Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's masterful quest design can be summed up by one wonderfully weird search for a magic stone

I apologize to the friends and family who've been victimized by my inability to shut up about Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 these past few months. Now 74 hours in, I'm sure the end is somewhere in sight, but I've been taking it slow ever since I arrived in Kuttenberg and the quest density suddenly tripled. Squashing beef between feuding mining crews, negotiating the release of a lord, tracking down a serial killer, helping a ghost stack some bones—there's an endless fount of strangers in need of Henry's services, and I'm in constant disbelief at how fun, intriguing, and unpredictable those requests can be.

KCD2's sidequests are long, winding affairs that take you to multiple locations, feature minutes-long conversations, frequent speech checks, and constant choices. So. Many. Choices. I can't remember the last time I completed a quest that didn't have an alternate ending. Much like The Witcher 3 or the best Elder Scrolls games, KCD2 understands the thrill of controlling a character who can always draw their weapon, but often doesn't need to. Most problems can be solved with a silver tongue, a well-timed backstab, or extra legwork.

I can think of a dozen sidequests off the dome that deserve an article's worth of praise, but I recently completed one that demonstrates Warhorse's mastery with a little bit of everything: High stakes, mystery, action, and a dash of heartbreak. Let me tell you about The Thunderstone (Warning: spoilers for a great quest).

It all started with a tip from the innkeeper at Grund, a silver mining town a half day's ride from Kuttenberg. The tip led me to Kona, a local woman who told Henry she was in dire need of a Thunderstone, a rare protective charm that grants good luck to whoever holds it. Some guy in a neighboring village had one, but he would only give it up to someone who beat him in a fight. My first thought was, "Hey thanks for the tip, I'm gonna go win that lucky stone and keep it for myself," but then Kona told me she needed the stone because she was desperate for her next pregnancy to go well—she'd already gone through two miscarriages that nearly killed her, and she hoped the stone might save her life. Since that was the saddest thing I or Henry had ever heard, it became my life's mission to get that stone for Kona.

Thomlin has the stone!

In a lesser RPG, this is the part where the quest would point me straight toward Thomlin, the fella with the Thunderstone, and tell me to win it fair and square. But the only requirement of the quest is to "Get a Thunderstone," and fighting Thomlin was just a lead. I seriously considered skipping the brawl, slipping on a new stealthy outfit I'd bought in the city, and burgling the stone from Thomlin's house while he counted sheep.

I decided to talk to him first and see if I couldn't just buy it off him. Not only was Thomlin's stone not for sale, but he didn't even want to fight for it because he "felt bad" that he kept easily winning every time he was challenged. That only made his face more punchable, so a few speech checks later he agreed to one more fight if I wagered 500 groschen.

It was pathetic. Thomlin put up a few good blocks and a nice dodge, but he gave up after two jabs found his face. I demanded my prize, and then the bastard admitted the Thunderstone had been stolen from him weeks earlier. He gave my money back and told me who he suspects stole the stone: two farmhands in another village down the road. I keep wondering what would've happened if I'd tried to search his house for the stone instead—would Henry have put together that he was lying about having it and been able to skip the fight entirely?

Never mind, these farmhands have the stone!

So I rode to Raborsch on the western edge of the Kuttenberg region and found Peter, one of the suspected thieves, tilling some wheat. He fessed up quick to stealing the stone along with his buddy Hensel, but he offered an admittedly excellent reason: A mercenary gang of bandits camped outside town had been terrorizing Raborsch for months, and for a variety of political reasons, the local lord had decided to do nothing about it.

Peter and Hensel took matters into their own hands, but since they were not soldiers, they hoped the luck of a Thunderstone would help them win a lopsided fight. Instead, Peter barely got out of there alive. His buddy Hensel, who, of course, was the one holding the stone, was captured by their leader Andrew Ramhead.

OK, so we're saving Hensel I guess

Another fork in the road: Do I try to negotiate Hensel out of Ramhead's clutches, sneak him out of there, or barge right in? Through optional dialogue, I learned Ramhead's band was six strong. Not impossible odds, but I'd lost fights against fewer before. What if they're not to be reasoned with? Flashing some coin might work, but I didn't want to burn my last 800 groschen. So I decided to slip on that stealth outfit, chugged a Nighthawk potion so I could see in the dark, and infiltrated at midnight.

