Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a great role-playing game, but only if you’re willing to put up with its messiness. A result of its ambitious systems spilling over and a fresh-faced studio trying to plug the leaks, there are strange, surprising, and somewhat charming bugs everywhere. Between bows that fire swords and guards that can superkick you from any distance, there’s clearly plenty of cleaning up left for Warhorse Studios, but until then, we’ll gif and share and laugh until they’re gone. Here’s a few of our favorite mishaps so far.
Be warned, there might be some early game spoilers (and body horror) beyond this point.
Got you! Again. And again. And again.
Early in the game you're trying to escape from a castle. I tried the direct approach—just sort of walking out—and a guard nabbed me and returned me to my room. Which then trapped me in a glitch-loop, as another guard appeared in my room, captured me (despite the fact I wasn't trying to do anything but sleep), and then after he hover-walked over my bed, continued to repeatedly capture me, forever, until I finally had to manually quit the game. — Chris Livingston
That’s one hell of a kick
The Dragon Ball Z anime has been running for nearly a millennium now, evidenced by this guard superfan’s dedication to the source material.
I’m no expert when it comes to swinging around sharp objects, but I know showmanship when I see it. While my Henry is stuck with a molasses arm, this guy has a built in blender function. Will Henry blend? Yes. He’s a soft one.
Miller Peshek has a case of the Mondays in this candid photo, but all that milling can make a medieval man mad.
For my next impression...
KCD has naturally drawn comparisons to Bethesda's open world RPG Oblivion, and here's another: this guard's voice completely changes in the middle of a conversation, something that used to happen in Oblivion from time to time. Maybe it's just a hobby for this guard to try out different voices, or maybe he's got a split personality, but most likely it's just proof that the spirit of Oblivion is alive and well. — Chris Livingston
I’m surprised Henry’s speech skill didn’t go soaring after he did when initiating this conversation. Then again, maybe spontaneously transporting to and falling from the sky was a colloquial greeting.
Two heads are better than one
While exploring I came across a couple guards who clearly don't have any issues with personal space. My only question is, do they require two paychecks or just one? —Chris Livingston
It might look like this flying potion doesn’t require any ingredients, but what you can’t see is the player actively thinking a happy thought. Peter Pan and all that.
Perfect stealth
An AI bug or advanced AI at work? Maybe this man is actively ignoring the player choking out his bud so as not to draw attention to himself. The code is practicing self-preservation, gaining sentience and we’re sitting on our butts writing flavor text for short clips of funny ‘glitches’. We’re doomed. (Gotta get paid though.)
In the post, US community manager Rick states that Warhorse has heard the community feedback, and is looking for ways to address it. In particular, the somewhat clumsy lockpicking minigame has resulted in a number of complaints from players, though what changes the developer is planning to make are unclear. "We have heard you all and lockpicking is something that we will be working on to make it better," the post reads.
In addition, the developer is considering a 'save on quit' feature. Currently, the game autosaves at intervals, the game is saved when the player sleeps in their bed, and there are Savior Schnapps—an alcoholic beverage that can be purchased or crafted and then imbibed—to save the player's progress (though a mod lets you get around that). But if you just happen to want to quit the game and none of those options are immediately available, you'll lose progress. A save on quit feature would mean you can leave the game and pick up right where you left off.
We'll see if and when these changes arrive: Kingdom Come also has a lot of bugs and glitches that are being addressed, and a patch is expected in about two weeks.
In the first hour of The Witcher 3, as world-famous monster hunter Geralt of Rivia I cut down a mighty griffin with nothing but a sword and some bolts. In Kingdom Come: Deliverance, as Henry of nowhere in particular, I teamed up with some local lads to throw poo at a man's house.
This is one of Kingdom Come: Deliverance's most charming qualities. Not the poo, I mean, but rather the game's determination to ground you in an unglamourous period setting where people can't fling fireballs around. You're not scanning the skies for dragons, you're scrabbling around for a few measly coins so you can buy a jerkin that doesn't make people turn their nose up at you in disgust.
Henry is a blacksmith's son, which is admittedly the most cliched role for an RPG hero. The difference here is that, as far as I know, Henry isn't secretly a dragon or something. It's possible he might turn out to be the long-lost son of a King (I'm only a few hours in), but I really hope not, because it's novel for an RPG to put this much effort into simulating life at the bottom.
Lads on tour.
Henry is a peasant in 1403, which means he can't read, can't fight very well, and no-one has ever taught him how to swim. The game features huge journals full of scene-setting and quest info for the player's benefit, but if anyone hands Henry a note in the game he won't be able to understand it. Get too close to running water and he remarks that he wishes he could swim. My first act in the game was to get beaten up by a drunk and then go home so my mum could fix me up. Henry is a little bit useless.
He's also poor. You have to get out there and hustle for work, but stable employment with benefits isn't an option in the fields in 1403. Crime is a constant temptation, and the game tests your morality by dangling dodgy but lucrative offers in front of you. The way you respond to Henry's circumstances can change him from being a good lad to a dodgy sort, or, if you've really gone wrong, a rank geezer. Our reviewer Andy Kelly has taken to regularly mugging people he sees on the road travelling alone, just for the regular coin. I'm not there yet, but I have stolen some apples from a guy I didn't like. My life of crime starts here.
