Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's Ridiculous Medieval Firearms Are Awful by Design

With muskets still being several centuries away, Henry of Skalitz can deal death with a surprisingly wide breadth of medieval implements of murder in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. Still, none is more explosive and shocking than the woefully inaccurate "handgonnes" and "hook guns" (proto-arquebus), which were increasingly used in the region during this period. In keeping with Warhorse's slavish attention to historical detail, when used by a lone gunner (as opposed to in a massed formation), the bark of such ridiculous-looking weaponry is far worse than its bite, which is by design.

Employing a full-time video game historian (our teenage dream job) since before the initial Kickstarter, Warhorse Studios’ masterpiece is a game, first and foremost, but not one that makes nearly so many concessions as others in the AAA space. Speaking to PC Gamer, PR Manager Tobias Stolz-Zwilling explains: "First and foremost, the main goal is to have an intriguing, cool, fun, and nice video game. However, we try extremely hard to make it as authentic as possible."

Henry himself expresses a healthy amount of scepticism for the strange devices, considering the fingerless nature of their advocates. Stolz-Zwilling expects players will struggle to effectively use the archaic, ugly weapon: "Just the idea that someone goes through the forest, bandits attack him, and he takes out a boomstick—that's ridiculous. We knew it would be a meme weapon, but we were cool with it."

In over 120 hours of gameplay, we only managed to hit a handful of bandits; that with buckshot and the element of surprise. This is precisely why crossbows remained popular for so long, comparatively, as the use of bows declined and the effectiveness of armour continued to increase. With lengthy reload animations and wild inaccuracy, the simple weapons are genuinely ridiculous, being just a pipe strapped to a stick, packed with gunpowder and a bit of lead, and lit with a wick.