Kingdom Come Deliverance II: Performance Review and Best Settings on Steam Deck

Can Henry’s latest adventure survive on Steam Deck? We put Kingdom Come: Deliverance II through its paces — performance, best settings, and what to expect.

Czech developer Warhorse Studios has spent six years crafting this sequel to 2018’s medieval RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and it shows. The next chapter in this 15th-century Bohemian epic promises players an open-world twice as big, polished gameplay, another banger soundtrack by composers Jan Valta and Adam Sporka, and a massive script (with around 2.2 million words) — overtaking even Baldur’s Gate 3.

I’ve spent the past month playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (KCD2), putting it through its paces ahead of its February 4 release. Since the game runs on a heavily modified version of the infamous CryEngine, the inevitable question is: Can you enjoy the wild adventures of Henry and Sir Hans Capon on your Steam Deck? Let’s find out.

“Jesus Christ be praised, Henry has come to see us!”

Even back in 2018, during the first game, the world around Henry reacted to his presence, and our actions shaped his journey. We fought, bled, and stumbled our way through a vast, historically rich Bohemia — from literal peasantry to the ranks of the gentry. After many unanswered questions and a thirst for revenge, KCD2 picks up right where its predecessor left off: Henry of Skalitz and Sir Hans Capon are tasked with delivering an important letter to Otto III of Bergau in Troskovice, to determine where Bergau’s allegiance to Sigismund lies.

It doesn’t take long before their small entourage runs into trouble. Separated in the chaos, Henry and Hans barely escape with their lives — not without our protagonist suffering severe wounds. As a result, we must help him recover and relearn the ropes. The following journey through the regions of Bohemian Paradise and Kutná Hora is full of surprises, twists, and detours, alongside an incredible amount of side content. The freely explorable world is packed with activities and interactions, to the point where KCD2 often feels like an immersive sim RPG with survival elements.

Building on the already solid foundation of its predecessor, the new game couldn’t feel more alive — visually, in the behavior of NPCs, the world around us, and in the aural experience that ties it all together. The developers’ choice of CryEngine stands out as a pragmatic decision in an era dominated by Unreal Engine, but ultimately, it pays off: The lush and dense forests, rolling hills, and meticulously crafted landscapes of 15th-century Bohemia made me want to explore for hours, just for the sake of exploration itself.

The soundtrack, once again composed by the masterminds Jan Valta and Adam Sporka, and the ambient acoustics, masterfully crafted by Vojta Nedvěd, elevate the adventure to something truly cinematic. All of this complements a brilliantly written story, filled with unique characters to meet and challenges to overcome — when we’re not busy smithing, hunting, or playing Farkle (a surprisingly fun Czech dice game).

Steam Deck Performance - “Audentes Fortuna Iuvat!”

I’ve spent countless hours with the first Kingdom Come: Deliverance since its release in 2018, and calling the original rough around the edges would be a severe understatement. To be fair, a small team developed it as a Kickstarter project — something worth keeping in mind. In contrast, the leap to KCD2 couldn’t be more obvious, especially on the technical side. I’ve reviewed both the PC and PS5 versions and was surprised by how polished the game is.

But since you’re here for the good stuff, let’s talk performance on the Steam Deck!

On Steam Deck, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II defaults to the low preset at 800p without any upscaling enabled. While the overall look is surprisingly serviceable, performance varies between 35 and 45 FPS, and is highly dependent on the current location and on-screen activity. Due to the nature of KCD2, it’s hard to establish a proper benchmarking baseline, which is why I’ll focus on comparing three distinct scenarios: The Intro Ride, out in the Open-World, and at Kuttenberg (the second region’s big city with many NPCs and dense geometry).

The Intro Ride is the easiest to replicate, as it starts right after the introductory sequence where we defend a castle, following a fixed track on horseback alongside Sir Hans Capon and his entourage on their way to Castle Trosky.

As you can see, most settings at “Medium” begin to have a real impact on the frame rate and stability of KCD2, at least if we don’t utilize FSR. It’s fair to say that not all of them are worth their trade-off, especially considering the Deck’s resolution of 800p. Unsurprisingly, Shadow Quality has the biggest impact on overall performance. Even in the following early scene with relatively forgivable geometry on screen, this sole setting has a major impact on performance.

While the game offers AMD’s Fidelity Super Resolution (FSR) as a way to improve performance through upscaling, I found the image quality lacking to justify the increased target frame rate. Especially during traversal through lush, dense forests and in darker scenes, the issues with noise and artifacts became far more noticeable.

One of the most problematic downsides of using FSR might be the visual quality of the menus: Regardless of the Quality-Mode, FSR turns the world map into a blurry mess when panning around, and adds jitter to the menus overall. It is, however, still a serviceable way to improve performance quite a bit, if you can stomach the visual trade-offs. I’ve reached out to Warhorse Studios about the situation, and they told me they’ll continue to improve the implementation and overall performance — especially with the Steam Deck in mind.

Best Settings for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 on Steam Deck

With all this in mind, let’s tackle the elephant in the medieval room: What are the best settings for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 on Steam Deck? Well, we’ll address this with two distinct presets: Quality and Performance. While I personally enjoyed the game on Deck with a 30FPS lock the most, others might prefer a higher frame rate and would happily trade off visuals for lower input latency.

Feel free to mix and match the settings further to suit your needs, especially when it comes to the choice between FSR and native resolution without upscaling. The latter was my preferred option here due to the much improved image clarity — partly because the performance preset focuses more on a frame rate target rather than a strict 45 FPS lock.

Quality Preset Table

Performance Preset Table

There you have it: With these settings, you can expect between 1.5 and 2.5 hours of battery life. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 looks great on Steam Deck, regardless of which preset you choose. Warhorse Studios truly outdid themselves with their new game, and I can’t wait to dive back into 15th-century Bohemia!