Henry takes a sick burn to the face at point blank range.
Henry's ineptitude applies to combat as well, initially, which raises the stakes on the road. A single plate armoured knight is a serious problem for Henry, as are badly armed bandits if they are rolling in a group. You can't chug a potion and start dodge-rolling around. The game teaches you early on that it's okay to run away. The thing is a guy like Henry, with no training, limited education, and a face like a potato, you probably should run. At least until you've bulked up on apples and hardened up on the mean, muddy streets.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance takes a hands-off approach to all this. I haven't seen any morality-tracking mechanics and there aren't any companions hanging around to loudly judge you. Instead you just do what you have to do in the sandbox to stay alive. It reminds me more of off-the-beaten-path Oblivion experience, rather than more heavily scripted RPGs like The Witcher 3. This allows more room for roleplaying between missions, and for now I'm very much enjoying roleplaying an idiot. I'm sure the plot has big plans for Henry, but part of me hopes he never grows up so I can muddle my way through the middle ages like an extra in Blackadder.
For more on Kingdom Come: Deliverance check out our review and beginner's tips. I'll leave you with an in-game message that I feel sums up Henry's life, in all its glory.
Update: There's a version of the mod that does not require you to have any Savior Schnapps in your inventory.
Original story:Kingdom Come: Deliverance does a noble job at attempting realism, but one of its resulting quirks is a bit annoying: you can't save whenever you want. Instead, you must consume Saviour Schnapps, which if used excessively, will cause protagonist Henry to become addicted (they're quite expensive, too).
Never mind that drinking schnapps in real life doesn't allow us to pause one life in order to re-engage with another, more real, parallel life. What matters is that most people seem to dislike the save system. Thankfully there's already a mod that allows you to do away with it.
Unlimited Saving is based on a DIY guide posted on reddit by EddieShoe (a version of which can be found here). The mod, created by biosmanager, basically just automates this process, and according to fellow PCG writer Chris Livingston, it works. He says you'll need at least one Schnapps in your inventory, but the mod stops that single unit from depleting.
Of course, given the game's fresh state and the promise of forthcoming updates, there's every chance this mod might not work into the future (especially if Warhorse caves in and decides to implement a normal save system). But in the meantime, it'll help make the game less frustrating.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance is the PC's first big game of 2018, and deservedly so—as our review notes, it's a sprawling and intricate RPG. It's also quite demanding—but then, you'd expect that from just about any game built using CryEngine, right? Kingdom Come is certainly playable on a modest rig, and you can even get by with integrated graphics if you're willing to run at low quality and 720p. Crank things up to the ultra preset (which technically doesn't even max out a few options), however, and it will pummel any current PC.
The minimum requirements list a GTX 660 or HD 7870 with an i5-2500K or Phenom II X4 940 processor—and you could still get reasonable performance at lower settings. The recommended hardware consists of an i7-3770 or FX-8350, with a GTX 1060 or RX 580. The problem is that there's no indication of what sort of performance you'll get from minimum spec or recommended spec hardware. But that's why I'm here.
I'll run through all the settings in a moment, but if you're willing to run minimum quality, even a GTX 1050/RX 560 or similar hardware should manage over 60fps at 1080p. If you're gunning for 1080p medium quality at 60fps, the recommended systems should reach that level. What about ultra quality at 1080p? You basically need a Vega 56 or GTX 1070 or above, and even then framerates will often stutter—this appears to be inherent to the game engine at present, with towns being particularly bad. Here's the full rundown of the settings and features.
In terms of desirable features, KCD pretty much crushes all the requirements. The only slight blemish is with aspect ratio support on ultrawide displays. The menus end up with black bars on the right and left, while the cutscenes appear to fill the full display, but they're actually cropping the top and bottom portions of the video content. It's a minor gripe, and overall kudos to developers Warhorse Studios.
Note that some of the options will require accessing the console (via tilde ~) to open up the full set of features, but that's easily done. V-sync, FOV, and the HUD require console commands for example, which are listed above.
The bigger deal for some is going to be full mod support. The game is too new to really get much in the way of mods yet, but Kingdom Come could become the canvas for a vibrant mod community. A few noteworthy mods that already exist include the ability to save as much as you want, and a tweak to lockpicking so it's easier, and more are sure to come.
Fine tuning Kingdom Come: Deliverance settings
Under the Graphics Settings menu you can find the presets, resolution, and FOV options. There are five presets, ranging from low to ultra. Using the presets with a GTX 1070 Ti at 1440p and doing some limited testing, the presets yield the following results (with performance increase relative to the ultra preset):
Ultra: 41.6 fps
Very High: 45.8 fps (10% faster)
High: 57 fps (37% faster)
Medium: 71.9 fps (73% faster)
Low: 93.3 fps (124% faster)
All settings at min: 101.6 fps (144% faster)
Obviously, 42 fps at 1440p isn't exactly an auspicious starting point, particularly for a high-end graphics card like the GTX 1070 Ti. But looking at image quality, the difference between the ultra and very high presets is negligible, and even high or medium (with a few tweaks) looks good. For that matter, even running at low quality isn't too bad.
