I have, in the past few days, written the word 'Bohemia' more than I ever have or likely ever will again in my professional life. It's down to the release of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, of course, Warhorse's really quite good medieval RPG set in the rambling forests and plains of, well, Bohemia.
I reckon quite a lot of people have the word on their minds, too. At time of writing, KCD2's peak concurrent player count on SteamDB is sitting pretty at 160,000 players. Not bad for a game with such a fanatical focus on (some kind of) realism that you can smell too bad for stealth.
Warhorse must be pretty chuffed. For comparison, the first game's peak concurrent player count was about 96,000 around its launch, a mere 60% of the giddy heights the sequel has already reached. For reference, SteamDB pegs Kingdom Come 1 as Steam's 176th most-played game of all time, sandwiched between FF14 below it and The Sims 4 right above. All pretty much the same game.
KCD2, on the other hand, has just about squeaked into SteamDB's top 100. 160,000 peak players puts it between the Battlefield 2042 open beta (beneath it) and Enshrouded (above). It's worth bearing in mind, too, that the game launched on a Tuesday. I'm curious to see if the game manages to climb even higher up the charts when the weekend rolls around and everyone who was preoccupied with stupid stuff like their 'jobs' and 'families' can finally charge into battle to die for the glory of King Wenceslas.
Which, to be clear, you really should if you haven't already. We're big fans of KCD2 here at PCG. I called it "a new RPG classic" in our Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 review, where I also scored it 90%. Does it feel slightly odd to be reporting things that I, myself did at a writerly remove? You bet!
But I'm not the only one smitten. Our own Fraser Brown has been having a good time with the game's (deliberately) very bad guns, PCG's Morgan Park is a branded criminal and ne'er-do-well, and our guides writer Sean Martin must have treasure maps burnt into his retinas by now.
It's a strange and wonderful game, and it's fully earned its success. Now to wait and see how it does when we don't all have work the next morning.
