The second downloadable story for Kingdom Come Deliverance is a bit more hands on than From the Ashes. This time you’ll need to get your hands dirty as you fall in with a band of rogues.
It’s not until I meet this ‘band’ that I realise keeping the peace might not be all that easy when the camp can’t even keep it between themselves, but Sir Kuno seems to know what he’s doing, even if he does look a little dodgy.
So begins my quest and it will lead me into an old feud that involves both Radzig and Kuno’s past actions coming back to haunt them. Oh, and quite a lot of fighting.
Since swordplay features fairly heavily from the off here, it’s worth getting your stats up and getting some practice in before playing this DLC episode. Right from the off you’ll need to prove your worth in order to win Sir Kuno’s respect. If you’ve finished the main story in Kingdom Come then you’ll probably be fine here, assuming that you’ve had a lot of fight practice along the way. The higher your stats before you start, though, the easier it’s going to be. While fully levelled up I found it much easier than a save I’d made about three quarters of the way through the story, in a way it will act as a difficultly level if you’re lucky enough to have kept and earlier save, though you’ll possibly be glad of the easier difficultly later into the game.
Kuno’s men are, without doubt, the funniest bunch I’ve seen in an RPG. They’re fully three dimensional characters with their own sense of charm that you’ll be happy to hang out with, even if their morals are rather ambiguous or, at times, non-existent. As usual, the joy of Kingdom Come Deliverance is that you don’t really need to keep to the straight and narrow yourself and it’s tempting to just tag along causing as much trouble as you solve. But sooner or later you’ll have a few bigger decisions to make and the game will guide you towards one of several end points that wrap up this particular story.
It’s a fairly short story but one that feels worth paying the price for because it’s so well thought out. There’s a sub-quest within this which needs to be completed before the main story finishes but it’s not essential. It will certainly help with the cost of a pint or two, though, if completed. Overall, though, this is a great addition to the overall story of the game and well worth picking up.
Kingdom Come Deliverance: Band of Bastards
Pros
- A great storyline
- Good cast of characters
- Fighting!
Cons
- Over a bit too quickly
- Stats need to be pretty high to do well
