Minor spoilers ahead for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.
After getting separated from Hans Capon, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2‘s leading man Henry of Skalitz must find a way to get some face time with Otto von Bergow. He quickly learns that the most efficient way to do this is to get an invitation to a wedding at Semine: a high-class event by all accounts. The player can obtain this invitation through a few different avenues, but the end result is mostly the same, as Henry will show up to the event, mingle, and engage in some good-natured debauchery—like any good party. While this in-game celebration owes a lot to similar events in RPGs that came before it, there’s just something special about it, making it stand out from its contemporaries.
It’s actually possible to skip most of the Semine wedding: if Henry gets caught stealing during the party, the player will be thrust directly into the next chapter of the story.
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2: Becoming the Life of the Party
The Semine Wedding Is Complex and Lively
RPGs, especially long and complicated ones, tend to be at their best during downtime. These slower, lower-stakes narrative moments allow players to catch their breath and gain new insight into their companions, seeing them outside the context of battle and strife. They can often take the form of an in-game party, opening the door to romantic or comedic subplots. Popular RPGs that deploy this method include:
Baldur’s Gate 3
Mass Effect 3
The Witcher 3
But the thing is, for as great and charming as these parties can be, they can also be wooden and perfunctory. Take Mass Effect 3‘s Citadel DLC soirée—one of the most iconic video game parties of all time. This section is filled with great character interactions and funny dialog, but it’s more like a gallery of fan service than an interactive celebration. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2‘s Semine wedding injects drama and tension alongside humor, allowing it to slot in nicely with the rest of the game’s choice-based antics.
During the wedding, Henry can dance with various women, engage in good-natured competitive fist-fights, babysit drunkards, and cause a good bit of mischief, making the event feel dynamic and reactive. Crucially, all of these small-scale activities can have different outcomes based on the player’s decisions. This freedom, coupled with the natural progression of the day as certain events unfold, lends the Semine wedding a sense of agency and verisimilitude rarely seen in similar missions in other games.
What Other RPGs Could Learn from Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s Approach to Partying
The beauty of the Semine wedding is that it manages to feel just as memorable and impactful as Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2‘s most action-packed quests despite being inherently lighthearted. It’s an opportunity to wind down and chat with other NPCs Henry may have met up until this point, but it’s also filled with drama, romance, and subtle storytelling, revealing major truths about characters without having to endure long-winded sections of expository dialog: they aren’t telling Henry their life story. Rather, Henry is seeing their life story firsthand.
At the risk of sounding reductive, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2‘s Semine wedding works because it’s treated with the same gravity as the rest of the game. It’s not a mere detour, but a robust and powerful storytelling device, further engrossing players in the game world. Plus, it’s fun, funny, and surprising, which certainly doesn’t hurt.
