Warhorse says it had to ditch historical accuracy for Kingdom Come: Deliverance's crime system as it'd be "too harsh" on "peasant boy" Henry – "Any crime would be punished very severely"

If you ever get frustrated playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance or its 2025 sequel, just know that things could've been a lot worse had Warhorse decided to make the game's crime system historically accurate.

Just think about it. Henry's got enough on his plate as it is. By the beginning of the second game, his hometown is in ruins, his parents are murdered, and he's being thrust against his will into the middle of a brutal conflict between warring kings. The last thing he needs are guards ready to haul him off to the gallows for wandering into someone's barn and dozing off on a pile of hay. Thankfully, the worst you get when you do that is a harsh kick in the butt, and while that may or may not be a historically accurate punishment for a peasant, Warhorse decided to take it easy on poor Henry, and by proxy, us players.

"It would be too harsh to make the crime system too real, especially for Henry," lead designer Prokop Jirsa told Edge for issue #420. "He is just a peasant boy, so any crime would be punished very severely."

If I remember right, I gave up on the first Kingdom Come: Deliverance because, despite my efforts to stay on the right side of the law, I somehow ended up with bounties on my head pretty much everywhere I went, making it almost impossible to progress. Thankfully, I'm absolutely in love with the sequel, which seems to have toned down the severity of the crime system, and now I can't wait to go back and play through the first game properly.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 couldn't compete with Assassin's Creed or Dragon Age: The Veilguard's budgets, so Warhorse had to "change the rules of the game"