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Then again, who asked for a fairly "standard" cinematic action adventure in the Dragon Age universe? Those type of games are dime a dozen. Unlike say, a D&D type of game... Ever since the Witcher 3 hit it big, almost every other action type of game has incorporated RPG elements. This is a crowded space. If Veilguard didn't have the Bioware nor Dragon Age label attached -- would it have gotten much attention in the first place? In terms of gameplay, tone, visuals (considering the reactions to the first trailers already?) And even then, the Bioware brand has seen better times itself... people don't buy into Bioware games blindly anymore after an odd ten years without a truly hit. To me, that's also why the likes of From Software, Larian or now Warhorse are hitting it bigg/er: They came out of niches uncatered to, each in their own way. Gradually builded a (loyal) core audience -- and then managed to expand that without changing the core of their games, possibly alienating the core PLUS losing their edge. Which means that, unlike most, they don't see direct competition on their level of production. Companies like Bioware have been like: "We want Call Of Duty's audience" from the go. I mean, if Obsidian's Feargus hadn't been around back then, even what eventually became Baldur's Gate would have been an RTS/MMO-ish type of affair, two of the largest trends to chase in the mid to late 1990s. It was he who saw the D&D in the demo the doctors had pitched to Interplay... and suggested the change in direction. Despite RPGs being considered deader than dead at that point, and even parts of Interplay marketing having serious doubts. The rest, as the say, was history. And miniature giant space hamsters.

I wish hardcore mode was included already, by the way. There's a misconception that KCD was a "skill game". Well, it is.... but it's Henry's skill. Now, there's these mini games for everything: lockpicking, stealing, what have you. But how easy they are is big time influenced by your stats... (same as combat, really). It seems you're advancing a good deal faster than in KCD1 to me. Need to check again though. Another win for single-player RPGs anyway, hooray! Not that this'd keep the usual suspects from pushing for live service games and all the crap. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Now One Of Steam's Most Played Single-Player Games

Really curious about performance benchmarks re: Avowed. Requirements aren't ultra steep, but a good notch above Outer Worlds prior. Nowadays you can't tell anymore what those requirements are for anyway unless specifically stated (which Obsidian don't do). 720p/30fps? 4K/144 fps? Upscaled? Native? With FrameGen or without? And even then..... I mean, Stalker 2 obviously runs worse than "advertised". Whereas KCD2 runs massively better, with even a GTX 1060 still able to churn out 50-60ish FPS in 1080P native, rather than the 30fps that was advertised (on lower settings, mind). I wish there were more projects like this, btw: Taking established tech that may not be the absolute most cutting edge anymore (OH NO! NO HARDWARE BASED RAYTRACING IN THIS ONE!). But that by now is understood and mastered by a dev team. That's how some decent and optimized sequels got made: Underworld 2, Thief 2, Shock 2, Baldur's Gate 2, Pillars 2, Police Academy 2 (no wait!)... It being easier to follow and manage, mainly. Unlike Owlcat, Obsidian seems to have realized that the Infinity Engine was, after all, an (A)D&D 2e game affair. That means only mages had a bigger arsenal of tools at their disposal. Whereas in newer systems, even fighters tend to be kinda non-mages that throw non-spells left and right (28:20 in). 😄

Well in this case, it's actually quite a systemic thing. In the morning, NPCs get up, get to their box of stuff™ and take out their clothes to put on.... and so this happened. They also notice if something was stolen from them, calling the guards (in a settlement). It's proper NPC scheduling, which makes me remember Ultima VII (and Gothic!). Various NPC dialogue even suggests you should take NPC behavior into account, like when planning to rob someone. "Watch people's behavior. When they go to work, when they go to bed." Reckon I could rob all the village guards off their weapons and armor whilst asleep (they are actually taking shifts, so that the place is guarded all day). In fact, I may just try that. What are they gonna use against me if they catch me thiefing then? Harsh language? 😄 Some stuff doesn't work though. For instance, there is a big event coming in the area. And the NPC involved in that, you can only choke her, not kill her. Obviously for plot reasons, then. I actually tried to do that, trying if I could "cancel" the event. But the game wouldn't let you. All I could do was to KO her. Of course, I did so, carrying her body a couple hundred metres, dumping it into the field. Took the keys to her house from her. Then I sneaked around in her and her father's place (which is guarded by guards). I almost forgot about her when all of a sudden she came back, bursted into the place screamed that she was KO'd. The guards got alerted, spotted me and I was forced to run the **** away. 😄 edit: Yeah, works. Guarding barefoot and with only their shirts and pants on. Now only gotta clear the guards' weapon chamber (which seems separate, found it though). editedit: Damn, they caught me. 😄