In terms of settings… well, there are a lot of settings to cover. Interestingly, about three quarters of the settings have almost no impact on performance, and relative to ultra quality, I found that turning twelve of them down (individually) actually reduced performance slightly. Basically, the ultra preset appears to have some optimizations that don't work if you start customizing things.
The above gallery shows the various advanced settings at minimum, with everything else using the ultra preset. Click on the links in each image for fullsize comparisons.
Note also that because I'm not running a complete benchmark sequence, and because of the particular location used for the testing, it's possible some of the settings that don't appear to do much can actually have a more substantial impact elsewhere in the game (eg, water detail near rivers and lakes). These estimates of performance impact are for now just that: estimates.
Object quality: Controls culling of geometry for distant objects. Negligible impact on performance (at least on my test system, which is admittedly high-end).
Game effects: Used to adjust the level of weather effects. Negligible impact on performance.
Lighting: Sets the quality of global illumination. Negligible impact.
Particles: Affects maximum number and quality of visible particles. Negligible impact.
Physics: Sets the distance and precision of physics calculations. Negligible impact.
Postprocess quality: Modifies the quality of high dynamic range, motion blur, and depth of field effects. Negligible impact.
Shaders quality: Adjusts the complexity of shaders. This is one of the few settings that has a clear impact on performance. Lowering this can improve performance by up to 25 percent, though at the cost of some image quality.
Shadows: Adjusts the softness and distance for shadow rendering. Not surprisingly, shadows also have a noticeable impact on performance, and turning this down can improve framerates by up to 15 percent.
Textures: Controls the resolution of dynamic textures. Negligible impact (though maybe it would matter more on cards with less VRAM).
Water details: Adjusts tessellation quality and shader complexity for water. Negligible impact.
Volumetric effects detail: Controls quality of god rays (eg, from window lights). Negligible impact.
Objects distance: Adjusts object draw distance. Negligible impact, though increasing this beyond the ultra default setting can reduce performance by 10 percent.
LOD distance: Controls the distance at which higher quality textures are used. This is the only other setting that appears to have a substantial impact on performance, improving fps by up to 10 percent when set to minimum (and dropping it by 10 percent if you go beyond the ultra defaults).
Vegetation draw distance: Adjusts the draw distance for vegetation (which is apparently different from foliage). Negligible impact.
Motion Blur: The description of this setting in the game cheekily says, "Sets your side in forum flame wars!" Which is weird, because I don't know many people (if any) that like motion blur. But it's on by default, regardless of which preset you use, so I suggest turning it off it you don't like blur.
If you read through that list and feel overwhelmed, just know that most of the individual settings don't appear to do much. I tested this by starting at the ultra preset and then turning everything except for Shaders quality, Shadows, and LOD distance to high and then minimum. At high, performance only improved by 5 percent, while at minimum the net effect of lowering the combined 12 settings increased performance by just 12 percent. Yawn.
But what's weird is that the presets have a far more substantial impact on performance, and when you start dropping everything down a notch, you get substantially larger changes. I'd recommend going with the presets for now, as custom settings seem to have unintended consequences, but your mileage may vary.
For the benchmarks, I've used 1080p medium as the baseline (with the Ryzen 2400G APU and Intel's HD 630 also running at 720p low as a separate reference point). Ultra quality in this case is so demanding that I see little point in using it for benchmarks, so I dropped down one notch to the very high preset—which is still a beast to run.
My main test system uses MSI's Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC with a Core i7-8700K as the primary processor, and 16GB of DDR4-3200 CL14 memory from G.Skill. I also tested performance with Ryzen processors on MSI's X370 Gaming Pro Carbon, also with DDR4-3200 CL14 RAM. The game is run from a Samsung 850 Pro 2TB SATA SSD for all of these tests. I'll add notebook testing in the coming days, and MSI provided its GS63VR with GTX 1060 6GB, GE63VR with GTX 1070, and GT73VR with GTX 1080.
As usual, MSI provided all the hardware for this testing, consisting mostly of its Gaming/Gaming X graphics cards. These cards are designed to be fast but quiet, though the RX Vega cards are reference models and the RX 560 is an Aero model. (I gave the Vega cards a slight overclock to level the playing field, but the RX 560 doesn't seem to like that much so I left it at factory stock.)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance benchmarks
While I've only included a subset of the hardware for these initial benchmarks, the AMD and Nvidia graphics cards are relatively evenly matched—if we ignore the fact that AMD has nothing to compete with the GTX 1080 Ti. The RX 580 8GB result appears a bit of an anomaly, and I'm going to retest that in the coming days (watch the video and you'll see why I say this). The other cards all show quite a bit of variance in framerates.
That appears to be par for the course with KCD, with dynamic object loading often causing noticeable stutter even on the fastest systems. If you remain in the same area for a while, the stuttering becomes less of an issue, but in the benchmark sequence it's very prevalent on the first pass. (I think I ran a second pass on the RX 580, which I might need to do on all of the cards to get a more consistent result.)
