Jumping into the second part of a game series can be an overwhelming proposition. For films or even books it’s fairly simple to go back and rewatch or re-read the earlier parts but in gaming it’s completely different. You can be looking at 40+ hours of gameplay and if it’s a narrative game you may end up with a different story to the one you originally had. The developer of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is well aware of this issue and is taking some creative measures to make sure fans both new and old are catered for in this hefty sequel.
In Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 you’re back playing as young Henry, on the hunt for vengeance in a quest that has stretched beyond the original highly acclaimed RPG. Together these two games form one continuing story about one character as he learns and grows into the person he’s capable of being. One of the challenges developer Warhorse Studios is facing revolves around that continuing narrative, getting new players up to speed while recognizing the decisions made by series veterans. Recently I was able to sit down with Lead Designer Prokop Jirsa and PR Manager Tobias Stolz-Zwilling to dig into how Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 will account for these two different types of players.
“We didn’t want to do something similar to Dragon Age 2 or Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire where at the beginning of the game you’re asked what you did in the previous game,” Jirsa tells me. “You have this big part of the initial experience where you’re trying to weave together what you actually did, and we didn’t want to do this. Instead throughout the game you’ll have choices in dialog where you’ll say what you did in the previous game. It’ll feel natural, it won’t feel like you’re setting this RPG background.”
The reality of the game’s medieval world plays into this, after all you could easily outrun your reputation in older times. “By the end of Kingdom Come Deliverance Henry has become somebody in the rural region he’s from but it’s not a very important part of Bohemia,” Jirsa says. “So in Kuttenberg people will naturally ask about you. You’re not from this region so what did you do in that other area? Who are you? What have you done? And we’ll count your answers as your background. Some things are canonical but you’ll get to pick lots of options.”
This all helps flesh out Henry’s background and inform you of decisions made in the previous game in a way that shouldn’t prove intrusive if you haven’t played the first entry. It also promises to avoid having you sit in front of a spreadsheet trying to remember options chosen several years ago, something very useful given there will be six years between games.
For those entirely new to the series, Warhorse Studios is also looking at getting essential information to new players without making the game annoying to those who’ve spent lots of time in Kingdom Come Deliverance.
“The entire game was written in a way so you won’t feel lost,” Stolz-Zwilling explains. “We want to make sure that if you’ve never even heard of the first game, you’ll be able to pick up and play straight away. You will know who you are, where to do, and what you’re doing, but we’ll also add flashbacks that will slowly but steadily get you up to speed. But we will only tell you the absolute necessary bare minimum information you need to know. If you’ve played the first game you will have a more rounded experience, we have dialog that will give necessary explanations to new players but we don’t want to bore our original fans.”
“You won’t have to wait for the lore exposition and everything,” Jirsa laughs. “But gradually throughout the whole thing you will learn, sometimes in cutscenes, sometimes in dialogue, sometimes in open world remarks, you’ll relearn a lot about what was previously true and what is true once again. The important thing is the gradual learning, we don’t want to front load the whole thing for you at the beginning.”
For someone who sat in front of the Dragon Age Keep app for several hours desperately trying to recall the minutiae of decisions I made a long time ago, this naturalistic approach to incorporating past decisions while getting me essential information sounds like a step in the right direction. If nothing else, if it means I won’t have to use my badly broken memory to recall stuff I did in a previous game, I’m all for it.
There’s no launch date for Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 just yet other than 2024 but you can head over to the Steam page to add it to your wishlist in anticipation.
In the meantime, why not check out our guide to the best medieval games you can play, as well as the best open-world games guide for your next gaming obsession.
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