My playthrough of KCD2 turns more and more into the REAL THIAF 4. First, I assassinated another bunch of bad guys in their camp one by one with a stab of the knife. Then I stole something valuable from the landlady of the tavern at night -- she just wouldn't give it to me. Whilst I was at it, I decided to play a prank on her and also stole all of her clothes. Now she's actually REALLY running around in her nightgown all day, barefoot serving customers. This game. 😁

Well you could do and abuse the system anway, since every time you hit Escape and exit the game makes a save. But there be mods. Unlimited Saving II at Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Nexus - Mods and community I personally don't use it, as it would make the entire crime system kinda pointless... every time you are caught with something, you simply load. But as long as people are having fun, fire away!

I found it interesting that they had attracted non-gamers with the first game. But in a way, that makes sense. In my proper story playthrough, I had hardly mastered nor deeply engaged with the melee combat system at all at that point (as said, it's also attribute dependend though and gets progressivey easier the higher you level up). Despite there being one or two occasions where there is what you could call a 1vs1 "boss fight". One of which I ended by shooting an arrow in the head of the dude (took a few reloads and luck though). 😄 Still, interesting. And some of it makes perfect sense... and not only because it's actually quite a chill game, overall. "In Kingdom Come: Deliverance, we attracted quite a lot of people who never play games, which is sort of unique," senior game designer Ondřej Bittner says. "It's sort of like Euro Truck Simulator – a lot of people who play Euro Truck Simulator don't play other games. So we interact with a lot of people who love history, or fencing, or historical martial arts, or whatever, and they didn't have a problem with most of the mechanics." So we interact with a lot of people who love history, or fencing, or historical martial arts, or whatever, and they didn't have a problem with most of the mechanics. It was usually the gamers – like [controversial save item] Saviour Schnapps! People who never played games would be like 'It makes sense to have to eat or sleep', while people who play games are like 'I can't just press F5 to quicksave?" "We can't really repeat the Eurojank situation" – How Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 found its Witcher 3 moment | GamesRadar+ Completely agree with this sentiment though. Which is why it's good that recently games such as KCD2, Stalker 2 et all saw success. "Instant gratification in games has become a problem where, to sustain dopamine for people, you have to constantly bombard [players] with stuff," says Bittner. "One day they wake up and go 'oh, this is all really obnoxious' and they shut it all down. So we kind of go back to the roots of RPGs where it's sort of like: well, you can do whatever you want, and maybe go and do the main story. Bittner describes the approach as "going back to the [genre's] roots with less hand-holding," but acknowledges that it can cause friction. "We don't really tell you what to do exactly, and sometimes this can clash with players from a younger generation," he explains. "They can be like 'I don't know where to go' – well, have you thought about where to go? If I tell you where to go, it's not really as fun, is it?" "Instant gratification in gaming has become a problem" – Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 dev says the RPG is meant to feel like a spiritual successor to Oblivion and Morrowind | GamesRadar+ KCD2 found a solution to the "problem" that seems much better than what Bethesda, Bioware, CD Projekt (and recently Obsidian) came up with in my book. For instance, the moment you're let go into the open world of the game, you start out with nothing but your pants. You're gonna have to work some to change that, as nothing's gifted to you. However, there's immediately an NPC that asks you to have a chat. And that NPC is gonna give players some directions for their first step -- if they want to. It feels natural, rather than being treated like a toddler wherever you go. I actually WANTED to listen to her. In particular as that NPC is written like anybody else: Like another character that has a reason to be where she is. Rather than an obnoxious TUTORIAL NPC and a dozen arrows in the middle of the screen going like: "GO PRECISELY HERE AND DO EXACTLY THAT." People who get stuck will get stuck anyway. No need to sour the experience for everybody else. Hollywood also doesn't rearrange Nolan movies just because a segment of the testscreening audience found them to be confusing -- that'd only lessen the experience. The save system is a non-issue. First, you can buy the items just down the road. Then every other corner of the map has an optional permanent bed, and using bed = saving game. Then the game saves whenever you quit the game too. Then there's auto saves.... Personally still wish the "hardcore mode" also in the first game would have been in the release version of KCD2 straight out of the Trosky gates -- it's gonna be patched in later on. You can easily navigate the game world just by visual cues rather than the map always showing your position.... Trosky Castle, the region's big landmark is visible from almost wherever you go... and it's also sitting right next to the starting village, where shops, a tavern and people are. Both the living. And possibly, the dead.