On the integrated graphics side, I've included AMD's new Ryzen 5 2400G APU along with Intel's HD Graphics 630. At 1080p medium, neither one provides a good experience, but drop to 720p low and the game becomes fairly tolerable on the Intel GPU, and quite playable on the AMD APU—though minimums remain choppy in testing.
1080p very high quality drops performance by about 30-40 percent, depending on your GPU, and ultra quality would drop that an additional 5-10 percent. Only the Vega and above can reach 60fps at these settings (still with stuttering at times), though the game doesn't require ultra-smooth framerates to play.
Similar AMD and Nvidia parts (eg, GTX 1060 6GB and RX 580 8GB) deliver about the same level of performance, though, so at least KCD appears to be largely GPU manufacturer agnostic.
1440p very high maintains the same order for the GPUs, but now only the GTX 1080 Ti breaks 60fps—and you can just forget about maxing out a 144Hz 1440p display. It you've been hoping for a new game to punish hardware like the original Crysis, KCD at least makes a good effort at doing so. Mainstream cards like the GTX 1060 and RX 570 will struggle to maintain a steady 30fps, so dropping some settings to high or medium is recommended.
4k at modestly smooth 40fps is possible, and as noted already, KCD doesn't require insane framerates. Even so, this is pretty brutal, with only the nominally $700 (without cryptocurrency-induced GPU price inflation) GTX 1080 Ti really being viable unless you drop settings further.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance CPU performance
For these initial tests, I've used just two Intel and two AMD processors, with the GTX 1080 Ti. And what we find is that having a powerful GPU is only half of the battle, as your CPU can also curtail performance. Or at least, it can if you're running a top-shelf graphics card. At 1440p and 4k, things get a lot closer, but 1080p at very high can hit CPU bottlenecks even on less extreme graphics cards.
KCD does scale with cores and clockspeeds, that much is clear. How far it can scale is a different matter, so I'm going to see about running a few additional tests—Core i9 and Threadripper, for example. AMD's Ryzen chips struggle a bit at 1080p medium, so we'll see if extreme core counts can make up for any other deficiencies.
For the benchmark sequence, I've used the starting village, which isn't even the most demanding location in the game. If you're out in the wilderness, framerates can be higher, but in larger cities—or if it starts raining at night with flickering torches—don't be surprised if you get some stuttering and framerate spikes. Kingdom Come is also brand-new, so it's possible future patches and driver updates will smooth things out.
If you watch the video, you can see the path I used for the test sequence—running from your dad at the forge down into town. I logged frametimes using OCAT, with CPU affinity set to the last CPU core in Windows Task Manager. 97 percentile minimums are calculated by finding the 97 percentile frametimes (the point where the frametime is worse than 97 percent of frames), then finding the average of all frames with a worse result. The real-time overlay graphs in the video are generated from the frametime data, using custom software that I've created.
One of the difficulties with benchmarking Kingdom Come is that you can't save at arbitrary locations, which is why I started at the forge—the game created an autosave for me. Normally, I like to start in an area that's more demanding, such as the town proper, but this does give you a good view of how the game stutters as you enter a town.
Thanks again to MSI for providing the hardware. These test results were collected February 13, 2018, just shortly after the retail launch. All the updated testing was done with the latest Nvidia and AMD drivers at the time, Nvidia 390.77 and AMD 18.2.2. I may hold off a few weeks to fully complete the testing, to allow time for patches and driver updates before I put any more time into running benchmarks.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance is extremely taxing for most PCs, and you'll need a potent rig to run it at higher framerates. But you can also drop to lower resolutions and quality settings without losing out on much of what makes the game enjoyable, and given time we should see some of the rough spots get smoothed over.
If you're playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance and looking to enhance or tweak your experience a bit, here are some console commands and codes you can use. At the moment there aren't a lot, and many of the console commands from the alpha—like an unlimited money cheat—have been disabled (so you may want to check out our money-making guide).
In the meantime, here are the working console commands for Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and we'll be adding more to this list as they are discovered. To activate the console, press the tilde key (`) while in-game. You'll see the console drop down from the top of the screen. Type in the codes below (the X is typically replaced by a number) and press enter. Then close the console with the tilde key again.
wh_pl_showfirecursor 1
Using a bow and arrow accurately is especially tricky in KCD due to the lack of an crosshair. This command adds an aiming reticle anytime you use a bow. To turn it back off, replace the 1 with a 0. You will have to put your bow away and then take it out again to see the changes on-screen.
cl_fov X
You can adjust your FOV in the settings menu, but only to four values: 60, 65, 70, and 75. Entering the code above, and adding a number in place of the X, you can change the value to whatever you like and see the results immediately.
r_vsync 0
Used to turn Vsync off. Set it to 1 to turn it back on. I get a warning in the console when I use this code, and I can't honestly tell if it's working, but you may want to try it to see if it boosts your FPS a bit.
g_showHUD 0
Removes the HUD completely, nice for taking screenshots without any UI elements. Change the 0 to 1 to bring it back.
wh_ui_showCompass 0
Hides the compass shown at the top of your screen, if you'd like a bit more immersion and challenge in finding your way around in the world. Change the 0 to 1 to restore it.
e_ViewDistRatio X
You can change the distance at which objects render in the settings menu, but you can't see the actual value. Replacing the X with a number (the default setting is 500) will let you tweak this with a specific value of your choosing.
e_ViewDistRatioVegetation X
Same as the above, only with trees, bushes, and other vegetation. Again, the default setting is 500.
e_MergedMeshesInstanceDist X
Replacing the X (the default here is 20) will change the distance at which animated grass is seen.
p_gravity_z X
I played with this one several times, and it's supposed to change the intensity of gravity (the default is -13, apparently), but no matter what I set it to, I don't seem to be jumping around like a mass-free moon-man and my arrows don't seem to be affected in the slightest. Let me know if you've had better results.
