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Made in us
[DCM]
Savage Minotaur




Baltimore, Maryland

Anyone else pick this up? I had been keeping an eye on it since I saw it at E3 in 2015, forgot about it in the interim, then was pleasantly surprised when I saw it up for pre-order over the weekend.

Launch Trailer:



I'm about an hour in, died about 50 times learning controls and such, but having fun despite a fairly steep learning curve. Probably not going to get too deep into it just yet, as I'm hearing reports of some serious bugs that won't be patched for at least 1 week. Its certainly an ambitious game, and when I first read about it, I thought it was destined for failure but so far its delivered for me. Again, not too deep into it as I didn't have too much time to play last night.


PCGamer's review was probably the one that most encapsulated how I feel, particularly the final paragraph:

Spoiler:
The early hours of Kingdom Come are surprisingly peaceful. You help your father, the town blacksmith, at the forge. Run errands for your mother. Cause trouble with your mates. Flirt with your girlfriend. But just as you’re getting comfortable with protagonist Henry’s simple life, a mysterious army attacks the village, burns it down, and kills everyone he loves. This is the brutal flashpoint for the game’s epic tale of war, political turmoil, and vengeance, and I was genuinely devastated when it happened.

It helps that Henry is such a likeable hero. There isn’t much to him, but I think that’s the point. He’s so normal, so unassuming, that his presence provides a firm, relatable foundation for the story. As he reluctantly leaves his old life behind, becoming a page for a lord who takes a shine to him and finding himself on the frontline of a bloody war, he’s just as overwhelmed as you are. But his spirit and determination keep his head mostly above the water, and he’s an effective guide through the complicated culture and politics of this harsh, hard medieval world.

Kingdom Come is an RPG without the dungeons or dragons. There are no goblins, enchanted swords, or mages. You’ll never cast a spell, slay a vampire, or fulfil an ancient prophecy. And there’s something refreshing about how it trades these familiar fantasy tropes for something more understated and realistic. It’s by no means a perfectly accurate recreation of what life was actually like in the Middle Ages—Henry would die of dysentery in the first act if it was—but it does a good enough impression of one.

The simulation that governs everything is impressively deep. If you get caught stealing, you’ll end up serving time in jail. If you draw your sword during a fist fight, your opponent will back down and apologise. Nobles will be more willing to speak to you if you’ve had a bath. If your reputation in a town is especially high, people on the street will shout your name and sing your praises. If you drink too much, you’ll wake up with a hangover. Take off your clunky plate armour and you’ll make less noise while sneaking. Eat rotten food and you’ll contract food poisoning.

Like many games with this level of depth and ambition, Kingdom Come is plagued by bugs. The simulation is dense and complex, but also feels like it could collapse at any second.

These little details keep piling up, layer upon layer, creating a world that is thrillingly dynamic and reactive. And this makes the game, at times, feel more like a Thief-style immersive sim than an RPG, letting you approach objectives in different ways, game the systems, and be creative. NPCs follow routines based on the time of day, which can be learned and exploited—particularly if you choose to pursue the thieves guild-style quests given to you by a shady character. It feels wrong turning the good-natured, God-fearing Henry into a criminal, but it’s a great way to make some extra Groschen, which is in short supply for much of the game.

One quest involves stealing something from a man’s house, and gives you an early taste of this reactivity. You can approach him during the day and simply ask to buy it, or you can sneak into his house at night and steal it while he sleeps. But he has dogs, and they’ll bark if they hear you creeping around, so you have to deal with them too—either by distracting them with some discarded meat or, if you can live with yourself, killing them as they sleep. But this might wake him up, and he won’t take kindly to you being on his property. And all of this is a product of the game’s rich, all-encompassing simulation, rather than a series of scripted events.

But this all comes at a cost. Like many games with this level of depth and ambition, Kingdom Come is plagued by bugs. The simulation is dense and complex, but also feels like it could collapse at any second. There’s relatively harmless stuff like characters getting stuck on walls or floating in mid-air in cutscenes. But sometimes it’s more severe, like the archery contest where my opponent refused to take his shot, trapping me in an endless limbo. Or the conversation that looped the same three lines of dialogue over and over, forever. Throw in some crashes to desktop and other janky weirdness, and you’re left with a game that sorely lacks polish.