I'd definitely recommend checking out a few "Kingdom Come 2 + combat" videos, on say, YouTube. Apparently IGN made one as well. It's different even for first person combat... Me I'm gonna check out the brunette in the bath houses now. Friday night fever! All dressed up for it -- not that I had the coin for these fancy cloth, mind you. Robbed most of it off a rich guy's body left behind by bandits. No idea why they didn't take that hat -- has an extremely high value for "charisma" as well. 😄

Still busy getting the more basic needs fulfilled. Like a permanent resting place (fixed), food (fixed) and of course money (it's complicated). But Sir Hans got slapped on his butt cheeks when we were sentenced to a day on the pillory in Downtown Troskovice -- and our reputation is way down, so who knows. 😄 PS: What a place, what a lovely place! Gotta go there for real. Hope the pillory isn't still standing tho... By the way, the game already has broke even. Surprised by the budget though... it was apparently in the 1 billion Kronen = 40 million Euros range. Witcher 3 was over 70 million ten years ago. And Warhorse are a studio of 250 all the same now too. I mean, KCD2 is HUGE. Maybe that is without marketing? Daniel Vávra o úspěchu Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

It's somewhat "simplified" from KCD1. But in essence, it's the same thing. Here's the thing: For one, the system and controls (I recommend watching a video). Plus, KCD1 had maybe a handful of (main) quests where combat was mandatory. Else you're going out trinking with a priest, learn to read (!), infiltrate a monastery, that kinda stuff. Plus, as a stat based RPG, combat got progressively easier the more you trained / gained in stats -- and gained good equipment! You could totally increase stats with training with your first "tutor" already, which is why the experienced skip training pretty much altogether. In other words, it's a mix of your own skill and your gear, stats, RPG-style. And combat is, comparably, rare. I mean, your average RPG is filled to the brim with combat and rarely is that optional (nor do you really have the option to just run away if all goes "wrong"). Can't say too much in that regard about part II yet, even though I'm already plenty hours in. But excuse me, I'M having so much fun just exploring or listening to all the NPC banter. Last night a group of Cumans came to drink in Troskowitz tavern, and the locals REALLY don't like foreigners. It all ended a bit tasty -- and with me just taking the chance to follow those Cumans to their camp and check that out -- a long walk with torches through the forest at midnight. But I'll say this: You start out as pretty weak (again), are strapped for cash and ressources. Whenever I encounter a pack of wolves in the forest (or just hear them howling), I tend to run. In particular as I intend to turn my Henry into a diplomatic type with speech and sneaky skills anyway (you can sneak up on enemies and choke/murder them again). Also, weaponsn-wise, I'm skilling on ranged weapons so I can take out enemies from afar (when possible). Really curious how that plays out. Was thinking about a brutish alcoholic first (you get buffs from drinking, but eventually may need your fix...), Henry's seen a lot of **** by now he may want to forget about , but that's for another run. 😄 edit: And it played out pretty nicely just this play session: Snuck up to a camp of bandits at midnight and choked them one by one (the first of them in his sleep, which alerted some other guys... just managed to escape and returned. By the morning hours, the camp was "mine" without engaging in direct combat once. There's a chest I don't have the lockpick prowess yet to open though. DANG.

Swen Vincke likes this. (KCD II also managed to soar past the 1 million units day 1). ❤️

KCD II. For five hours straight without noticing. Have a feeling this may become the RPG to beat in the next coming years. [i

In my price range (which is still double of what it used to be for decades), AMD are just as much of a compromise. That's why I have the RTX 3060 now, with 12GB and full 16 PCIe lanes (still on a PCIe 3.0 AM4 board). AMD took the RX 6600 and pitted it against that 1:1 (8GB, 8 lanes). The MSRP for the RX 6600 was even slightly higher... The RX 7600 as an overall package is inferior to the RTX 4060 as well. Really curious about the next wave of entry level cards. If AMD's not taking advantage of a RTX 5060 with 8GB in 2025, their loss. And if the RTX 5060 also sees minimal performance gains, an RTX 3060 Ti may still reign supreme over all of them, half a decade later. Take a look at Steam survey, GPU bestsellers on Amazon, Newegg and what kind of cards are in "affordable" gaming PCs people can buy and plug in and play...

