Summary
While playing throughKingdom Come: Deliverance 2, it’s likely that you’ll draw comparisons to some other great, immersive open-world RPGs of recent times, and that includes Red Red Redemption 2. The game set an incredibly high bar for the genre when it launched, but Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has also carved out its own identity.
Both games actually have a lot in common, such as being grounded in reality and based on historical time periods. They can be compared against a few overlapping gameplay aspects to judge their overall objective qualities.
7Graphics
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 looks amazing, and uses Crytek’s CryEngine to its full potential. But Red Dead Redemption 2 is still one of the best-looking games ever made, and Rockstar’s RAGE engine has always been ahead of the competition.
There’s just a lot more happening on the screen at any given time in Red Dead Redemption 2. The lighting, volumetric fog effects, and environmental details are more impressive. There’s also a much greater variety of biomes. Red Dead Redemption 2 has forests, grasslands, snowy mountains, swamps, deserts, and even an industrial city.
Meanwhile, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is limited to just greenery most of the time and not much else. Animations are better in Red Dead Redemption 2, though, and everything feels more fluid and natural.
6Narrative
Red Dead Redemption 2 is still leagues above most games in storytelling. Arthur Morgan’s journey isone of the most memorablein all of gaming, and it’s hard to find anyone who didn’t deeply resonate with it. The writing is sharp, the dialogue is top-tier, and the character interactions and cutscenes are always engaging.
That’s not to say Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is lacking in this regard. It also has a strong narrative, but it’s kinda different. It focuses on realism, with a more historically driven story. While it may not reach the high qualities of Red Dead Redemption 2, it tells its own compelling tale that complements its medieval setting very well.
5Immersion
Winner - Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
This is where Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 really wins. It goes the extra mile to be one of the most immersive games you’ll play. You need to eat, sleep, and maintain your weapons and armor regularly, although some players might find it a bit tedious. Ignoring these things means you’ll be pretty weak during combat and die a lot easier, but it adds a level of realism that you won’t really find out there.
Red Dead Redemption 2 also does its best to immerse you in its Wild West setting, but it has a few moments and gameplay mechanics with narrative dissonance. One issue is the number of NPCs you can kill with little consequence.
This becomes especially noticeable in the final chapter of the game, which is very poignant and has Arthur reflecting on his life and the people he’s harmed, and finally becomes more respectful of human life. But then you’re constantly forced into shootouts involving dozens of NPCs with no other option. It can take you out of the narrative experience and feel a bit jarring at times.
4Game Design
One of the few and most common complaints about Red Dead Redemption 2 is its somewhat outdated mission design which can feel overly restrictive at times. A lot of missions are very linear, failing if you try to approach them differently. Many also end in unnecessary shootouts, almost as if the game feels the need to throw action at you constantly to keep you engaged.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, on the other hand, has far more freedom in its game and quest design. Your reputation, criminal history, clothing, skills, and perks all impact how NPCs react to you. Even outside of quests, the game remembers your actions in impressive ways. If you’re hostile to an NPC or town, there are lasting consequences and everyone remembers what you did.
Meanwhile, in Red Dead Redemption 2, you can gun down an entire town full of law enforcement, pay a bounty, and then just come back later with no problems.
3Exploration
Winner - Tie
Both games offer solid exploration and handle it well. Both contain enough intrigue, narrative scenarios, random encounters, and NPCs that make you want to go out and explore. Both games feature a sleek in-game map with non-intrusive icons that make you want to go and check it out.
In Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, side quests are heavily NPC-driven. You can also take part in dice games and melee tournaments, which are all worthwhile. Red Dead Redemption 2 has a great focus on hunting animals and collecting trophies for some rare ones. Looting trains and wagons, and robbing NPCs are also a very fun part of the game,not to mention poker and blackjack.
2Gameplay
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s combat is brutal and realistic. One wrong move during a duel and you can trigger a chain reaction that leads to your death pretty quickly. It’s also very rewarding for the same reason, with a high skill ceiling. But aside from a few long-range weapons that are rarely used, swordfights are your primary combat mechanic and this can get a bit boring after nearly a hundred hours with the game.
Red Dead Redemption 2 has more arcadey shooting and combat, and definitely more fun. There’s awide variety of guns, and also arrow types such as fire and explosives, on top of throwing knives, molotov cocktails, and dynamite which are all really fun to mess around with.
Using your lasso to drag enemies around while on your house never gets old thanks to the great physics system which also makes these NPCs react in very satisfying ways. Combat is a lot more forgiving too, and you can heal relatively quickly during battle. Overall, Red Dead is just slightly better in this regard everything considered, although your personal biases might have you lean on the other.
1Verdict
Both Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Red Dead Redemption 2 are incredible games, and they excel over the other in a few different areas. Your choice of gameplay systems and combat difficulty will greatly influence your preference for one or the other.
But overall, Red Dead Redemption 2 is on a whole different level and really pushes both the narrative and graphical capabilities of an open-world game, with an impressive amount of detail and effort put into every little aspect of it. The game’s just aging like fine wine.