It doesn’t run very well either. On a PC with a GTX 1080, an i5-6600K overclocked to 4.5GHz, and 16GB of RAM, I struggled to maintain a steady frame rate—even after significantly lowering the graphics settings and resolution. It’s mostly fine in the countryside, but as soon as I enter a town or anywhere with a lot of geometry, the game stutters badly and makes moving around feel sludgy and unpleasant. Which is a shame, because this beautiful expanse of medieval Europe deserves better. The forests in particular are stunning; deep and lush and mysterious, like stepping into another world. And while the setting isn’t as vivid or dramatic as places like Skyrim, Thedas, or Skellige, it feels more real than all of them.

Another thing to note about Henry is that, while he can handle himself in a fight, he’s far from a master swordsman. Melee combat in Kingdom Come is weighty and violent, and every battle feels important. Make the slightest mistake and you’ll end up dead, which forces you to think carefully about each strike, block, parry, and feint. You can swing your weapon in five directions, and fights boil down to second-guessing your opponent’s next move and reacting accordingly. But it’s when you’re facing multiple enemies at once that things get really difficult, and I rarely survived an encounter with more than two foes, even thirty hours into the game.

It doesn’t help that Henry is a fragile soul. In battle you’ll sustain injuries that will seriously hamper your ability to fight, and a bad one usually means you’re done for. You can improve your chances by wearing multiple layers of armour, but being covered in plate and chainmail has its drawbacks too, negatively impacting your stamina. And the ailments don’t stop there. Henry can get sick, tired, hungry, drunk, hungover, overfed, malnourished, and a dozen other status effects that will make him less handy in a fight. Keeping him healthy is something that requires constant attention.

Sleep in a bed and your injuries will heal, and if you own or are currently renting the bed, the game will save. You can quicksave as well, but doing so requires bottles of expensive booze called Saviour Schnapps that have the unfortunate side effect of getting you drunk. Limiting saving to these two options is frustrating at times, but it does give your decisions more weight knowing you can’t just easily reload and try again.



For those of us who prefer to avoid combat, you can usually talk your way out of trouble. I spent the game honing Henry’s speech skill, which is improved by successfully convincing people to see your side of things in conversations. Similar to Oblivion, Henry learns by doing. So your horse-riding improves as you explore, your swordsmanship increases in battle, and your bow gets more accurate with every arrow that hits its target. I’ve always liked this levelling system, because it creates the illusion that Henry is slowly getting better at the things he does, rather than arbitrarily mastering them after amassing a certain number of experience points.

A good variety of quests keeps things interesting, from large battles and castle sieges, to more sedate activities such as hunting, settling disputes, and robbing wine cellars for drunken lords.

A lot of modern RPGs diminish your agency by overusing map markers—something Kingdom Come deliberately avoids in its quest design. If you need to track someone down, it won’t mark their location on the map, just the town they live in. And it won’t mark the location of a bandit camp, but the swathe of forest it's hiding in. I can imagine this being frustrating for some people, as the marked area can be quite large. But I find it immensely satisfying, making me feel like I’m actually exploring and using my brain rather than blindly going wherever the developer tells me to.

A good variety of quests keeps things interesting, from large battles and castle sieges, to more sedate activities such as hunting, settling disputes, and robbing wine cellars for drunken lords. There are also times when the game turns into a very entertaining medieval police procedural, and Henry proves to be a talented amateur detective. The story can feel quite dry and and self-serious at times, but there are some fun, memorable quests including an encounter with a priest of questionable morality and an eventful hunting trip with the aforementioned wine-loving lord.

Kingdom Come is a mess of bugs, and there’s the constant feeling that developer Warhorse is biting off more than it can chew. But there’s a charm to its scrappiness, and it does enough interesting stuff that I’m willing to tolerate the creaky framework holding everything up. It’s one of the most satisfying, rewarding role-playing experiences I’ve had on PC for a while, but the inconsistent performance and the game’s tendency to completely break does test my patience from time to time.

"Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep your opponent from winning." - The Emperor, from The Outcast Dead.
"Tell your gods we are coming for them, and that their realms will burn as ours did." -Thostos Bladestorm
 
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




I haven't yet. I'm watching a lets play at the moment, and am... not as enthusiastic about it as I was.