I can see how he may have gotten there... I mean, Oblivion's art design is obviously inspired by your typical European middle age kind of thing. Still, KCD is kinda the polar opposite of Oblivion in pretty much everything else. Not gonna read / watch reviews though, wanna go "blind". Technical reports are interesting though. Gamestar claims a RTX 2060 Super has ~50ish fps averages on high preset in WHQD (no upscaling). With upscaling on DLSS/Quality over 70ish. PC Games Hardware took the most demanding scenes they found for GPU and CPU. In the GPU sequence, 1080P native, ultra details preset, an RTX 2060 (non-super) had 30 fps average, 1080 Ti 40. For the CPU, they took on Downtown Kuttenberg. A 8700K was still close to producing 60 fps average. An i7 6700K released in 2015 when Pillars Of Eternity was still HOT outta the oven over 40 -- on experimental settings, which are supposed to be that.. experimental. Reportedly even more taxing than ultra on average. They still recommend at least a 6C/12T CPU for a smoother experience. The review copies also still had Denuvo protection, which is why they're going to do updates on the CPU benches. This sounds fantastic. Why can't all games be as optimized as this? Or at least somewhat? How did we get here? (Mind you, Indy was also real fine more recent, the 2060 Super minimum for sure wasn't for like 30 fps low, ditto the CPUs listed). Nvidia doesn't like this! And Lord British is envious.

Five days 'till Bohemia! But can it run Cry..... Kuttenberg? 😄

Bits of Cultic. Played it last year already. But this is my favourite boomer shooter thingy. It isn't actually quite such a game. There's genuine Survival Horror bits in there. One moment you're headshotting and TNT'ing cultists. The next you drop into a hellhole of bodies. The music stops, you have to take out your lighter to see further than a feet, and then, suddenly.... Highly recommend the demo.

I'm gonna wait 'til RTX 5090 performance* can be had for 300 bucks. Which means roughly March 2041... progress, baby! * without frame generation!

Got my Ryzen 5 5600 (ordered for KCD II!). Been a stock cooler user since forever (haven't overclocked since Athlon Thunderbird days). Gets a good deal warmer at stock than the Ryzen 3 I had installed before though (Peak during stressing it 76-81 degrees Celcius). Via PBO, I don't seem to have that much room for undervolt, but doing so slightly plus changing the PPT from the standard 77W down do 67W seems to make barely a difference to performance, whilst still saving on a few Watts and degrees. Eco mode would only limit the PPT even further (60W), but no undervolt. Eco seems like a ~5% performance hit in CPU-Z's multicore benchmark, going down from ~4800 points to ~4550. With the undervolt from Paragraph #1, temperatures and draw are still naturally higher, but the CPU is still running more efficient, only losing like ~20-50 points in the bench.

Always do! The killers in KCD where shadow and object detail settings. Keep those at high at best, and there's minimal quality loss, but a lot more fps. Seeing that KCD2 has the same options (Worth A Buy has shown them in a prior video), I know where I'm gonna start out. A week and a half to go! 🥳 By the way, second best rant on the internet. Every time I'm in a bad mood (and/or play a game that treats me like a toddler.....) 😄

This content cannot be displayed until agreeing to our use of Social Media cookies. Learn more. Manage cookies Considering that: i9 9900K = pretty much Ryzen 5 5600/i5 12400 performance RTX 2080 = pretty much RTX 4060/RX 7600 performance Looks pretty good. But then nobody's come back from Kuttenberg quite yet and live to tell! Which is the place of a thousand NPCs...

