Kingdom Come: Deliverance Review - 5 Ups & 5 Downs
Is this the next Witcher 3?
It has been a LONG time since the last truly great fantasy RPG. Or, well, two years - but that's a long time in video games - especially when the genre itself is one of the most beloved, lucrative and straight-up enjoyable of all.
For Kingdom Come: Deliverance - a passion project from ex-Mafia writer Daniel Vavra - its innovative and somewhat unique hook is making a medieval RPG as true to real life as possible. Think Game of Thrones grime, lose the dragons and set it in 1400s Europe, back when the Czech Republic was the Kingdom of Bohemia.
What follows is a slavish devotion to every aspect of how life would've been, rolling together multiple survival aspects like injured/broken limbs, bleeding, food poisoning and exhaustion, with era-appropriate combat, ensuring that every sword swing feels earned. You'll start the game as a complete putz; a nobody; someone who'll lose multiple fights, leaving you cursing at the ability to not block effectively or counter like in every other game.
This general sensibility is where Deliverance shines, and once you indulge in its slow-burn approach to everything (not unlike earning the feeling of a good day's work), it starts to click like nothing else.