Kingdom Come - Preview @PCGamesN

PCGamesN previews Kingdom Come: Deliverance and wonders if it will deliver a true roleplaying experience.

Our demo starts in the small village of Stříbrná Skalice, mere hours before it's invaded. Unbeknown to our protagonist Henry, King Sigismund of Hungary has declared war on Bohemia, hoping to topple the region's incompetent king. Ignorance is bliss however, and with the prospect of war merely a rumour in Skalice, Henry is commanded by his father to collect a debt from the town drunk, Kunesh.

As Henry runs through the village's impressively rendered fields, what immediately strikes me is the complete lack of objective markers on-screen. Running about the village searching for Kunesh, players only have the vague directions from Henry's father to go on. In this game, no characters are marked out as more important than any other, meaning players have to treat everyone they see as a potential person of interest. With no arrows or glowing NPCs to guide you, the only way to reach your destination is by memorising directions and talking to those around you, creating a more authentic role-playing experience.

"We wanted to make everything realistic, or at least believable," Tobias explains.

After bothering a few villagers, Henry eventually discovers a small house on the outskirts of the fields. A bearded behemoth of a man sits on a chair outside - Kunesh. Upon Henry's approach Kunesh immediately recognises him and refuses to pay his debt. As you'd expect from an RPG, it's up to the player to choose how they deal with the situation. Henry has three choices - he can either attempt to reason with Kunesh and persuade him to pay his debt, bloody his hands and try and beat Kunesh into submission or thirdly, go back to daddy and get help. Built like a ton of bricks and standing a good foot taller than our weedy protagonist, challenging the man to a fist fight probably isn't the most sensible option.