It's only for the crazy popular games....... like Veilguard. 😄 They wanted to do one for BG3 apparently, but would have needed review keys way earlier... You can only offer guidance for games you actually got to finish, after all. GameStar Sonderhefte | Hefte | GameStar Shop Speaking of which, Warhorse seem pretty confident giving it all out early. A Czech tech site immediately put performance to the test. Not by firing up the nearby nuclear power plant to fuel a Ryzen X3D with two RTX 4090 in SLI mode. But by installing it on a quad core Ryzen, 16GB, GTX 1070. Which is, the same PC you may have played KCD I on in 2018. And it was a "shock" to them (the original still isn't the most optimized game, at least some areas can tank hard even on modern machines on ultra settings). Anyway, KCDII apparently ran in 30-50 fps, medium to high details, 1440P on that machine. Also: Steam Deck'd! Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Final Preview - Steam Deck HQ I think if KCD doesn't bust its launch, it will become quite big. Currently laughing at all the duds getting triggerred by the "gay stuff" that's supposedly in KCDII. Must have never played the original. Or made a format C to their memory sticks. After all, clearly gay Istvan Toth slapped their sweet little butts whilst they were rope-tied in this one. Amongst a few other things. 😄

The ever so anxious "waiting and singing after a preorder" game. (Not that I would ever much preorder, but...) A helmet and breast plate Hans Capon still gleaming Seven years of wait Never stopped me dreaming He's coming home, he's coming home He's coming - Henry's coming home

Germany's GameStar is gonna publish an extra issue just for KCD II. Not even Swen Vincke managed to get one for BG3. DA HYPE IS ON. Wait, there's more. Not only will it contain the usual quest guides, a walkthrough, hints for making money quickly (HELL YES), maps and a poster. It's gonna ship with a Papercraft Kit for your very own Trosky Castle! The only caveat (marked RED): It's not gonna be one for living and taking shelter in. 😄

Blockbuster gaming doesn't really seem to have a target audience -- which is part of the problem. It's "one size fits all", which is why I'm glad that there's been a resurgence of more specialized games more lately. Stalker 2, Kingdom Come, From Soft -- even Larian didn't bend over and suddenly did an entirelly different game just because they balooned their budget. They're all doingn fine as well. Better than most "one size fits all" product. Often times though, these blockbusters literally aren't worth it (at least when approached with the rational parts of your brain...). You pay a higher price for the product itself in advance. Then you need better hardware to be able to at all run it. Then that hardware consumes a lot more power, as the latest tech is always the most taxing -- not that people living on cheap electricity in say the US would care about that specifically, but surely about the heat produced during Summer. Either way: I'm still enjoying Indy for instance. Do I regret buying it? No! But do I have a superior experience with it than with say, Drova? Desperados 3? Aliens: Dark Descent? Nah. tl;dr: Then what are you always upgrading your machine for? Showing off the new gadgets to the missus? My house, my car, my GeForce RTX. 😄 PS: 22 days to Bohemia. It seems Berlin's going nuts already. 🤣

The moment you realize it's a battle you can't win is the moment you're gonna slow down. It just never stops. You buy shiny new thing, the morning after shiny new thing is old thing. I had four (4) computers in between 1987 and 1994: An Amstrad CPC, a Commodore 64, an Amiga 500 and a 386DX40 PC. Oh, and of course a Gameboy on top of that. 😛 As argued, that kinda lasted 'til mid 2000s-ish... and once I HAD slowed down, I realized there's nothing hugely much to miss really. If there ever was a game I couldn't play on release, game's not going away. Speaking of which, first benches for Kingdom Come II are out. Alongside to the game running decently on Steam Deck they paint the picture of a better optimized release. Gamestar claims the game would be buttery smooth on their RTX 3080 tested, and pretty stable on Xbox as well. Of course, people sure haven't reached Rattay, er, Kuttenberg yet. Kingdom Come 2 benches, final release still pending: Kingdom Come: Deliverance II preview - PC performance graphics benchmarks of Graphics Cards and Processors | Action / FPS / TPS | TEST GPU As a comparison: Kingdom Come benches, end of 2018 (already patched some): Kingdom Come Deliverance - PC performance graphics benchmarks of Graphics Cards and Processors 2018 | RPG/Role playing | TEST GPU All ultra details. So RTX 3060 / 1060 should be fine on medium / low as officially claimed, accordingly. I played KCD I on a GTX 1050 Ti, which benched with 20-25 fps on ultra in KCD I (45-60fpsish on medium details). Maxed out you can still tank modern PCs with that (for increasingly minimal image quality gain). tl; dr: I AM READY.