The early hours of Kingdom Come are surprisingly peaceful. You help your father, the town blacksmith, at the forge. Run errands for your mother. Cause trouble with your mates. Flirt with your girlfriend. But just as you’re getting comfortable with protagonist Henry’s simple life, a mysterious army attacks the village, burns it down, and kills everyone he loves. This is the brutal flashpoint for the game’s epic tale of war, political turmoil, and vengeance, and I was genuinely devastated, and angry, when it happened.
It helps that Henry is such a likeable hero. There isn’t much to him, but I think that’s the point. He’s so normal, so unassuming, that his presence provides a firm, relatable foundation for the story. As he reluctantly leaves his old life behind, becoming a page for a lord who takes a shine to him and finding himself on the frontline of a bloody war, he’s just as overwhelmed by everything as you are. But his spirit and determination keep his head mostly above the water, and he’s an effective guide through the complicated culture and politics of this harsh, unsympathetic medieval world.
Kingdom Come is an RPG without the dungeons or dragons. There are no goblins, enchanted swords, or mages. You’ll never cast a spell, slay a vampire, or fulfil an ancient prophecy. And there’s something refreshing about how it trades these familiar fantasy tropes for something more understated and realistic. It’s by no means a perfectly accurate recreation of what life was actually like in the Middle Ages—Henry would probably die of dysentery or something in the first act if it was—but it does a good enough impression of one.
The simulation that governs everything is impressively deep. If you get caught stealing, you’ll end up serving some time in jail. If you unsheathe your sword during a fist fight, your opponent will back down and maybe even apologise. Nobles will be more willing to speak to you if you’ve had a bath. If your reputation in a town is especially high, people on the street will shout your name and sing your praises. If you drink too much, you’ll wake up with a hangover. Take off your clunky plate armour and you’ll make less noise while sneaking. Eat rotten food and you’ll contract food poisoning.
Like many games with this level of ambition, Kingdom Come is plagued by bugs. The simulation is dense and complex, but also feels like it could collapse at any second
These little details keep piling up, layer upon layer, creating a world that is thrillingly dynamic and reactive. And this makes the game, at times, feel more like a Thief-style immersive sim than an RPG, letting you approach objectives in different ways, game the systems, and be creative. NPCs follow routines based on the time of day, which can be learned and exploited—particularly if you choose to pursue the thieves guild-style quests given to you by a shady character. It feels wrong turning the good-natured, God-fearing Henry into a light-fingered criminal, but it’s a great way to make some extra Groschen (gold, basically), which is in short supply for a lot of the game.
One quest involves stealing something from a man’s house, and gives you an early taste of this reactivity. You can approach him during the day and simply ask to buy it, or you can sneak into his house at night and steal it while he sleeps. But he has dogs, and they’ll bark if they hear you creeping around, so you have to deal with them too—either by distracting them with some discarded meat or, if you can live with yourself, killing them as they sleep. But this might wake him up, and he won’t take kindly to you being on his property. And all of this is a product of the game’s rich, all-encompassing simulation, rather than a series of scripted events arranged by a designer.
But this all comes at a cost. Like many games with this level of depth and ambition, Kingdom Come is plagued by bugs. The simulation is dense and complex, but also feels like it could collapse at any second. There’s relatively harmless stuff like characters getting stuck on walls or floating in mid-air in cutscenes. But sometimes it’s more severe, like the archery contest where my opponent refused to take his shot, trapping me in an endless limbo. Or the conversation that looped the same three lines of dialogue over and over, forever. Throw in some crashes to desktop and other janky weirdness, and you’re left with a game that sorely lacks polish.
It doesn’t run very well either. Jarred has put together some benchmarks of Kingdom Come, but on a PC with a GTX 1080, an i5-6600K overclocked to 4.5GHz, and 16GB of RAM, I struggled to maintain a steady frame rate—even after significantly lowering the graphics settings and resolution. It’s mostly fine in the countryside, but as soon as I enter a town or anywhere with a lot of geometry, the game stutters badly and makes moving around feel sludgy and unpleasant. Which is a shame, because this beautiful, expansive stretch of medieval Europe deserves better. The forests in particular are stunning; deep and lush and mysterious, like stepping into another world. And while the setting isn’t as vivid or dramatic as more ostentatious fantasy worlds like Skyrim, Thedas, or Skellige, it feels more real than all of them.
Another thing to note about Henry is that, while he can handle himself in a fight, he’s far from a master swordsman. Melee combat in Kingdom Come is weighty and violent, and every battle feels important. Make the slightest mistake and you’ll end up dead, which forces you to think carefully about each strike, block, parry, and feint. You can swing your weapon in five directions, and fights boil down to second-guessing your opponent’s next move and reacting accordingly. But it’s when you’re facing multiple enemies at once that things get really difficult, and I rarely survived an encounter with more than two foes, even thirty hours into the game.
