[Review] Kingdom Come: Deliverance

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Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a video game belonging to the role-playing genre developed by the Warhorse Studios company and published by Deep Silver for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It takes place in the medieval kingdom of Bohemia, an Imperial State of the Holy Roman Empire. Romano, with a focus on historically accurate content, was released around the world on February 13, 2018.

The story takes place during a war in Bohemia in the year 1403. Under the orders of the Hungarian king Segismundo, the Cuman mercenaries attack the mining village of Skalitz, an important source of silver. One of the survivors of that massacre is Henry, the son of a blacksmith. Forsaken and vengeful, Henry joins the service of Mr. Radzig Kobyla, who leads a resistance movement against the invasion of Segismundo. While Henry seeks justice for his murdered family, he engages in an effort to restore the legitimate king of Bohemia and the half brother of Sigismund, Wenceslaus IV, to the throne. The game features ramified mission lines and an open world, an environment that encourages immersion in the game and includes weapons, clothing, combat techniques and architecture from the early 15th century, recreated with the help of architects and historians.

Game mode

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a role-playing video game set in an open world and played from a first-person perspective that uses a classless RPG system, which allows the player to customize their abilities to take on roles as a warrior, bard, thief or its hybrids. The skills and statistics grow according to what the player does and says through branched dialogue trees. During conversations, the time it takes a player to make a decision is limited and will have an effect on their relationships with others. The reputation is based on the choices of the players and, therefore, can have consequences.

The bodies and faces of the characters are created through the combination of multiple individual pieces with final touches. The dress system has 16 spaces and items for items in many areas of the body that can be accommodated, for example, a knight in heavy armor can use a gambeson on the upper body, followed by mesh and plate armor, with a tabard or surplice on top, for a total of four garments in the chest slots. Each type of clothing provides different levels of protection against different types of weapons. Clothes also wear out progressively, get dirty or break, which affects the appearance of the character. The player can use a variety of weapons including swords, knives, axes, hammers or bows.Horses appear to a large extent in the game, and are designed to act with their own artificial intelligence while they are under player control, moving or jumping to avoid small obstacles or dangers. The player can also fight on horseback and use his steed to carry items if he needs additional space in the inventory, but the war horses are also competent fighters with their own artificial intelligence. The steeds come with five slots for armor and accessories.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance also presents a system of needs that requires the player to sleep and eat to stay healthy. Equipment and clothing also degrade and require repair. Food products and other perishable items will spoil over time. The game uses skills-based mini-games / statistics for many of these tasks, which include repairing armor and garments, as well as collecting new items by choosing locks or pockets, distilling alcohol or creating medications. The game uses long and short range weapons in combat that is based on a physics system that uses inverse kinematics to determine the reactions of both fighters according to the speed and weight of a blow. This system aims to add more variety and realism to combat, along with a variety of basic combat moves and combination moves, some of which can be unlocked by skill points. Different weapons have different characteristics that make them useful for different purposes, for example, a sword is a quick weapon to hit and stop, but it is not very effective against heavy armor.

The missions are intended to be non-linear, with multiple ways of completing objectives to allow multiple types of characters to be viable. The plot presents some large-scale events such as sieges to castles and great battles. Each non-player character (NPC) has its daily routine, and each routine can be affected by the player.The characters can react to all the actions of the players and adjust their routines to them.The NPCs will report crimes to the authorities, who will punish the player accordingly, either with a fine, time in jail or subjecting them to actions or torturing. Crime will affect the economy and people will become suspicious or aggressive after unresolved crimes.

Synopsis

Kingdom Come: The liberation takes place at the beginning of the XV century, in the Kingdom of Bohemia, part of the Lands of the Crown of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire in what is now the Czech Republic. The accessible area of the game is located in the region between Sázava and Rataje nad Sázavou.1 Other settlements and villages in the real world game include Stříbrná Skalice, Světlá nad Sázavou, Ledečko, Sázava Monastery, Samopše, Úžice and Nový Dvůr.

