I'm still not sick at all of galavanting around Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's idyllic Bohemian countryside even after the more than 100 hours I logged in February. So I was delighted to be given a reason to return to it with the first story DLC, Brushes With Death. I was greeted with more of the strong dialogue writing and open-ended adventuring I've come to expect, so I’m not overly disappointed. But I wasn’t wowed, either. The substance of this low-stakes tale managed to keep me entertained, but it doesn't stand especially strong on its own played outside the grand framework of the main campaign.
You can start the DLC quest as early as the end of Act 1, when Henry's fate becomes intertwined with that of the eccentric and enigmatic painter Voyta. But I chose instead to load up an endgame save, picking up right in the wake of KCD2's climactic capstone events, and I think this may be a less than ideal way to experience Brushes With Death. But it is the way I suspect those of us most eager for more medieval Czech adventuring will see it for the first time, because who wants to go rooting around their old saves looking for just the right spot?
For one thing, especially if you've already resolved the main campaign's conflict, there isn’t much on the line here to make it feel like it matters. All of the base game's best side quests, including the ones that I do think could stand on their own better than this one, benefitted from being carried on the current of these sweeping, historical, life-changing events happening all around them.
It's not that Voyta's plight lacks intrigue or payoffs. It's more that it comes across as a filler episode when the last thing I remember doing was confronting an army and having a cathartic emotional reckoning with the Henry I had created. And the post-main quest world doesn't always feel like it’s reacted as much as I'd like to the events that have taken place. There are certain areas the new quest sent me that shouldn't really be accessible to me at this point for major plot reasons I don't want to spoil.
The pacing, also, is just a little bit odd when playing through it in a straight shot with no other distractions like going out of my way to uncover more of the map or discovering a whole new settlement. It took me around 12 hours, and you could probably knock it out a good deal quicker if you don't believe, like I do, that indulging in the temptation of fast travel is one of the seven deadly sins of open-world RPGs. Running through these objectives feels a little plodding at times, and there are a few too many quest steps that simply require you to ride somewhere and get an item or talk to a guy. That might not have been as much of an issue if I hadn’t already finished everything else, so there's no more possibility of getting caught up in a completely unrelated, unexpected adventure along the way. Those moments were a big part of Kingdom Come's charm.
But let’s pretend that wasn’t a concern. If I were comparing this story to what I would consider the best side quests in the base game, it would be near the top in terms of scope, and probably above average in terms of writing. The actor voicing Voyta lends a lot of character and energy to the proceedings, too. On the other hand, in terms of the creativity in the quest design and the variety of activities Henry gets to engage in, it's really just adequate. And going at it with an endgame character decked out in expensive gear, all of the fights except for the last one felt pretty trivial. Even the one satisfyingly tough boss didn't feel like he got an appropriate lead-up or climactic backdrop fitting for his position. It's just another skirmish in some random spot in the forest.
There isn't anything here as memorable or clever as the Mouth of Hell or Fifth Commandment quest chains from vanilla KCD2. There are no heart-pounding moments of action or drama to compete with those of the main quest. It does present Henry with some nuanced decisions that can have a notable impact on how things wrap up, though, and a secret achievement I got for getting Voyta to tell me more than he originally wanted to – I won’t tell you how – hinted to me that he might not be so forthcoming if I had done things differently. That's cool, because I felt rewarded for talking him into lowering his defenses. But even then, the friendship that developed between him and Henry seemed rushed and unearned when all of these quests are played back to back with no chance to reflect on their character development.
The other neat thing this DLC adds other than a new storyline – and something you’ll have to remember it by if you’re moving on to other things in the world – is the ability to get Voyta to paint your shields. This is a welcome little bit of customization and medieval flair that adds to the feeling I'm creating a new legacy for Henry, not merely following the orders of some pampered lords. I like the period-inspired designs and color schemes quite a bit, and it's especially satisfying that you can unlock a few new designs based on your exploits from completing specific quests.
Again, I think I’d have reacted to Brushes With Death much more favorably if it had been one part of a new playthrough rather than a late addition I was returning to months later. Its relationships would have had more time to brew. I would have spent more time pondering its mysteries while I was out exploring in the forest or getting distracted by other quests. And its conclusion might have felt more satisfying if it didn't have to follow the total show-stopper that was the last several hours of the main story. But instead of it serving as a nice little seasoning to a three-course meal, I was just emptying the entire pepper shaker into my mouth after cleaning my plate.
I do also have to mention that this patch introduced a new graphical bug for me that was quite persistent and distracting. Especially in and around castles and towns, entire buildings and rock formations would flicker out of existence as higher detail versions loaded in. I'm playing this on the exact same hardware I used for the base game (RTX 4070 Super, Ryzen 7 3700X, 32 GB of RAM, and a SATA SSD), with the latest Nvidia drivers, and I've never seen this before I loaded up Brushes With Death. Try as I might, I couldn't find any combination of graphics settings that would get rid of it. Hopefully it gets fixed soon. But I can only tell you about my experience, and it was definitely affected by these unfortunate, novel tech issues.
