Warhorse Studios have done it again, improving upon the incredible quality of KC:D1 in nearly every way. This is perhaps one of the single most immersive and narratively driven RPGs ever produced, making it remarkably easy to just get sucked in to the world of medieval Czechia. The history is so incredibly authentic that you find yourself caring deeply about obscure sociopolitical/historical topics from 500 years ago like never before. Typical RPG fare like crafting takes on a new angle where activities like blacksmithing seem to require, in fact, learning blacksmithing principles and techniques. Combat, too, has been improved upon, adding nuance and immersion while paring away the fat (integrating upward strikes with stabs, in particular). The game is so massive and sprawling that, in the best of ways, it feels at times like it'll never end, in the same way that a golden field of wheat seems to stretch past the horizon. What an incredible masterwork. The painstaking work in making as many mechanical facets as diegetic as possible is apparent in every stage of gameplay. This game will truly stand as a monolith for years to come, serving as guidance and inspiration for the future of historical RPGs (and RPGs in general). As a last shout out, I have to highlight the cinematography of the cutscenes and dialogues, which is expertly crafted and indicates such attention to detail. It's always appreciated and sometimes even stunning in its dynamic and thoughtful nature.

In the end, perhaps due to a relative lack of depth in the game's economy, I found myself pushing through the main campaign rather than dallying on side quests because I felt like there was nothing to gain from the latter. In the previous game, merchants would grow with you, and there were money sinks like building your own village from scratch that provided endgame depth outside of the main story. I would've liked more customization options and more challenges late game, but this is clearly something that could be added through DLCs later. 9.5/10 GOTY contender in the RPG category; future RPGs will struggle not to stand in KC:D2's titanic shadow.

campaign with no warning drops you into the nazis, which i didn't really want to play as -- unfortunately, they didn't want to make a huge variety again so you get nazis twice. lots of QOL things missing (no surrender, no stats screen on quitting, no progression, no stat tracking, no replays...) really makes this feel like a game from 2008. i'd want to finish that thought with "...with graphics from 2023" but that's not true either. very light graphical refresh, very little to no gameplay progression for this series. yet another unfinished game released by a studio trying to squeeze a few bucks out of a beloved franchise without actually putting in the work of contributing anything new or unique to the game itself -- just another "remaster" posing as a new game. sure, people will still eat it up, because that's all games are anymore. some day, though, many of us are going to look back and think, "hey, remember when games were good?"

there's no unit or structure data outside of game for making builds or comparing units, just a "loadout" screen for changing cosmetics (of which none actually exist yet). the graphic settings reset every time the game loads. there's no match history... i can just keep naming features that have been introduced to RTS games over the last two decades that the dev team completely ignored. good job, guys. really. this is so half-baked.

the balance is aggressively poor, to the point that the question is begged whether this went through any sort of QA at all. probably not.

the "screenshots" furnished to "games journalists" who reviewed this are fraudulently misleading, presenting situations and scenarios that cannot happen as well as heavy photo manipulation and editing. that makes it hard to consider the advertising for this game anything less than deceptive. it's just really bad on every level. the fact that the nazis are super OP doesn't really make things better, honestly. are there fewer units than previous installments?

2/10 the capeshit of RTS games that treats ww2 with very little reverence and the idea of a complex, interesting, and diverse RTS with even less

Occasional game-breaking bugs and an INCREDIBLY racist chat that you cannot turn off. No reporting feature means you'll be hearing about the shape of Black people's skulls and "German economic miracles" all day.