Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 dev says it deliberately avoids the 'instant gratification' of modern games, channelling the best of Bethesda like Morrowind and Oblivion
I was approximately 3.7 seconds into my playthrough of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 before I muttered to myself 'Huh, pretty Oblivion-y'. This is the second-highest praise I can offer a videogame, right beneath 'Huh, pretty Morrowind-y,' which I went onto say almost verbatim in our KCD2 review.
Turns out I wasn't just seeing old-Bethesda-shaped ghosts in a fit of nostalgia. Games like Oblivion and Morrowind were right at the forefront of Warhorse's thinking when it was making KCD2. In a chat with GamesRadar, the game's senior designer, Ondřej Bittner, said Henry's latest adventure was deliberately harkening back to those brilliant open worlds of old.
«I'm more of a Morrowind person,» said Bittner, adding that «Most of our designers are in their mid 30s—like, 30s to 40s—so these games had a huge impact on us.» So, naturally, those classics were a big reference point for the KCD games. «Instant gratification in games has become a problem,» Bittner said, with so many games that revolve constantly assaulting players' senses with info, stimulation, and direction. That's not Warhorse's approach: «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.»
Which if you're like me—someone who loves a clockwork world to inhabit and make your own goals in—is a dream come true, but it can put others off. A lack of hand-holding «can clash with players from a younger generation,» reckons Bittner. «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?»
Not wanting to scare off the zoomers—who, I have to say, I feel like Bittner is underestimating just a tad—is why KCD2's intro has a bit more direction than the first game's. Maybe you can think of it as the same kind of leap that Bethesda made between Morrowind and Oblivion, although I don't think Warhorse sacrificed nearly as much as Todd Howard and co did.
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