Despite medieval times being a stable aesthetic theme of fantasy RPGs, surprisingly few RPGs are set in the actual historical era. Kingdom Come is a game, that remedies that in a big way, setting you in the shoes of Henry, a simple son of a blacksmith, who gets swept up in events shaking the kingdom after his home town of Skalitz gets ransacked by Cuman warriors.
The day of the attack begins like any other: Henry's father asks him to take care of all kinds of small tasks around the town. This is the tutorial section, where you learn the ropes and in which you really, really have to pay attention, especially how combat works.
Things turn worse just about when Henry is helping his father to build a brand new sword for Sir Radzig Kobyla when the Cuman raiders attack. Henry witnesses how his parents are killed and then he escapes to a near town of Talmberg to warn them of the enemy's presence. Later that evening, Kobyla leads the survivors to Rattay, where Henry steps to the service of the local lord. And from there, after a failed attempt at burying his parents, begins Henry's own small part in the unrolling events.
To get this out of the way, I love the setting of Kingdom Come. Deliverance. It takes place in the 15th century, in the area of the Kingdom of Bohemia which is now the Chez republic. Many of the people you meet are real historical figures and the political intrigue bubbling in between the local lords is based on real history. The world, the countryside and the villages and towns, are immaculately created and detailed as are the people and their clothes. In a word, you get to experience a nicely done portrayal of the medieval life of the peasants, lords and ladies alike. The story itself is decent, but the real meat of the game is on the world and what you can do in it.
After the mandatory tutorial, you are very free to roam the open map as much as you want, looking for things to do and ways to improve your skills. While doing combat increases your strength and other stats, practising armed combat with a trainer is a sensible idea from the get-go, as the combat system is NOT easy. Instead of being a simple button smasher, you need to pay attention to the direction and distance during the attack. I do have to admit, I dislike the system quite a bit and it does remind me a bit of the older game, Die By The Sword, which attempted a bit of cumbersome sword fighting mechanics. While the combat isn't as bad here, it is, in the end, easier to seek out a mod that decreases the combat difficulty.
Another option is to just become good with a bow and arrows. Even on the lower levels, a solid bow and good arrows can get you out from scrap, but that said, it is generally smarter to try and get in 1 to 1 combat situations, as usually getting surrounded means quick death. You also need to keep tabs on Henry's stamina, as you can't use any of the weapons, even bows, willy nilly. Attacks drain your strength fast, so you do need to disengage quite often.
As Kingdom Come is set in a historical real-world setting, there's no magic at all. Unless you count alchemy as such. Through alchemy, you can create some healing potions as well as things that might help you see better in dark, but this isn't a kind of an RPG, where you can just chug one potion after another in order to keep in fighting condition. You might actually get several hours in the game before you even get your hands on the first alchemical potions and after that, making them isn't a quick task. It takes time before you can quickly autobrew anything.
Depending on how you view things, this is either an annoying or interesting feature: people care how you look and react differently to you based on your cleanliness. If you come back to the civilization after a hard fight, all bloodied up, people will notice and comment about it. If your clothes are in tatters and you've been rolling in mud, people will notice. If you haven't bathed in a while and smell rotting fish, people notice. It all has an effect on how they perceive you and for example, the merchants might give you better deals, if you look more respectable. So, washing up, either on water trows or bathhouses as well as using tailors services is important. Just like taking your gear to a smithy or armourer from time to time.
Besides cleanliness, there are other survival mechanics present as well. You need to sleep and eat to keep your strength, but you do have to be wary of not eating too much or not overindulging in alcohol. These aren't the strictest possible survival mechanics, so I didn't mind them, as they don't really feel overbearing like they do in some other games.
Like I mentioned previously, the skills, be them combat or other skills, are improved by practising them. If you want to be a better alchemist, you need to practice alchemy. The same goes with weapons. Henry can get proficient in different weapons, like swords or maces, so depending on your preferences, you can either specialize on one type or all of them At certain intervals, you get additional perk points, which can be used to unlock additional features within the learned skill, like new attack movies with a specific weapon. There are teachers scattered all over the realm, who can give you additional pointers if you have the coin for it, but they aren't a skill fast-forward option, as they can be used only when you reach a specific skill level and only once at that. What this means is, that you still need to practice in order to be good.
Now, one of my biggest issues with Kingdom Come really stems from how the combat works. It's most likely possible to become very proficient with the combat system and how it works, the problem is, it's a one of a kind system, so you can't really draw from any other game in terms of how it works and the way it works I find cumbersome more than fun and enticing. It's a laborious mechanic which requires you to spend hours on end to enhance your skills, which becomes boring quite fast. With a trainer and their wooden weapons, it's just a tedious task of seemingly endless repetition, which it would be in real life as well. Fighting real enemies turns lethal quite fast, but you can't spam this with a save/load cycle, as the way that works is limited as well. Of course, if this is something you happen to enjoy, the endless practice and mastering the skill, then this is just the system for you. It's not, however, a system for me.
Granted, you can get quite afar with a character that isn't really a good fighter, but you do get in skirmishes that require at least some amount of fighting prowess. The best option really is to install a mod that makes the combat less tiresome. That's what I did and I'm not ashamed of admitting it.
I mentioned the saving. That's my second biggest problem. See, saving works generally by sleeping on beds or when you quit the game, which allows you to save. To mitigate it a bit, you can save with Saviour Schnapps which allows saving anywhere as long as you have them in your inventory. But to get them, you need to either buy them or brew them in an alchemist lab. It's, again, just simpler to install a mod, that removes the save limitations.
Beyond game design choices, I do have to mention the existence of some bugs, that still haven't been patched out. At times, the game can crash without any reason and some quests are bugged so, that it's hard to complete them if you don't know exactly what you are doing, like going somewhere at the exact right time. These can be really annoying, as there's no way for you to know what caused the crash in the first place.
Annoyances aside, I do like Kingdom Come. If you like medieval fiction lined with real history, there aren't that many games to choose from and luckily enough Kingdom Come is a well-done game in most aspects. It just needs some tinkering to be really good, at least as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't mind if Warhorse were to release another game and make a proper series out of Kingdom Come.
For those willing to give a go in adventuring medieval times, you can get Kingdom Come: Deliverance from GOG and Steam. It's also available for consoles, but I do feel PC is the best way to go, especially because of the modding possibilities.
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