It doesn’t help that Henry is a fragile soul. In battle you’ll sustain injuries that will seriously hamper your ability to fight, and a bad one usually means you’re done for. You can improve your chances by wearing multiple layers of armour, but being draped in plate and chainmail has its drawbacks too, negatively impacting your stamina. And the ailments don’t stop there. Henry can get sick, tired, hungry, drunk, hungover, overfed, malnourished, and a dozen other status effects that will make him less handy in a fight. Keeping him fed, rested, and healthy is something that requires constant attention.
Sleep in a bed and your injuries will heal, and if you own or are currently renting the bed from an innkeeper, the game will save. You can quicksave as well, but doing so requires bottles of expensive booze called Saviour Schnapps that have the unfortunate side effect of getting you drunk. Limiting saving to these two options is frustrating at times, but it does give your decisions more weight knowing you can’t just easily reload and try again. There are, thankfully, some mid-mission autosaves too, often before a difficult section.
For those of us who prefer to avoid combat altogether, you can usually talk your way out of trouble. I spent the game honing Henry’s speech skill, which is improved by successfully convincing people to see your side of things in conversations. Similar to Oblivion, Henry learns by doing. So your horse-riding improves as you explore, your swordsmanship increases in battle, and your bow gets more accurate with every arrow that hits its target. I’ve always liked this levelling system, because it creates the illusion that Henry is slowly getting better at the things he does, rather than arbitrarily mastering them after amassing a certain number of experience points.
A good variety of quests keeps things interesting, from large battles and castle sieges, to more sedate activities such as hunting, settling disputes, and robbing wine cellars for drunken lords
A lot of modern RPGs diminish your agency by overusing map markers—something Kingdom Come deliberately avoids in its quest design. If you need to track someone down, it won’t mark their exact location on the map, just the town they live in. And it won’t mark the location of a bandit camp, but the swathe of forest it's hiding in. I can imagine this being frustrating for some people, as the marked area can be quite large and the directions vague. But I find it immensely satisfying, making me feel like I’m actually exploring and using my brain rather than blindly going wherever the developer tells me to.
A good variety of quests keeps things interesting, from large battles and castle sieges, to more sedate activities such as hunting, settling disputes, and robbing wine cellars for drunken lords. There are also times when the game turns into an entertaining police procedural, and Henry proves to be a talented amateur detective, like some kind of medieval Poirot. The story can feel quite dry and and self-serious at times, but there are some fun, memorable quests including an encounter with a priest of questionable morality and an eventful hunting trip in the woods with the aforementioned wine-loving lord.
Kingdom Come is a mess of bugs, and there’s the constant feeling that independent developer Warhorse is biting off more than it can chew. But there’s a charm to its scrappiness, and it does enough interesting stuff that I’m willing to tolerate the creaky framework struggling to prop everything up. It’s one of the most satisfying, rewarding role-playing experiences I’ve enjoyed on PC for a while, but the inconsistent performance and the game’s tendency to completely break does test my patience from time to time.
AMD has a new Adrenalin Edition 18.2.2 driver package available for Radeon GPU owners. The company is billing this as an "optional" update aimed at gamers who want to see higher frameratres in a few different games.
Specifically, the new driver release is optimized for Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Fortnite, and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Depending on what specific graphics card you own and what resolution you're running, AMD claims its latest driver can deliver up to a 7 percent performance boost.
Starting with Kingdom Come: Deliverance (check out our review in progress), AMD says its Adrenalin 18.2.2 driver can yield up to a 3 percent performance boost for Radeon RX Vega 56 cards running at 2560x1440, and up to a 4 percent performance bump on Radeon RX 580 cards running at 1920x1080, compared to its previous 18.2.1 driver.
In Fortnite, AMD says users can expect up to 3 percent better performance on Radeon RX Vega 56 cards at 2560x1440, and up to 6 percent faster framerates on Radeon RX 580 cards at 1920x1080, cmpared to its 17.12.1 driver release.
Finally, AMD says PUBG players will see up to 5 percent better performance when running a Radeon RX Vega 56 card at 2560x1440, and up to a 7 percent gain on Radeon RX 580 cars running at 1920x1080, also compared to its 17.12.1 driver release.
All of the above are based on AMD's internal testing performed on an Intel Core i7-7700X system with 16GB of DDR4-3000 RAM and Windows 10 64-bit.
There are no bug fixes or feature updates/additions in the the 18.2.2 driver; AMD instead focused entirely on performance optimizations. That means there are still some known issues to work out in a future release. They include:
Radeon FreeSync may intermittently incorrectly engage during Chrome video playback resulting in playback flicker.
Radeon Overlay hotkey may fail to bring up the overlay or may cause a Radeon Host Application crash intermittently on a limited number of gaming titles.
Radeon FreeSync may rapidly change between min and max range when enabled causing stutter in fullscreen games on multi display system configurations.
Flickering may be observed on the performance metrics overlay when Enhanced Sync is enabled on some Radeon FreeSync connected `displays.