Between all of the sword clashing and word slinging, I sometimes forget that KCD2 is also an excellent stealth game. Guards have realistic patrol routes, respond believably to distractions, and have heightened awareness when they discover a dead body. Henry's stealthiness is heavily swayed by what he's wearing—guards can spot a colorful gambeson or hear clunky plate armor from a mile away, but an all-black cloak and a pair of soft shoes make him a shadow at night. It's always a big risk to sneak into an enemy camp with zero protective armor, but that vulnerability made it all the more gratifying to sneak into Ramhead's tent and put a dagger in his heart while he slept.

I wanted to deal with Ramhead first because I figured he might've swiped the Thunderstone from Hensel. I checked his pockets and his personal chest, but all I found was some gold and a warhammer with a head in the shape of a ram. The only thing worse than a bandit is a tacky bandit.

So I stuck to the shadows and eventually found Hensel tied up in the stables. I stabbed the guard keeping watch, stashed the body in a bush, and freed him. There was no time to chat, so we agreed to meet back in Raborsch. I read up on this encounter later and learned that it's possible to trick Ramhead into freeing Hensel or even pay for his freedom. It's a compliment to KCD2's consistent flexibility that I just assumed those options were available, and I was right.

At his house the next morning, Hensel gave me the bad news I was pretty much expecting: He lost the Thunderstone. I guessed correctly that Ramhead took it, but it wasn't in his tent because he'd already sold it to a woman named Mlada in yet another village. Here we go.

Please tell me Mlada has the Thunderstone…

She does! At least, she claims she does. South of Raborsch in Suchdol, Mlada told me she spent every spare groschen her family had to get the Thunderstone. At this point, that morally neutral directive to "Get a Thunderstone" was on my mind. I'd punched, killed, and gotten jerked around for several real hours to get to this point, and I was this close to just stealing the damn stone and calling it a day.

Then Mlada told me about Peter, her husband who'd been sick for weeks with no sign of improvement. She was desperately hoping the stone would heal him, and suddenly, I was back to square one. Two families who could really use some luck right now, and I had to choose who got it. But there was some hope for a happy ending for everyone: My conversation with Mlada triggered another quest to "treat Peter."

The opportunity for Henry to play doctor had come up a few times already. Usually all you have to do is examine the patient, ask about their pain, and figure out what kind of potion to brew to make them feel better—a few weeks earlier I'd brewed a digestive potion to help a guy's horrible diarrhea, so I was prepared.

But Peter was a different case. He wasn't eating or sleeping, wouldn't get out of bed, and would barely talk to anybody, but after examining him, Henry found nothing wrong with Peter physically. After talking to him more, it turns out his ailment was way more relatable than a stomach ache. Peter had severe, debilitating anxiety about the state of the world—Sigismund's occupation of Kuttenberg, the possibility of war, the constant threat of bandits just like Ramhead ransacking his home—and it was all too much to bear.

My heart broke for the guy. I assumed therapy was a bit above Henry's pay grade, but because he's the most genuine and humble lad in all of Bohemia, there was a unique (but sorta difficult) speech check to give Peter some encouraging words from the heart. You should just watch the clip above, but here's a bit of the exchange I loved:

Henry: "You'd be surprised how much strength and courage you can find when you're backed into a corner. So don't run from your fear, laugh in its face instead."

Peter: "I'm not worried about myself, I'm worried about Mlada."

Henry: "Then keep reminding yourself of that. Look at me, a blacksmith's son. Why do you think I am who I am now? Because I decided I'll never turn my back on my loved ones again … Don't run from the fight. Especially the one going on inside your head."

With my eyes more than a little misty, I gave Peter a Chamomile decoction to help him sleep and said I'd come back in a few days to see how he was doing. When I came back, Peter was out of bed and getting back to work. Mlada was thankful, but still reluctant to hand over the Thunderstone, convinced that it was ultimately the stone's power that healed Peter.

She eventually kept her word, and the stupid Thunderstone was finally in my hands. As expected, its in-game description revealed it's not magical in the slightest, but that hardly mattered anymore. What mattered was that the Thunderstone gave people hope, courage, or confidence to face an unjust world. I gave the stone to Kona and went on my way.

Now that's how you make a quest.