Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is incredibly hard, and that’s the point, but these 7 essential tips should make it just a little bit easier for you

If there was ever a game where you might need a helping hand and a few wise tips, it’s Kingdom Come Deliverance 2.

After his unlikely rise over the course of the original Kingdom Come Deliverance, Henry of Skalitz is back down on his luck, forced yet again to climb the slippery slope of medieval society in pursuit of a more purposeful life.

If you’re feeling just as lost as Henry wandering the Bohemian countryside, here are a few of our best Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 tips gleaned from our experience with the game.

To He Who Waits

If you’re completely new to the world of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, then there are a few basics you need to understand:

• You can’t rush anything
• You can only save in very specific circumstances
• “Realism” can only go so far in a video game

To the first point, the most important thing to remember in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is that you can’t rush or force any of the game’s mechanics, otherwise you’re going to have a bad time, or fail completely.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the combat system. People, swords and armour in Kingdom Come Deliverance are built as physical objects within the game’s engine, which can bump and slide off of one another. This, on the one hand, makes for a patient melee that truly feels like a life-or-death situation. However, it also means that you simply cannot button mash your way through any encounter, even if your opponent has just a sliver of health left.

All that will happen is Henry will swing impotently, run out of stamina, and land you in an extremely difficult spot.

In this game you need to concentrate on what you’re doing for the entire duration of the activity, patiently complete the action “correctly”, then celebrate a job well done.

I’m outta here

Compounding this is the saving system, where you can only save by sleeping in your own bed, when a major quest updates, or by drinking a special potion: Savior Schnapps.

The game obviously doesn’t want you to abuse this, but there’s actually another situation where you can make an advantageous save: using the Save & Quit option in the menu before immediately reloading the game.

There are multiple times throughout the game, usually at the climax of a quest or ahead of you on a road, where it’s clear a fight is about to break out or you need to persuade a key character to come around to your way of thinking.

To test out these potential multiple outcomes, you can Save & Quit before you jump into the encounter, safe in the knowledge you can start again if it doesn’t quite go the way you want.

Be aware though, you can only have one exit save and making a new one will overwrite your previous state – so choose wisely!

Look your Sunday best

Ironically in a medieval world where everyone’s caked in stinking mud and worse, appearance is everything.

If you take nothing else away from this tips page, let it be this: in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, you must have a separate set of fancy clothes you can use to pass speech checks.

As well as your Speech skill, which dictates how silver-tongued and articulate you are, Henry also has a separate value for Charisma, which is a measure of persuasive his outward appearance is. Dirty, ruined clothes make him out to be a pauper and untrustworthy, while a jaunty, expensive hat marks him as a man with influence.

The thing is, you can grab many high Charisma garments for a relatively reasonable price quite early in the game; the peacock-feather hat is my go-to. This allows you to quickly don your persuasion suit whenever you think you will need to sweet talk someone (like a guard with a warrant for your arrest or a key quest participant) and get away with murder, sometimes literally!

Visit the tailor, Bartoshek, in Troskowitz, where you can pick up said peacock-feather hat, good quality pants and coats, and embroidered hoods for a few groschen each.

Also look out for jewellery and necklaces in graves and on defeated enemies. These give big boosts to Charisma without having to mess around with your core outfit (they still need to be kept clean however).

Bed, Bath and Beyond

Speaking of keeping clean, the bathhouse has many uses in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. They’re not only an affordable way to restore the Charisma of your clothes, but let you rest and heal your wounds much more quickly than sleep.

If you’re so inclined, it’s also the quickest path to “romance” and what the Sims would call “woohoo”.

Don’t ignore forks in the road

The main quest of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 diverges quickly into multiple, equally valid paths with the Wedding Crashers quest.

Henry can either pitch up to the blacksmith and ask for a job, or head down to the Miller who you’re warned “there’s something not quite right about”.

Because of this warning, it’s very easy to discount the Miller as a malevolent reprobate… because he kind of is. However, that’s only because his quests serve as the game’s stealth, thievery and pickpocketing tutorials, whereas the blacksmith introduces you more to crafting, speech and survival.

These routes aren’t exclusive, and even after you’ve completed one set of quests you can still go and complete the other too. This is not only a great way to get more familiar with some of the game’s most difficult mechanics, but grind some vital XP too.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is more forgiving than its predecessor, with fewer quests which progress in real-time without your involvement. This means you can explore and take on more quests to your heart’s content, allowing you to gain skill and quest rewards as you find your feet in Bohemia.

Ask and you shall receive

There are easy, cheap and fast ways to get most essential items in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. For example, you can get a free dagger, which gives Henry the ability to perform a stealth kill, from the Miller’s farm next to the lockpicking tutorial chest.

A shovel can be procured with a five-finger discount from Troskowitz cemetery, or purchased for cheap from the general merchant on the west side of Troskowitz. From that same merchant, you can also get a pouch to use potions in battle.

These might seem minor, but when you need them, you really need them!

The pen is mightier than the sword

Skill books are very good in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 and often hidden in plain sight.

You can sit down to read them on a bed (like you get for starting the blacksmith’s quests in Tachov) and they dish out a huge amount of XP for the time investment.

There’s a very useful Strength Skill book behind the “very easy” locked door in the basement of Troskowitz Rathaus, while the Miller gives you two Stealth books during the Wedding Crashers quest line.

For even more Thievery XP, there’s a Skill Book on the cart next to the Voivode’s tent in the Nomad Camp which you can freely pick up.

And finally, in the early game, if you return to Gerta the alchemist’s wife in Troskowitz after you’ve solved the mystery of The Hermit, she’ll give you an Alchemy skill book which is great for levelling the notoriously tricky system.

But for even more guidance take a look at our Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 walkthrough-in-progress!