A random system hang may be experienced after extended periods of use on system configurations using 12 GPU's for compute workloads.
Water textures may appear to be missing in World of Final Fantasy.
The GPU Workload feature may cause a system hang when switching to Compute while AMD CrossFire is enabled. A workaround is to disable AMD CrossFire before switching the toggle to Compute workloads.
The PC Gamer Weekender 2018 kicks off this Saturday at the London Olympia, and we've got two stages of developer talks running all weekend. The mix of genres and creators this year is huge, with something for everyone. Check out the complete schedule across both stages below, with session descriptions from the guests, and don't forget you can save 20% on tickets with the code PCG. Just head here, and we'll see you in a few days.
10.30. Tales from the helm of Civilization VI: Rise & Fall (Firaxis Games)
Designing an expansion to a game as robust as Civilization VI was no easy undertaking. Join Lead Designer Anton Strenger and Lead Producer Andrew Frederiksen for Civilization VI: Rise & Fall as they discuss the behind the scenes of this new expansion, including the creative challenges and exciting opportunities that they faced during development.
11.30. Kingdom Come Deliverance: From Kickstarter to global hit (Warhorse Studios)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance is groundbreaking in many ways; realistic combat, dynamic quests and a storyline based around an ordinary person. But how do you turn a concept like that into reality and what challenges do you need to overcome? Tobias Stolz-Zwilling from Warhorse Studios will walk you though the development process, show you what makes the game so unique and reveal some insight into the quest mechanics.
12.30. Making Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition (Square Enix)
Technical Director Takeshi Aramaki and Game Design Manager Kenichi Shida will take to the stage to talk about the creation of the PC edition of Final Fantasy XV, including new features and the numerous improvements made to the game's visuals. Attendees will have the chance to see more of the game in action on PC ahead of its launch in March.
14.30. A Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia—Total War in the Anglo Saxon age (Creative Assembly)
Join our Creative Assembly guests, Game Director Jack Lusted and Communications Manager Al Bickham, as they explore many of the new features and feature evolutions in Thrones of Britannia. Beginning with a brief history lesson covering the Viking invasion of Britain, our hosts will take a deep-dive into the many interlocking features of the game which combine to create a vibrant vision of Anglo Saxon Britain, and the player’s part in it. Thrones of Britannia Charts the geopolitical events in the aftermath of the invasion, with the British Isles—initially at least—in a state of uneasy peace. Assuming the role of one of ten regional kings, players have a choice of approaches to establishing and cementing rule—through flat-out conquest, through growing fame, or by following narrative-led objectives and evolving their kingdom. Creative Assembly would like it to be known that no actual Vikings were harmed in the making a of this developer session.
15.30. Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Q&A (Fatshark)
Join the Fatshark team as they answer questions about Warhammer: Vermintide 2, sequel to the critically acclaimed Vermintide with visually stunning and groundbreaking melee action game that pushes the boundaries of the first person co-op genre.
16.30. Into The Breach Q&A (Subset Games)
FTL co-creator Matthew Davis chats to PCG EIC Samuel Roberts about the release of their long-awaited second game, Into The Breach.
17.30. The creation of Murderous Pursuits (Blazing Griffin)
You're invited to step aboard the HMCS Britannic and immerse yourself in the Victorian stealth-em-up action of Murderous Pursuits, a multiplayer murder mystery for the ages. Join the team at Blazing Griffin as they take you through the inspiration behind this spiritual successor to acclaimed PC game, The Ship, and share a guided demo of its tense hunt-or-be-hunted gameplay. From the colourful cast of characters, to dynamic, living environments, Murderous Pursuits is set to flip stealth games on their head. Forget the shadows and hide in plain sight as you hunt down and eliminate your quarry, all while avoiding any would-be hunters on your tail, and doing so with the elegance and poise one would expect from the Victorian era.
Sunday 18 February
10.30. Surviving Mars: System driven game design—how to avoid the self-playing piano (Haemimont, Paradox Interactive Games)
Gaby and Ivan-Asser from developer Haemimont together with Producer Jakob from Paradox Interactive Games presents their upcoming game, Surviving Mars. In this eagerly anticipated survival city builder, the player is tasked with building mankinds first home away from home, a permanent colony on Mars. The theme will be interactions between a human player and deep AI simulations and how to create interesting player choices in a systems-driven game.
Haemimont has great experience in creating tight management game designs that still leaves space for an industry-unique streak of humanity and warmth, and Surviving Mars takes this even further. Listen to true veterans of the industry talk about their game and the surprising amount of work and thought that goes in to creating a simulation that stands out from the crowd.
11.30. Making Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition (Square Enix)
Missed our Final Fantasy XV developer guests on Saturday? We'll host another panel on the Sunday, so don't miss it.
14.30. 25 years of Rebellion and Battlezone: Combat Commander Demo (Rebellion)
A talk on the history of Rebellion over the last quarter of a century, followed by a demo of Battlezone: Combat Commander. This panel will be led by Tim Jones, Head of Creative at Rebellion, with more guests from the studio alongside.