Getting an 'elder scrolls lite' feel from the UI and animations- though I haven't seen any combat

And the setting is actively pissing me off. The intro made a big deal about the Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia and Hungary and in game it's a generic English village and voice actors (or just terrible voice actors, when you get to the next town) with nothing of the appropriate cultures. And everything/one is very clean, at least initially.

The textures are also very odd- somethings are very detailed, like cloth, but other elements seem unfinished.

The pre-defined protagonist isn't doing much for me either. He seems a bit of a twit, too.

Think I'm going to pass. Pretty, but not much else.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/14 23:54:57


Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in fr
Hallowed Canoness





Voss wrote:
And the setting is actively pissing me off. The intro made a big deal about the Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia and Hungary and in game it's a generic English village

Isn't it a Czech game made by a Czech team that is supposed to happen in (the medieval equivalent of) Czech republic?

"Our fantasy settings are grim and dark, but that is not a reflection of who we are or how we feel the real world should be. [...] We will continue to diversify the cast of characters we portray [...] so everyone can find representation and heroes they can relate to. [...] If [you don't feel the same way], you will not be missed"
https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449/photo/1 
   
Made in au
Dangerous Outrider





So how cynical is this game? I'm really not into those 'pessimism is wisdom' settings like game of thrones or witcher seem to be, they just wear me down. But I want to try this game otherwise.
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Voss wrote:
And the setting is actively pissing me off. The intro made a big deal about the Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia and Hungary and in game it's a generic English village

Isn't it a Czech game made by a Czech team that is supposed to happen in (the medieval equivalent of) Czech republic?

Not sure about anything but the setting, but yeah, it is supposed to Bohemia/Hungary. Which is why the proper English voice acting is pissing me off. All the food/drink is generically english medieval, and aside from handful of place names, there isn't much to tie it in place, or any flavor to it.

Here:
https://youtu.be/SYX1-1aJ0ug?t=5088

The noble is just referred to as sir or lord, and the truly terrible voice acting comes after a few minutes as he starts to explore the kitchen and castle. It's just... bad. The Witcher 3 feels far more authentic than this. For most games, it wouldn't bother me as much, but this was supposed to be some super immersive RPG...

I'm disappointed (I really want a new nice meaty RPG), but very glad I waited to see some of it in action.

This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2018/02/15 11:17:42


Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in de
Fresh-Faced New User





It‘s one of those games I happily play with German voice acting, which I normally don‘t.
So far I find it far superior to English.
   
Made in fr
Hallowed Canoness





Voss wrote:
The noble is just referred to as sir or lord, and the truly terrible voice acting comes after a few minutes as he starts to explore the kitchen and castle. It's just... bad.

Is there a way to use the original Czech audio and English subtitles?

"Our fantasy settings are grim and dark, but that is not a reflection of who we are or how we feel the real world should be. [...] We will continue to diversify the cast of characters we portray [...] so everyone can find representation and heroes they can relate to. [...] If [you don't feel the same way], you will not be missed"
https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449/photo/1 
   
Made in us
Damsel of the Lady





drinking tea in the snow

Erg, reading that summary turned me off. so so tired of that sort of start to any game, and i have been for years now.

realism is a lie
 
   
Made in us
[DCM]
Savage Minotaur




Baltimore, Maryland

I actually uninstalled about an hour ago. Like I mentioned above, I’m giving it a break until some of the more annoying bugs are ironed out. I don’t have much room on my PC, as its built for speed over storage capacity, so I’ll return to another game in the interim. Had it been a AAA company designing this, I’d probably have gotten a refund, but the Devs get a “punch above their wait” stay of execution from me.

I found it to be an enjoyable game, outside of the bugs. Once I got the hang of the combat system, UI and other systems, I felt I was on the cusp of a pretty awesome adventure. Until I tried to walk up some steps... not every flight of stairs is a physical obstacle to travel that would make a die hard Trumper envious, but just enough of them are to break my immersion/spirit and compel me to put the game down to rest for a bit.

To be continued!

"Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep your opponent from winning." - The Emperor, from The Outcast Dead.
"Tell your gods we are coming for them, and that their realms will burn as ours did." -Thostos Bladestorm
 
   
 
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