Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 just hit Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass today, and thousands of new players are about to find out what a “historically realistic medieval RPG” actually means in practice. It means your character can starve, get arrested for sleeping in the wrong bed, lose three hours of progress because you misread the save system, and die in a fistfight because you never trained with the sword instructor.
KCD2 has a Metacritic score of 87 on PC and 89 on Xbox — one of the best-reviewed games of 2025. It earns those scores. But it is deliberately unforgiving for the first 5 hours, and if you go in blind, you’re going to bounce off it. Before you get started, read these ten tips. They’ll save you a lot of pain.
(Just want to know if KCD2 is worth your time on Game Pass? Check our full KCD2 Game Pass overview here.)
1. The Save System Is Not What You’re Used To
This is the one thing you absolutely need to understand before you play. KCD2 does not autosave on demand. There are exactly three ways to save your game:
- Savior Schnapps — a potion you can brew or buy. Saves instantly when you drink it.
- Sleeping in a bed you own or pay for — sleeping at a tavern or in a bed you’ve earned saves the game. Sneaking into someone else’s bed risks a crime charge and doesn’t reliably save.
- Story checkpoints — the game auto-saves at key quest moments, but you can’t count on these for regular play.
There’s also an exit save when you quit, but it overwrites itself every time. It’s not a backup — it’s a single slot. You’ll lose progress if you rely on it.
What to do: Within the first 20 minutes, get to Bozhena’s alchemy table and brew Savior Schnapps. You need Belladonna and Nettles. Do not wander into combat before you have at least three schnapps in your bag. You’ll thank yourself when the first ambush hits.
2. Loot the Corpse Outside Bozhena’s Hut
Right after the prologue, Hans kills someone near Bozhena’s hut. That body is still there when you regain control of Henry. Loot it immediately. You’ll find early armor, a weapon, and food — all things Henry currently doesn’t have, because KCD2 resets him back to near-zero stats from where he ended KCD1.
For the first few hours, treat every piece of loot as survival equipment. Sell what you can’t use. You need groschen (coins) to buy Belladonna for Savior Schnapps, and you need to scrimp for every coin early.
3. Level Alchemy Before Combat Skills
Alchemy levels up just by using the alchemy table, and it’s one of the most consistently useful skills in the game. In the early game, it’s the most important one. Priorities:
- Secret of Equilibrium perk (makes brewing easier and faster)
- Artemisia potion recipe from the alchemy table in West Troskowitz (strength buff for early fights)
- More Savior Schnapps. Always more Savior Schnapps.
Don’t skip Alchemy to rush combat skills. You’ll end up strong enough to win fights but with no way to save after winning them.
4. Talk to Bara the Beggar First
After you escape the gallows in Troskowitz, the first NPC you’ll see is a beggar named Bara. Talk to her before you do anything else. She gives you a map breakdown of the surrounding area, markers for key locations, and — most importantly — she points you toward Tomcat, a swordsman who teaches better attack techniques.
Most new players skip this conversation because she looks optional. She’s not optional. She’s your first navigator.
5. Find Radovan the Blacksmith as Fast as Possible
Once you leave Troskowitz, head to Tachov and find Radovan. He becomes your blacksmith apprentice employer, which gives you:
- A free bed — which means free saves
- Crafting access so you can forge and sell gear for income
- Progress on the main quest chain
That free bed is probably the most underrated early-game unlock. Stop sleeping in taverns (costs groschen) and start sleeping at Radovan’s (costs nothing). Every rest is a save.
6. Pick One Weapon Type and Commit
KCD2 rewards deep skill investment. Spreading stats across multiple weapon types leaves you mediocre at all of them. Pick a path:
Mace (Blunt Weapons): Blunt damage bypasses armor better than slashing. Simpler combat loop. Better choice if you found KCD1’s swordplay frustrating or just want to swing and break things.
Sword (Slash Weapons): Higher skill ceiling. Master Strike (covered below) makes sword combat incredibly powerful once you’ve trained into it — but until then, sword fighting is harder than mace fighting.
Pick one. Stick with it. You’ll be noticeably stronger by hour 10 than someone who dabbled in everything.
7. Train With Captain Bernard Before Any Real Combat
The Master Strike mechanic in KCD2 is sword-only (unlike KCD1 where it applied more broadly). It’s a counter-attack that, once mastered, lets you devastate enemies who attack aggressively. But you have to train for it.
Find Captain Bernard and spar with him repeatedly. It takes roughly 2-3 hours of focused sparring to unlock Master Strike reliably. Players who skip Bernard and fight real enemies before learning it reload significantly more often — the r/kingdomcome community consistently cites this as the #1 beginner mistake.
Sparring is risk-free. Bernard won’t actually kill you. Do it.
8. Check Your Perk Points Regularly
You earn a perk point every two skill levels. The game notifies you in the top-right corner, but it’s easy to miss mid-quest. Open your Player tab regularly and spend unspent points. Perks like Early Bird (better morning performance), Thick-Skinned (damage reduction), and Finisher (special attack moves) are immediately useful and carry you through the whole game.
Unspent perk points are the most common form of wasted progression in KCD2.
9. Lockpicking and Pickpocketing Need Practice — Start Early
Both skills use manual mini-games that improve with actual practice, not just stat investment. Level 1 lockpicking on a Hard lock will fail every time. Start on Very Easy locks and work up gradually.
For pickpocketing: every item you grab depletes your timer. The move is to identify the highest-value items before you start, grab only those, and walk away. Greedy pickpocketing gets you caught. Come back for the rest later.
Lockpicking pays off big in the mid-game when locked containers start holding serious loot and quest items.
10. Stop Rushing — This Game Is 60+ Hours
KCD2’s main story runs about 54.5 hours (per HowLongToBeat). Full completion — side quests, activities, everything — is 60-100+ hours. The early game feels slow because Henry starts as nobody. That’s intentional. Don’t sprint through it trying to get to the “good part.” The whole thing is the good part.
A few more things that matter:
- Read books — they passively level relevant skills
- Eat and sleep regularly — hunger and exhaustion debuff combat stats meaningfully
- Talk to everyone — side quests are often better-written than main quests
- Don’t sprint everywhere — stamina exhaustion before a fight is a real problem
KCD2 is free on Game Pass today — Ultimate and PC Game Pass only. Standard (formerly Core) subscribers don’t get access. If you decide you want to own it permanently, physical Xbox copies are running around $25 on Amazon: check current prices here. Digital has hit 50% off in recent sales.
The first 3 hours are the hardest. Get through them. KCD2 is one of the best RPGs of the decade — just not friendly to people who skip the tutorial.
Also on Game Pass right now: Dice a Million (great day-one roguelite) and South of Midnight (stunning action-adventure). Game Pass is stacked this month.