Before the events of the game, the Kingdom of Bohemia was ruled by Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, and experienced a golden age under his reign. However, after the death of Charles, his son, Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, took the throne instead of his half-brother, Sigismund, king of Hungary and Croatia. WenceslaO would prove to be an idle and useless ruler for the bohemian nobility who could not control it. In a risky move, with the help of Bohemian nobles, Segismundo kidnaps and dethroned Wenceslao and begins a brutal campaign to capture the lands of Bohemia.

In the silver mining town of Skalitz, the young Henry is a simple peasant, who lives under his mother and his blacksmith father, Martin. After finishing some errands for his father, Henry joins him to complete a magnificent sword entrusted to the squire of King Wenceslas, Sir Radzig Kobyla. While Henry wants to explore and see life outside the village, Martin insists that a quieter life is much safer than that of an adventurer. Immediately afterwards, an army of Cuman soldiers under Sigismund of Luxembourg controls the attack and attacks Skalitz, killing all those who do not flee. Henry grabs the sword and runs, but then returns for his mother and father, and witnesses his murder under Sigismund's sidekick, Sir Markvart von Aulitz. Henry flees to the safety of the castle, but it is too late and he is forced to go to the nearest castle in Talmberg.

Hardly escaping with life, Henry arrives at Talmberg and warns his lord, Sir Divish, and his friend, Sir Hanush of Leipa, of the attack on Skalitz. Sir Divish and Hanush take pity on Henry after his ordeal, and are later greeted by the survivors of Skalitz, led by Sir Radzig, who have slipped away during a storm. Henry is devastated by the fact that his parents have not been properly buried, and escapes from Talmberg against the orders of Sir Divish back to Skalitz. Henry swears revenge on the man who murdered his parents, but is immediately outnumbered and defeated by a band of bandits and their leader, who also carries the sword in charge. Henry is rescued by another girl from Skalitz, Theresa, and Captain Robard from Talmberg, who ends up burying Henry's parents and transporting him safely to the town of Rattay.

Trying to recover his father's sword and avenge the death of his parents, Henry hopes to join the envoy of Sir Radzig to help in the battle against the army of Sigismund. Although the tradition of servitude initially keeps Henry as a simple peasant, he proves to be a brave and obedient soldier for Radzig. After saving and befriending the evil nephew and heir of Sir Hanush, Lord Hans Capon, of a group of bandits, Henry is accepted in the envoy of Sir Radzig. Investigate the bandits and their raids on local farms, before finally discovering a hidden camp that has been established within a forgotten and forested castle. After warning Sir Radzig of the camp, they prepare a raid to destroy the bandit and the Cuman hive. After struggling to enter, Henry confronts the sword thief and bandit leader, Runt. However, after being defeated, Runt resigns himself to his fate and neither reveals his true leader nor the location of the sword before dying.

The hybrid group of cumans and bandits leads the Lords to believe that someone has been secretly trying to raise an insurgency from within the kingdom, and Henry tries to investigate further to discover the culprit. A clue is provided by a clue found in the bandits' hiding place; a fake groschen chest that has been made inside the kingdom somewhere. Henry finds and captures the manufacturer of the fakes and then finds a clue about the mysterious group. Henry tries to insert himself into their ranks, but the bandits ask him to kill a former member of the group that betrayed them. To find the target, Henry secretly joins a monastery of Christian monks where the man hides, and attracts him over time. Henry finally discovers and infiltrates the bandits' fortress, finding a massive hidden army composed of Czech mercenary soldiers.

In the fortress, Henry meets Istvan Toth, a Hungarian gentleman who had been visiting the Lords earlier in the game. Toth remembers Henry and reveals that he also has his father's sword. Before he can react, Henry is unconscious and captured. After being beaten for hours, Henry is again visited by Toth, who reveals his plan; Use the fake groschen to arm an army of local mercenaries under the Lords' radar, then loot and capture the land without much resistance. With their alliance with the crusade of Sigismund, Toth would be granted captured bohemian lands once Sigismund was king. He goes on to reveal also that Henry is actually the bastard son of Sir Radzig himself, and that he will keep Henry alive to negotiate a rescue.

