For a Kickstarter game, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is no small-scale project. On the contrary, it’s astonishingly massive, with production values big studios should be jealous of. In particular, the sword combat looks incredible, and developer Warhorse Studios has produced a short video to explain all the intricacies behind it.
There are thousands of animations – 2,000 for one weapon alone – which smoothly link together to produce what Warhorse believes is the most realistic medieval combat ever seen in a game. Enemies have 36 zones on their bodies to be attacked, and swords can slide off armour and shields for realistic strikes.
Take a look at the video and you can see just how fluid the motion capture is. Some of us at PCGamesN were even momentarily fooled into thinking the in-engine footage was real people. Sadly the actual combat isn’t as lighting quick as the real thing, due to players being slower than real knights and needing a little more time to read enemy movements. But the final result seems to be a great balance between an approachable system and a brutal depiction of real battle.
The whole thing is combined with an RPG system too, so armour values and personal stats will play a role. Not striking quick enough? Just level up and you’ll start to find combat that little bit easier.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance is due summer 2016.