Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 lulls you into a false sense of security. The first few hours that you spend playing the game are on rails, to a surprising extent in some cases. When you first ride your horse, you have no control over your movement, only the direction you look. What kind of sandbox RPG is this?

From there, the game slowly teaches you a bunch of the skills you’ll need to survive once you leave the nest. Your buddy Hans Capon drills you on the basics of sword fighting. You learn how to play dice. You accept a quest from a friend in camp and complete it to earn food for your dog, Mutt. A memorably pervy mission teaches you the basics of stealth and, once Hans is injured, you learn the basics of foraging and alchemy. You fight goons, eat food, wash up, dig graves, haul flour sacks, and get sent to the pillory. Throughout this intro, you’re on a very tight leash.

KCD2 Makes The ‘Step Out Into The World’ Moment Feel New

And then, Warhorse lets you off that leash. Suddenly, you’re free to go anywhere you want. It’s overwhelming and you suddenly realize just how much you had come to rely on the rails.

I can’t remember the last time I felt this adrift after the ‘step out into the world’ moment in an open-world game. Maybe Breath of the Wild? But the thing about Breath of the Wild was that the Great Plateau gave you a bite-sized open-world that taught you the basics in an open setting. You learned to deal with combat, weather, cooking, stamina, shrines, and towers in a smaller version of the world.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 teaches you its mechanics, but it does nothing to prepare you for the radical freedom it’s about to impart on you. Instead, you’re loosed from the stocks, given a few pointers from a helpful local alms collector, and sent on your merry way.

Narratively, Henry is starting over from scratch here and rebuilding his skills (after being injured) and his reputation (after being publicly punished) — and that’s really how it feels. The main quest seems so distant it almost feels impossible. How am I, a lowly bodyguard who has lost my connection to nobility, supposed to get into a wedding of the wealthy? On top of that, all your side quest objectives are miles away and you don’t have a horse yet.

So, I poked around in Troskowitz, attempting to keep my Henry a good, upstanding boy. Eventually, I gave up on doing things legit, and stole a horse. I was seen taking it, which meant I would be punished upon my return, but what else was I supposed to do? Eventually, I found the the nomad camp in the woods, and was able to sell the horse off for some much needed Groschen. But in the back of my mind, I knew that I was eventually going to have to head back and pay the price for my crime.

Everything Takes Longer Than You Expect

The thing is: that’s how every mechanic in the game feels. Combat takes time to get to grips with. Making portions is a lengthy, complicated process, and that’s after you’ve done the extensive legwork to track down ingredients. How do I get a good sword and armor? What do all these meters mean? How do I make money without stealing? How do I keep people from knowing I was the one behind thefts? This is a game that expects you to learn through doing. You can’t rely on the experience you have from other games. In a lot of ways, KCD2 makes you start over from scratch the way Henry does.

Playing a game like this, one that tests you, is a different experience than playing anything else. When I pick up an Ubisoft open-world, I know I’ll have fun with it, but I also know what to expect. I know that the game is designed to cater to the player and that I won’t encounter that much friction as I play. But when you play a game like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, you feel a bit unsettled every time you set it down. All the things you still don’t know how to do gnaw at you. You stew on it. It feels kinda bad, but it keeps bringing you back to the game.

Delayed Gratification Is Worth Its Weight In Groschen

The more you play, the more you learn, and learning feels a lot better when it requires some effort. I botched a potion the other day, and felt nervous about attempting alchemy again. But in my most recent session, I collected all the things I needed for Saviour Schnapps and decided to give it another try. I took my time, worked through the recipe slowly, and forced myself to do all the things I had done during the tutorial. And you know what I walked away with? Strong Saviour Schapps.

I was elated. In another video game, this would be a thoughtless process, as simple as throwing ingredients in a pot. But when a game asks more from you, it can give more in return. I’ll keep playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 for a hundred hours. Mostly because I’ll need that time to learn how to play it.