Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a game obsessed with medieval history—specifically the history of Bohemia, a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire that's now part of modern Czechia. It's an RPG that is fascinated by the social structures, clothing, architecture, weapons and culture of the time.
Developer Warhorse has a full-time historian on the team who's been there since before the original game appeared on Kickstarter, and your jaunts through Bohemia will see you encounter plenty of historical celebs and become embroiled in real conflicts. But these games are not history textbooks. They aim for authenticity over hyper accuracy.
"We are working on a videogame," says Warhorse's global PR manager Tobias Stolz-Zwilling. "And that is, first and foremost, the main goal: we want to have an intriguing and cool and fun and nice videogame. However, we try extremely hard to make it as authentic as possible. We double check the stuff, so that when the player plays it, or whenever someone checks it, that the things that are listed in there are at least plausible."
While the first game was full of historical details, one thing it was missing was firearms, which had started to be employed in European warfare by the 15th century. But their omission did make sense. These early guns were a pain in the arse to use: taking an age to to reload, woefully inaccurate, and not remotely safe for the user.
"Firearms were usually used en masse, like you would just fire against storming cavalry," says senior game designer, Ondřej Bittner. "They were like the beginning of line battles."
When you've got a line of troops all firing at once, that lack of accuracy and the time it takes to reload doesn't really matter. Your enemies are gonna go down. As a weapon of war, they are terrifying. But as the weapon of a wandering knight who is usually alone, they are pretty awful.
Since big pitched battles weren't the focus of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, guns weren't a priority. You spent most of your time traipsing around the countryside getting into duels with knights or fighting small groups of bandits. And the same is largely true of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, but this time Warhorse wanted to show players "how firearms looked and operated".
"Just the idea that someone goes through the forest, he's attacked by bandits, and he takes out a boomstick—that's ridiculous," says Bittner. "So we knew it was going to be a meme weapon, but we were cool with it."
When I got my first cumbersome gun, protagonist Henry complained about the smell, and then expressed some concerns about the inherent danger of using this explosive device. He was reassured by the bandit teaching him how to use it: he'd only blown off a couple of fingers. Then I participated in some target shooting. I missed all of the targets. But I laughed the whole time.
It's just so impractical. The length of time it takes to get it ready means it's never going to be a reactive weapon, and once you're all set, you still have to light it—like a cannon—and wait for it to go off. You have to effectively be able to see into the future, knowing you'll still have a clear line of sight and that your aim is dead on in a few seconds.
My first attempt to use it in battle saw me hang back during an ambush while some allies engaged enemy knights. I was lucky enough for one of my foes to get quite close, with his back to me. My gun went off, and he went down instantly. He might as well have been wearing no armour at all. I hooted and hollered until someone ran at me with a longsword and I frantically switched weapons before getting stabbed in the throat. RIP, me.
That would mark the last time I'd actually manage to hit a target for many, many hours. Beginner's luck.
Despite this, I still try to find excuses to get a shot off. It's just so ridiculously badass to whip out a gun in a medieval duel. And very, very dumb. But I can't help but appreciate how Warhorse has approached historicity in this regard. A wandering knight would probably not be carrying a gun, but he could, and if he did, it would probably go down like this—he'd miss a lot, and very occasionally kill someone in one sweet hit. And it's just fun to make some big bangs. Who doesn't like making a racket?
"The sound of the gun is from my friend's gun," says Bittner. "They're very cool to shoot, but you have the feeling of extreme, like… I might die. Obviously, though, the modern replicas are way safer, because the metal casting is better."
The use of firearms sort of encapsulates what Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is all about. It's a game built on tiny details, on exhaustive research, on a fascination with history, but it's also silly and playful and slapstick. You get buckets of poo poured over you, you get drunk with your friends, some terrible bards make an atrocious (and brilliant) song about you. Bohemia might be getting torn apart by a civil war, but there's still plenty of time to have a laugh.