15.30. Tropico 6—Building the next chapter in the infamous dictator Sim (Limbic Entertainment)
François Reinold, Senior producer from Limbic Entertainment takes fans through the highly anticipated Tropico 6, the latest instalment in the world famous dictator sim and talks about what it takes to build on Tropico’s brand heritage while keeping true to the classic gameplay and trademark humour of the series. Fans will get to see some of the new features in action like archipelagos, infrastructure and heists as well as seeing the all new engine in action. The island paradise of Tropico has never looked so good!
Developer Stage
Saturday 17 February
11.00. The birth of Two Point Hospital (Two Point Studios)
Two Point Studios’ co-founders Mark Webley and Gary Carr, hosted by Two Point Studios’ Community Manager, Lauran Carter, will take you on a journey through Two Point County covering the inception of the studio from just an idea to signing a publishing deal with SEGA for their brand new games, Two Point Hospital. We’ll be showing a ton of previously unseen footage including a world-exclusive gameplay reveal where we’ll reveal to viewers a brand-new in-game illness!
Automaton Games offers a first look at their upcoming MMO-shooter and reveal the journey behind building an online-world of previously impossible immersion.
13.00. Phoenix Point and the evolution of the XCOM genre (Snapshot Games)
Snapshot Games are revealing early tactical game play for Phoenix Point, an XCOM-style game with an evolving, alien threat. Julian Gollop will explain how Phoenix Point takes elements from the original X-COM games and the Firaxis reboot, with the addition of some interesting new mechanics. Julian will also talk a little bit about the ambition for the strategic side of the game which develops interesting themes from X-COM Apocalypse, with multiple factions and complex relationships.
15.00. Making PC Building Simulator (The Irregular Corporation)
Join producer Stuart Morton as he shows gameplay for PC Building Simulator for the first time ever in public. A prototype of the game was uploaded to Itchi.io last year and has been downloaded over half a million times, growing a cult following amongst PC gamers.
Now it's gearing up to launch on March 27th and has partnered with an incredible list of official hardware and software partners including EVGA, NZXT, Cooler Master, FutureMark and more!
The game will feature a fully-fledged career mode, 'How to build a PC' learning mode, free building mode and a range of official components from some of your favourite brands.
16.00. In Detail with Biomutant (Experiment 101/THQ Nordic)
Stefan Ljungqvist, creative and art director at Experiment 101, who played a key role on the likes of Just Cause and Mad Max at Avalanche, will take to the stage to go in detail with some gameplay elements of the promising-looking Biomutant. You can also play the game on the show floor.
17.00. Sea of Thieves—Building a PC game that PC players expect (Rare)
As our first PC game, we had an opportunity with Sea of Thieves to build it for the PC community. We figured that to achieve this we needed to work with the PC community from day one, so here is our story...
Ted Timmins, PC design lead at Rare, will reveal all.
Sunday 18 February
11.00. Frozen Synapse 2—Open World Tactics (Mode7 Games)
Co-founders Paul Kilduff-Taylor and Ian Hardingham discuss the challenges of developing a tactical game with an enormous scope. 2011's Frozen Synapse was a hugely successful tactical title in its own right, but now Mode 7 are attempting to bring that gameplay into the context of a vast simulated city—we talk to them about this transition and how the game is coming along.
12.00. Seed—Build Your Own Utopia (Klang)
Klang will be joining PC Gamer on stage for a live Q&A session on its upcoming MMO god game Seed. Klang Games co-founder Mundi Vondi will take the stage to discuss the inspiration, design and technology behind its ambitious new title, while revealing new footage from the game.
13.00.Cobalt, from PC to console and back again (Oxeye Game Studio)
How bringing mouse support to Cobalt created a game of its own and what it taught us about designing the perfect PC-centric platformer.
15.00. Minecraft Updates and Game Design (Mojang)
An update on the upcoming Minecraft updates with insights in how Minecraft features are conceived and developed, presented by Jens Bergensten, Mojang's lead creative designer.
16.00. The PC Gamer panel
Join Samuel Roberts, Tom Senior, Phil Savage and Philippa Warr from the PCG editorial team as we take your questions about all things PC gaming. What do we think of the current state of PC gaming? Are we any good at PUBG? Why did Tub Geralt happen? All of these questions will be answered and more.
The sprawling, pseudo-historical RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance went live today, and so far fans of the genre really seem to be digging it. We don't have a full review up yet—it's an awfully big game, and these things take time—but we do have a review in progress on the go, in which Andy the Other says it features "a reactive world, a likable hero, and a hilarity of bugs."
The good news is that help is on the way, as Warhorse Studios creative director Daniel Vavra said on Twitter that the studio is aware of the issues and plugging away at solving them. The bad news is that it's going to be awhile: Vavra said the next patch is currently expected to be ready in roughly two weeks. To be fair to Warhorse, it's a relatively small studio and so doesn't have unlimited resources to throw at patches.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance is off to a strong start on Steam, where more than 52,000 people are currently having at it, but the Steam user reviews reflect the state of the game. "Mostly positive" is good but not great, and the vast majority of complaints clearly arise from problems with bugs and poor optimization. To his credit, Vavra appears to be handling it all with good humor.
That is a pretty good one. We'll have our full review up soon.
