When Kingdom Come: Deliverance arrived in February 2018 it received some great reviews and a whole bunch of fans. I loved the Middle-aged Hungarian world it created and found the game refreshing and ambitious. We followed the life of a blacksmith’s son, Henry, who after his village is destroyed by outside forces, seeks revenge, building skills from nothing and learning how to fight with the fist and then the sword. He even got in to some very naughty situations. The game was huge and the level design multifaceted, mixing real history and locations with a fascinating story. Yes it was initially a bit buggy at times, but there was certainly nothing to write home about or get upset over.
From the Ashes is a bit of DLC that is set near the latter stages of the campaign (you have to complete a certain main mission before you can even attempt the DLC) so there are some spoilers coming up if you haven’t played the base game yet. After a big battle in Pribyslavitz, which hopefully sees you end up victorious, the village has been left in both ruins and chaos, now that the occupiers have been vanquished. This new DLC puts you in charge of the cleanup.
Working as the new bailiff of the town, it’s up to you get some money together and start rebuilding the place to its former glory. There’s a mixture of quests, but it mostly consists of what is essentially a sim management game, dropping Deliverance into a new arena. You have to examine the area for resources and decide what buildings you need to build and where. Do you have a butchers or a bakers? What do you spend your limited budget on first? These are all decisions that Henry will have to make, and it is these which work to create a very interesting journey and are able to deliver the much needed gameplay twist.
You will however need a bunch of money to complete the village and this is maybe why the extra content has been placed towards the end of the campaign, with the devs hoping you’ll be a bit richer at this point in your career. But as well as having the responsibility about what buildings to erect, you also – as the bailiff – have to be heavily involved in the good and the bad events happening in the village. This means settling possible arguments and disputes between villagers and actioning a handful of new quests on offer. It also promises new challenges within each building with upgrades to action, decisions to make, and materials to get in order for the village to achieve its full potential.
You also have your own house to furnish as you please – at least as much as you can with the options available in the Middle Ages – and have a rather nifty fighting arena available to hone your sword skills to perfection. It’s basically a Middle Ages sim game for a budding town planner, one that just so happens to fit nicely in with the main game’s campaign.
It’s pretty exciting that the developers have tried something different with this From the Ashes DLC package, taking the game into another direction with a fun bite-sized chunk of sim gameplay, and the whole building mechanic and that of taking on the role of the bailiff goes in line with the other innovations found in Kingdom Come: Deliverance. I do hope they will try to drop in some more story-based DLC in the future – perhaps something that will take Henry’s journey further – but for now this diversion into the running and rebuilding of Pribyslavitz will quench my Kingdom Come: Deliverance thirst.
