A Game That Treats PC Players Like Grown Ups
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 has been crowned PC Gamer's 2025 Game of the Year, and for good reason. Warhorse Studios has built a historical RPG that refuses to spoon feed players. Instead it leans into depth, systems, and a grounded world that expects you to pay attention and figure things out.
Martin Klima, Warhorse co founder and executive producer on Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, sees the game as part of a wider shift in the industry. In his view, players are getting older, more experienced, and more interested in games that respect their intelligence rather than constantly pointing them in the right direction.
He describes it as a move away from pure popcorn entertainment. Popcorn is fun for a while, but eventually you start craving something more interesting. For many PC players, that means games with more complex systems, rough edges, and the freedom to fail as you learn.
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 delivers exactly that with its demanding combat, detailed simulation of medieval life, and open ended quests where the right solution is rarely highlighted in bright colors. If you want to rob a shopkeeper at night or talk your way out of trouble instead of fighting, the game lets you try.
Risky Games In A Risk Averse Industry
Klima also points out that games like this are rare not because players do not want them, but because of how modern game development works. As budgets climb, publishers become more cautious. Big games cost huge amounts of money to make, and when millions are on the line, creative risk is often the first thing to be cut.
That risk aversion has pushed many projects toward the safest middle ground. These are games that try to please everyone at once. They are accessible, polished, and usually fun, but they can also feel like they were designed by a committee. Nothing is too challenging, nothing is too obscure, and there is always a waypoint telling you exactly where to go next.
Klima compares this to the same popcorn problem. Many large scale games are designed to avoid offending or frustrating anyone. The result is entertainment that is smooth but often forgettable. It fills the time, but it does not always stick with you once the credits roll.
By contrast, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 follows the path of older ambitious titles. Klima mentions games like Morrowind and Oblivion as earlier examples of big, strange RPGs that did not worry about being for everyone. Back then, smaller teams and lower budgets meant studios could experiment more and accept that some players would bounce off the difficulty or the clunkiness.
Today that kind of design is harder to sell inside a big company. Yet it is exactly the sort of experience that a dedicated PC audience often values. Deep systems, unforgiving combat, and worlds that do not bend over backwards to explain themselves leave more room for experimentation and personal stories. They can also build fiercely loyal fanbases that stick with a game for years.
Letting Players Discover Things For Themselves
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 shares some design DNA with games like Elden Ring and the Souls series. Klima notes that design director Viktor Bocan is a big fan of those games, and one core idea carries over strongly: trust the player.
In Elden Ring there are dungeons, bosses, and secrets that many players will never find. The game does not constantly ping your map or yell at you to go in the right direction. Instead it gives you a world, some tools, and the freedom to explore. When you finally stumble into a hidden area or beat a nasty boss, the sense of discovery and competence is completely earned.
That feeling is something Warhorse explicitly aims for in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. The game wants players to feel smart. It wants you to learn how its world works, how its characters think, and how its systems interact. When you solve a quest in an unexpected way or survive a tough encounter by preparing properly, you feel like you did it yourself rather than following a checklist.
For PC gamers who enjoy tinkering with builds, testing systems, and theorycrafting, this approach is especially appealing. The game does not just give you a story to watch. It hands you a complex sandbox with rules that often mirror a harsh historical reality and then steps back to let you experiment.
The result is an RPG that feels alive. Shopkeepers have routines. Nighttime robberies require planning. Combat punishes button mashing. You are not the all powerful chosen one sweeping everything aside. You are a person in a dangerous world trying to make your way, and the game never forgets that.
As the industry keeps pushing toward bigger budgets and safer bets, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 stands out precisely because it is willing to be demanding. It trusts players to handle failure, confusion, and complexity. That trust is a big part of why it has resonated so strongly and why many PC players see it as a modern classic rather than just another open world RPG.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/kingdom-come-deliverance-2-is-pc-gamers-goty-because-it-trusts-players-and-takes-them-seriously-says-warhorse-co-founder-i-think-you-can-only-eat-so-much-popcorn/
