Warhorse Studios, the team behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, boasts a remarkably devoted and enthusiastic player community. Fans expressed their disappointment over the game’s omission from The Game Awards 2025 with far more volume than the developer’s own response. Communications director Tobias Stolz-Zwilling put it succinctly, stating, “I don’t think you need tens of millions of players to move forward, get better, or be successful. What you need is a bunch of really engaged people who are your fans and biggest critics, in the most positive and negative ways.”
As someone who slogged through the original Kingdom Come but dropped it halfway, I can confidently say that almost all of my gripes have been addressed in the sequel. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has easily become my top RPG of 2025. This impressive evolution highlights how seriously Warhorse heeds community feedback. It’s likely also why the sequel has managed to penetrate mainstream circles in a way the first game didn’t quite achieve.
Lead designer Prokop Jirsa echoed similar sentiments during the discussion, attributing the sequel’s success not to major compromises but rather to meticulous polish. “I honestly believe there’s big potential for original ideas that, if they were given a chance to be polished, could reach mainstream,” he noted. “You can say the same thing about Death Stranding! It’s a game about delivering packages, and it’s a very successful mainstream game.”
What stands out most in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is how it retains the essence of a niche, hardcore historical RPG, never shying away from its roots as a direct sequel to the punishing original. Yet, it feels significantly more accessible this time around. Sure, players can still meet their demise by consuming a bad apple at the wrong moment—believe me; it happens—but oddly enough, it’s not nearly as exasperating as before. I can’t quite pinpoint the reason, but it seems like a small victory in this enriching sequel.