With the help of a former Skalitz villager, Zbyshek, Henry escapes from the fortress and warns the Lords of Toth's betrayal. Radzig recognizes Henry as his son as well, but remains focused on the growing situation. After recruiting Sir Divish, the Lords descend to the fortress at night and massacre the massed bandits. Although they are successful, they realize that Toth has fled the camp and plans to infiltrate Talmberg Castle without protection. Although they return to Talmberg as quickly as possible, Toth advances to the castle and has the wife of Sir Divish, Stephanie, and a captured Sir Radzig as hostages. With no other options, the Lords prepare for a siege in Talmberg.

Sir Divish orders the construction of a catapult in order to break through the walls of the castle, and helps Henry in the process by recruiting the help of eccentric military engineer, Konrad Kyeser. Releasing him of his old duties in the monastery, Kyeser directs the construction of the trebuchet, which allows the beginning of the siege. Eventually, the destruction of the castle rake allows the door to open, and the Lords begin to retake Talmberg and kill the rest of Istvan's soldiers. Although they have it cornered, Sir Hanush carries out an agreement to ensure the safe exit of Istvan and the exile of Bohemia in exchange for Lady Stephanie. However, Istvan leaves with Radzig just in case, agreeing to leave him in Skalitz.

Henry and Lord Capon go to find Radzig. Meeting him at the edges of burnt Skalitz, Henry and Radzig reflect on the outcome of the situation. Henry is discouraged by the loss of his father's sword and by the escape of Istvan and von Aulitz from justice, although Radzig weighs that the lives saved in the end were due to honor his nobility and moral principles. They return to Talmberg, to assume their next duties in the restoration of the kingdom.

In a dream, Henry is visited by his father Martin, who praises Henry for his courage and resilience. He sees both of them, his father and his mother disappear in the light and he wakes up, dressed in noble clothes, with his new condition of son of a man.

The gentlemen receive a visit from Jobst, the Margrave of Moravia and the cousin of King Wenceslaus. Together they discuss the state of Bohemia; Wenceslaus is held captive in Vienna, while Sigismund continues to plunder the kingdom. However, his homeland of Hungary has rebelled against him, and is vulnerable by choosing between staying to capture the Bohemian Crown, or returning home to ensure his rule in his own domain. Jobst proposes a plan to establish a strategic alliance with the followers of Segismundo, who are disconcerted by the uprising and fear their defeat, to end the war once and for all. Although the Lords are not sure of the plan, they agreed to rescue and restore Wenceslao to the throne and end the Segismundo raid peacefully.

In a final scene, Henry and Lord Capon leave on a trip to visit one of Segismundo's allies, Otto von Bergow, on his estate at Castle Trosky. Henry says that his personal quest is still to find von Aulitz and retrieve his father's sword.

Developing

The project that would become Kingdom Come: Deliverance began with a release of Daniel Vávra, who had left 2K Czech in 2009. With a small team he started looking for investors for the project. The launch of Vávra brought Martin Klíma, founder of Altar Games, but the launches to the main investors in the Czech Republic did not succeed. The team was preparing to abandon the project when a successful launch to a private investor, Czech billionaire Zdeněk Bakala, secured funds to develop a prototype of the game. Warhorse Studios was founded on July 21, 2011.

Warhorse Studios announced for the first time that they were working on an "unplanned RPG" on February 9, 2012, after having successfully licensed CryEngine 3. On this date, after seventeen months working on the prototype, Warhorse began a tour launching the prototype to several international investors. The project did not generate the hype that they expected and with dwindling resources, little progress had been made towards an investment.

On January 22, 2014, Warhorse Studios launched a crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter with the goal of generating £ 300,000, ten percent of the $ 5,000,000 budget, to demonstrate to the investor that there is an audience and desire for their game. On February 20, 2014, the fund was completed, raising a total of £ 1,106,371.10 Even after the end of the Kickstarter campaign, the crowd funding continued through the studios website. On October 1, 2014, Daniel Vávra had announced through a YouTube video that the game had raised US $ 2,002,547 from a total of 38,784 sponsors. The alpha access public release date was October 22, 2014. The beta version was released for sponsors on March 3, 2015. On September 29, 2016, it was announced that Warhorse Studios had signed an agreement with the division of publication of Deep Metal games by Koch Media. to publish the versions of the console, as well as the PC version The Adaptive Music soundtrack of the game was composed by Jan Valta and Adam Sporka, and their parts were recorded with a symphony orchestra at Rudolfinum.

