relationships.

Blood appears abundantly on faces, but there's no dismemberment at all, and you can't break limbs in fistfights. This is, of course, a matter of taste, but it's still a bit disappointing.

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In conclusion, it becomes clear that most of the strengths of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 are also its weaknesses. Much depends on your personal attitude and whether you can immerse yourself in the atmosphere. The high ratings are mostly justified, but it's important not to forget the considerable number of controversial decisions and shortcomings. If they are too significant for you, well, it might be worth finding something else.