Kingdom Come: Deliverance

I've played 60 hours, amassed a 40,000 Groschen personal fortune, have the best horse, weapons, and armour that money can buy, and I still got my head caved in by 2 strikes from a roadside bandit. This is the best 'die like a pleb' simulator I've ever played.

As of the time of writing, this game is a buggy mess in many places. During my 100 hours into this game I have experienced a handful of annoying, game-breaking bugs. Performance has much to be desired for also. That said, despite being unpolished, despite having to deal with BS once in a while because the game doesn't want to run as it should, despite your framerate tanking in the cities (I sometimes go from 60 to 40), despite the load times for conversations being way too long on a normal HDD (use your SSD if you can). Despite all the things that usually put a game in mediocre territory, it manages to captivate you and it eats up your time by giving you a rich, beautiful and believable world to explore. This game has one of the best forests I have seen in a game, the towns are detailed to absurd levels with npcs doing their job and living their lives. With houses hidden behind locked doors showing details you might miss if you do not spend time breaking and entering. If you are the type of gamer who likes to walk around in a game and immerse themselves in a digital world, you are going to love this. And believe me, you're going to walk around a lot in this game. Sure, you can fast travel and it has done it better than its counterparts (think more Dragon Age Origins, less instant travel like Elder Scrolls/Witcher 3), but it is not the same as walking through a wooded area, seeing the sun shine through the trees and spotting a bandit camp deep in the forest. Then you'll experience what I really adore about this game: the combat. It is difficult. You're incompetent to the nth degree when you start the game. The game forces you to practice you swordmanship with your instructor. Same goes for archery. You have to practice and get a feel for it. Before you know it you will be a bandit slayer par excellence. Feel free to add the last star once a patch (or two) fixes most of the issues. It deserves a 5 star rating, it's just not there yet.

KC:D is the best game I've finished in the last 10 years or so, and i've played quite a few. This game stunned me, just like Lineage 2 stunned me, when i launched it in 2006 for the very first time and haven't felt it until KC:D came out! Yes, it has bugs and is not as polished as TW3 or RDR2, but the rawness of the game and realistic characters/dialogues made it so immersive. Please please make a VR adaptation. It would be epic! P.s. New buyers, please don't quit at the beginning (it's actually quite difficult to pass the 1st hour of the game), the game definitely gets easier when you gain better equipment and skillls improve. Focus on lockpicking and you can avoid a lot of combat.

KCD is a great game with unique elements, engrossing story, well designed characters, and a really cool historical setting. The game really shines at certain moments, but at the same time, falls flat at many others and is not without flaws. IMO, the story, dialogue, and characters are the most interesting part of the game. They did a great job of making Henry a likable character and adding other characters that are easy to associate with. A few of them, in particular, really help bring the story alive. I'd venture that one of the characters you encounter mid game (a priest) is one of the more entertaining "serious" characters I've ever encountered in a video game. The game is full of these moments. The environment is also gorgeous and well designed. It's important to remember it is still a video game, so some realism sacrifices had to be made, but the environment is put together about as well as one could expect a historical setting to be. Things move on without you and some of the small details in the game world, like how characters go throughout their daily routine or react to changes around them, are really interesting to watch. The other aspects of it are hit or miss. Some like them, some don't. I found the gameplay mechanics like combat enjoyable. Henry starts off weak and so do you, as the player. You have to learn the techniques just as Henry does. It's not gonna be something that comes with just leveling up and adding perks. All that said, the game has flaws. Despite some character interactions being some of the most believable I've seen in a video game, they end abruptly (one love interest is a good example) and in a very immersion breaking manner. Many have also had issues with bugs and some quests are broken, although they are working on them and I haven't had many issues personally. The same system was also a questionable design choice. Overall, KCD is a really enjoyable game, but you will have to look past it's flaws, which I found easy to do.