The game was released around the world on February 13, 2018. A one-day patch was released with an extensive update of the game's code and gameplay.

In the Forbes magazine in the Czech Republic, Daniel Vávra's interview indicated that the game cost them 750 million crowns, approximately $ 36.5 million, including marketing costs.

Reception

Kingdom Come: Deliverance received "generally favorable" criticism from critics for the PC version, while versions of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One received "mixed or average" reviews, according to Metacritic, a review page.

EGM criticized the game's difficult-to-use save system, the long loading times and the frequency of software errors in the game, complaining that they had logged 30 hours of play in real time, but had only advanced the game around 19 hours because of this, concluding "What could have been an intriguing, unique, if somewhat disappointing, RPG is completely paralyzed by a terrible save system and bugs that break the games." Game Informer also criticized the save and errors system of software, concluding that "if the historical configuration and the focus on realism appeal to you, then the deep game systems and the methodical rhythm are worth learning ... however, the innumerable technical problems Kingdom come requires you to suffer .. Until the developer develops an integral balm of patches and polish, you should avoid Henry's adventure like the plague. "

Game Revolution was more positive with the experience, he described the game as "if you stripped Skyrim of the fantastic creatures and the magic", and concluded that "it was an experience good enough to justify the persistence of the errors and faults of the game" GameSpot identified the attention of the game with small details as a positive and negative point in the game, praising the "incredible attention to historical detail" and "extensive and realistic searches", but criticizing "too rigorous central mechanics can enter the way of your enjoyment. "Digitally Downloaded appreciated the attention of the game in detail, but criticized the" youthful "tone of the game in some of its features, such as the" masculine scent "as a reinforcement of statistics, receiving an increase in statistics male alpha visiting a brothel, or needing to consume alcoholic beverages to save progress.

Points of sale like Kotaku noticed that there seemed to be more bugs and software errors in the Xbox version of the game, and that the update patches were solving fewer errors than in other platforms.

Controversies

Several progressive publications and websites accused the developers of racism for not portraying people of color in the game, while the developers claim that people of color did not inhabit the Bohemia of the early fifteenth century. The progressive publications also reproached the opinions held by the director of the game, Daniel Vávra, who has been a critic of what he believes is a progressive bias in videogame journalism. Vávra associates his views on videogame journalism with Gamergate, Daniel Vávra and Martin Klima responded to the accusations with an explanation, with Vávra apologizing for offending with his past statements. Heavy.com called Vávra's response to these accusations as "suspicious", since it was published just one month before the game's release.

The European media responded to some aspects of this criticism. To evaluate the claim that non-white people did not live in fifteenth-century Bohemia, the German magazine M! Games asked the history institute of the RWTH Aachen University, which referred to Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. According to them, there were at most the Turkish peoples, such as the Cumans (who appear in the game as enemies), but otherwise the presence of non-whites is "questionable." Some Czech media sources defended the game against the accusation . A commentator in the newspaper Lidové noviny called these accusations "out of place" and claimed that most Europeans would reply that there are very few, if any, blacks in central Bohemia at the beginning of the 15th century.

Reid McCarter, a writer of Unwinnable, accused the game for its xenophobia. He felt that the Cumans and the Hungarians were unfairly portrayed as cruel invaders, whereas the Czechs were only shown a positive image.Kat Bailey of USgamer lamented the devotion of the game to "lords, kings and great events" on behalf of the historical accuracy, postulating that "there is no place for women in the history of Kingdom Come".

Sales

On the day of the release, the game topped the list of Steam's top sellers, Game Director Daniel Vávra said the game sold 500,000 copies during its first two days, 38 39 of which 300,000 were on Steam. Two weeks after the launch, the game sold more than one million copies in all platforms.

Acknowledgments

Before the launch, the game was nominated in the 2017 Game Critics Awards and Gamescom events for the "Best RPG", winning the "Best PC Game" award in the latter.