To this day, 2006's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Oblivion is still beloved by a dedicated fanbase, and for good reason – if you're part of this website's usual crowd, you probably even played it when it came out. Its unique, heady mix of Bethesda jank and a burgeoning AI system that was sometimes a little too smart for its own good made it an instant classic. Many games since, including Oblivion's own sequel (a little game called Skyrim, you may have heard of it) have aspired to that same level of reactive, goofy chaos, but none have come close – until, strangely enough, recent release Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.
On the surface, it doesn't sound like much. It's a medieval RPG that is firmly grounded as opposed to the high fantasy of The Elder Scrolls, casting you as a poor blacksmith's son called Henry of Skalitz and unleashing you on fifteenth-century Bohemia. You could pick up a sword and join the rest of the peasants scrabbling around in the dirt – but with just a few points into speech, you can break the game over your knee. Every single interaction becomes the kind of improvisational, janky mess Oblivion was full of, and I couldn't stop laughing every time some poor townsfolk wandered into Henry's aura of bullshit.
Henry of Skalitz? No. Henry of Gaslitz, please and thank you. The soul of Oblivion's reactive AI is very much alive in this game – just don't push your luck too much, lest you seek to be literally branded a criminal for the rest of your playthrough. It feels for all the world like the best mid-2000s RPG of all time, and I can't recommend it enough. (Also, the ability to play Henry as gay is making those kinds of gamers mad, which is always a win in my book.)
Previously:
• Oblivion NPC conversation at Central Park
• Weird, spot-on parodies of broken-robot videogame AI
• 'NPC Archivist' proves that games aren't all that unrealistic
