Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a Medieval Open-World RPG and it's the first game developed by Warhorse Studios. I think that KCD stands apart with its atmosphere, immersion, and devotion to realism.

The developers did a great job making the world of KCD seem like a real place that doesn't revolve around the player, which they accomplish by thoroughly simulating the mundane. Need to hone your weapon? You actually have to hone it instead of just pressing a button. Need to brew your potions? You bet you're manually adding the ingredients, grinding the herbs, stoking the flames, etc. I also loved how connected all of your actions seemed when it came to shaping the world around you. One of my favorite moments was when I was caught sneaking around at night, and a guard confiscated all of my belongings. Later in the game (several levels and hours later), I was sneaking around in the same town and stumbled across some guard quarters. After lock-picking a chest, I found all of my confiscated items! The developers will let you do pretty much anything to accomplish your goals and quests. The NPCs in this game feel like real people. The difficulty that the player goes through helps to deepen the immersion and the remind you of tragic reality of living in medieval times.

The gameplay is clunky and the difficulty is high. I get the impression that a lot of players simply can't look past this aspect of the game. At the start of the game, you don't know how to read. You can't aim a bow or swing a sword to save your life. However, with training, you eventually overcome your shortcomings and learn. You set out on harsh journeys where you can have your life ended by a couple of unlucky sword swings. You can barely move in your heavy armor if you get any. The gameplay isn't Sekiro, because it's meant to simulate what it was really like in that time period. The developers elaborate on that philosophy here. In a practical sense, you can pretty much fight any enemy 1v1 once you learn how to time your block.

The graphics look very good, but the CryEngine rendering can fail if you sprint on a horse too quickly. This is the tradeoff from the fact that the game doesn't have loading screens for areas, which I think is fair. I played the game on hardcore mode with all negative perks, so I got to know the world pretty well because I had no fast travel and no map marker. This meant that I had to rely on roads and landmarks, and the graphics do a great job of showing distinction of areas both near and far. Also, the sun represents the time of day accurately, so you get to use it to tell the compass directions.

The audio and the OST were both good. Appropriate, but not something groundbreaking or exceptional. I have one gripe with the audio during big fights, which is that the sounds of swords, shields, and armor banging into each other is just a pre-recorded track. This means that when you're down to 2 people in the battle, you still hear the sounds of way more than 2 people fighting, which sounds extremely silly and breaks the immersion.

The story is based off of a cast of characters that existed in real life in 1403. I thought that your character, Henry, was one of the most compelling protagonists that I can remember. No spells, no special powers, few abilities from his upbringing. In all respects, Henry is just very lucky to be alive, and you're trying to find your way in this world. This makes everything that happens to Henry seem a bit more personal and with higher stakes. I do think the ending wasn't as compelling as the rest of the game. I think the story is best when you're still speculating, scratching and clawing your way through things. There is a small aspect of the ending of the story that I really did not enjoy, but that is not for me to spoil.

The game's main quest takes about 40 hours to complete, but as with any open-world RPG, the side quests are where the most fun is to be had. I took about 60-70 hours on my hardcore save file, and I tried to do almost everything. I think that the game is a great value and it regularly goes on sale. I also think that all of the DLC was enjoyable, especially the one with Lord Capon. There really isn't a time that you need to grind for levels to advance the plot or finish the game, though there will be instances in which you want to invest a little bit of time leveling certain skills. There are ways to cheese your way through the game by grinding some skills, but fortunately it's not necessary.

KCD was launched with many bugs and glitches, which seems characteristic of RPGs of this size and style. It seems like many of them were fixed when I played it in 2021, though some still remain. I eventually learned to live with the rough edges, and had I not looked them up, I only would have noticed 1 significant bug during my play-through (a quest reward that you don't get). I know that you need a very good PC to run the game well, and I fortunately got to play it on a 2080TI. I would not recommend this game for console players or those on a budget build.

In conclusion, I think that KCD is a must-play game for anyone that desires a high level of immersion. I think that mods that allow save-scrubbing or trivialize inventory management take away from the experience significantly, and I would avoid them at all costs. I enjoy this game the most the second time that I played it, in which I played hardcore mode with all negative perks.