Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 turns boring fast travel into a thing of beauty

I consider it high praise to say Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has good fast travel, because I don't know anyone who hates fast travel as much as me. For years I've railed against the ways sandbox games lean on fast travel to paper over boring maps or uninspiring traversal tools and celebrated games that bake travel and wayfinding right into the adventure.

I subscribe to the same hardline stance as Dragon's Dogma 2 director Hideaki Itsuno: "Travel is boring? That's not true. It's only an issue because your game is boring. All you have to do is make travel fun." Preach Itsuno-san, but I admit that's a blanket suggestion that ignores the nuance of open world games. Travel is fun when you're seeing regions of the map for the first time, but backtracking is comparably dull. We want travel to be more exciting and involved than pressing a button, but not so slow or punishing that getting somewhere we've already been is a chore.

It's a tough nut to crack, which is why I've spent the last few weeks endlessly impressed by Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's unique take on fast travel. Fundamentally, fast traveling in KCD2 is as easy as clicking on the city or village you want to visit. You can just go as long as you've been there previously like in any Bethesda RPG, but the process isn't instant here. You get to watch your little Henry on the map walk or ride to his destination like platoons on a war map, witnessing the hours pass and the road take its toll on Henry's hunger and stamina.

The best part is that this fast-forwarded travel sequence isn't just pageantry—the clockwork world of KCD2 is still running in the background, and that means all the random NPC interactions Henry has on the road will still appear in menu transit. When you're riding somewhere manually these side adventures occur as naturally as they do in Red Dead Redemption 2, but in fast travel they pop up on the map like old school Oregon Trail encounters. You can choose to stop and see what's up or continue the journey. If there's an immediate threat, like a bandit ambush or a pack of wolves, you can attempt to flee.

Something I really love about these mini-adventures, which is actually an extension of something great about KCD2 in general, is how mundane they can be. The first Kingdom Come had a similar travel system, but Warhorse seriously pumped up the variety of encounters in the sequel. A few of the run-ins I've had in 50 hours of fast travel:

• Two guys resting at a camp who invite me to stop and have a beer
• A former-knight who politely wants to rob me, but really just needs help getting his stuff back
• A woman surrounded by wolves
• This traveling writer who offers money to solve his riddles
• Bandits, to fight or be avoided
• The odd grave robber
• This one guy who keeps mistaking me for his friend Hans
• Two guys boxing in a makeshift fighting pit
• A fella with an arrow lodged in his skull
• German knights who propose a friendly spar

It's a slick system that lets players in a rush get around quickly while still participating in the sort of random roadside discovery that you'd totally miss in Fallout or Skyrim when beaming around the map. Warhorse's solution also acknowledges that, yes, this is a beautiful and large open world with not a ton happening in every inch of it. It's a wonderful game for trotting down roads at a leisurely pace while you wayfind with landmarks or get pleasantly lost, but even I don't want to play that way all the time.

As much as I respect Dragon's Dogma 2's limited fast travel and love its archaic wagon network that will taxi you between some cities (but not all of them), I often felt constrained by elements that were supposed to be freeing. Backtracking was super slow and the sandbox just didn't have the variety to make a ninth journey to the same city fun.

KCD2 cuts the genuinely boring bits out of backtracking while adding weight to the decision to fast travel. You're encouraged to make a plan: Take note of the time to avoid night hazards, pack food so Henry isn't starved when he gets there, and equip armor in case of an ambush.

It's a balanced system from every angle. Not to suggest this is exactly how every open world RPG should do things from now on—random ogre pop-ups in Dragon's Dogma 2 wouldn't make that boss fight any less repetitive—but I hope its execution inspires other studios to weave fast travel into the world in ways that enhance immersion while also being genuinely quick.