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So I had this moment while playing Kingdom Come Deliverance
when I had to break into someone's house to steal a ring
as part of a quest for a group of millers that - as it turns out -
are secretly an organisation of thieves, and I said to myself
"wow, that is a lot like Elder Scrolls game". And I in no way mean that to be derogatory.
While Bethesda's series of open world RPGs have been a huge influence on many games,
noone's really try to straight-up make an Elder Scrolls game.
But that also wouldn't be giving Kingdom Come (KCD) enough credit
because for all of the parallels in design and visuals
actually playing KCD feels like a vastly different experience from TES.
So in this video I want to talk about how these two games can feel so different
despite being so similar and how Bethesda could actually learn a thing or two from KCD.
For this comparison I will be using TES: Oblivion due to its visual similarities
and also because it's my personal favorite.
Everything I say though pretty much applies to all Elder Scrolls games.
Being a game built with history in mind KCD is immediately different
than the fantasy based world of Oblivion.
Practically everything the game does is meant to simulate
what it was actually like in medieval Bohemia. That means stuff like
needing to bathe regularly, managing injuries and eat food before it spoils.
This makes buying food at the shop or drink at the tavern important
because they have tangible benefits that are needed to keep you alive.
Compare this to Oblivion where food does have small effects
but generally isn't really useful on its own
and is better served as ingredients in a potion.
You'll never need to stock upon carrots before making a long trek to the next town
which becomes second nature in Kingdom Come.
In fact a lot of the objects scattered around Oblivion
don't really have much of a gameplay benefit.
As result taverns and markets end up being more like window dressing to flesh out the world.
Meanwhile every shop in Kingdom Come feels important
because they all sell stuff you need to survive an average day.
The same goes for sleeping. In Oblivion you only really need to sleep
in order to level up and any bed will do.
You'll also recover all your health
but the same thing can be accomplished by simply waiting an hour -
a system I abused quite regularly.
That's not the case in Kingdom Come though
where the only way to regain health is to sleep it off or use consumable items.
Beds also work with what is likely KCD's most contentious feature - it's save system.
There is no auto-saves outside certain quest moments
and you'll only manually save by sleeping in a bed you own
or by purchasing expensive bottles of savior snaps.
it's a radically different approach to Oblivion "save anywhere anytime" system
and results in two different experiences.
In Kingdom Come saving some poor villager being accosted on the road
might not be worth risk if you die and lose an hour of progress.
You're forced to think about every choice you make
and what you end up choosing feels more important because of this.
This is rarely the case in Oblivion where you can quickly save at any time
and retry that locked door as many times as you want.
But don't take me as saying that being able to save at any time is bad or anything.
After all Oblivion doesn't want you to get stuck or lose hours of progress.
It wants you to go on an adventure. Right from beginning
you're free to go wherever you want and find a fun quest to engage in
with no worries about save limitations or not having enough food.
KCD simply prefers more rigorous approach and the advantage of KCD's way of doing things is
that it forces you to live in its world and roleplay.
When you're making a long trek you need to make sure you've packed enough food
and are well-rested and when it's starting to get dark and you're low on energy
there's a real sense of relief when you see that inn on the side of the road.
In Oblivion I would only really stop at an inn because...
well, frankly when I kind of wanted roleplay it a bit.
Now neither approach is inherently right or wrong
but I do appreciate the appeal of what Kingdom Come is going for
and I think it makes certain situations more impactful.
Take for example the Thieves Guild in Oblivion and KCD's equivalent.
in Oblivion I joined the Thieves Guild not out of any real desire for money
or financial reasons - you don't really need it.
I joined because it's a fun quest narrative where you go around stealing a bunch of stuff.
The opening hours of KCD however leave you with very little beyond clothes on your back.
Money is necessary to get access to the food and other important items
you need to stay alive so when presented
with the faster but much more dangerous option of becoming a thief I took it.
Game systems made a life of crime an appealing means of survival.
- "I change my mind. I'll do what you want." - "Come to your senses, hey? Great."
This isn't to say that Kingdom Come is perfect.
That save system can be hella frustrating when things go bad
and the devs do seem to be backpedaling on it a bit
with an upcoming patch that'll let you save whenever you quit
which i think is a pretty good compromise.
There is also the lock-picking and pickpocketing minigames
that just don't seem to work right sometimes
which can be really frustrating and then exacerbated by the save system.
But again they've said they're going to address this
so good on the developers for listening to fan feedback so quickly.
The game is also buggy as hell - something that Elder Scrolls also shares.
There is one aspect I think Oblivion does better though and that's in its playable character.
Your character is given the bare-bones setup of being in jail
but after that you're free to come up with whatever backstory and personality you want.
You also don't have any voice lines and the dialogue options are minimal 80 00:05:16,800 --> 00:05:21,700 with very little personality. The idea being that you will fill in that personality yourself.
The ability to create whatever person you want as an avatar for you to roleplay
goes well with the freedom based design of the gameplay.
KCD's approach is more like The Witcher
with protagonist Henry having a built-in personality.
- "Do corpses bother you?" - "No honorable man should touch them."
"That's the executioner's job."
This ends up clashing with the rest of the game's "do anything" style.
Henry may talk about how much he respects honor and appalls thievery
but right after that I can instantly kill a random woman and steal her stuff.
I consistently feel like what Henry says and what I want Henry to do
are at odds with each other.
A problem I feel Bethesda also faced with Fallout 4's protagonist.
"Shawn's out there, Codsworth. I need to find him."
So while it's not perfect it's pretty clear that KCD's more hardcore ideas have won me over
but I'm not trying to say that the next Elder Scrolls needs to be some hardcore survival sim.
I like how Oblivion and Skyrim are light hearted
and the freedom to go wherever I want and have a good adventure is just what I want sometimes
and I don't think that should go away.
But with the next TES being inevitable at some point in the future
I think it would really benefit Bethesda if they took a look at
how Kingdom Come is pushing this type of game design forward.