Kingdom Come: Deliverance Gets a Free Next-Gen Update for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S

It’s been eight years since Kingdom Come: Deliverance came out, but it now has new armor. The popular medieval role-playing game has gotten a brand-new next-generation update, which is now available for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. 

The goal of the update is to make the first game look and run more like the second one. For fans who have put up with choppy frame rates and old textures for a long time, this update may feel like a royal order that has been waiting for a long time.

Players who already own the game don’t have to pay anything to get the update.

It’s also available on Xbox Game Pass for the first time, which makes it easy for new players to get into the world of Bohemia in the 1400s. Fans of PC games have had access to high-end settings for a long time, and now mobile gamers can also enjoy them. Clearly, the most important changes are in how things look. The new version for consoles runs at 60 frames per second and allows 4K resolution, which is 2K native resolution increased to 4K.

It is said that the textures have been remade using the PC Ultra settings as a starting point. This is a big change for a game that had been stuck at 30 FPS on PS4 and Xbox One for almost ten years. It is said that the difference is dramatic, especially in busy towns like Rattay and during big fights, which used to make the game run very slowly.

It looks like performance improvement is a big deal. A lot of work has been done to fix frame drops and get rid of stress points that have been there for a long time across the map. It’s said that the game now runs easily from beginning to end, even in busy cities and during quests. The update fixes parts of the game that used to have trouble even at 30 frames per second, making the experience much more stable on current hardware.

What about PC gamers, though? Things are a little more complicated now. A lot of the things that are new to devices have been on PC for years. But Patch 1.97 also brings some changes to PC, though right now only users of Steam and the Epic Games Store can get them. The patch has not yet been sent to GOG users, but that could change in the future.

The PC patch is mostly about what are being called “Legacy fixes.”

These fixed the longstanding technical problems. It is said that crash causes have been fixed, infinite loading screens have been fixed, and save file corruption has been cut down. There were also no longer any memory leaks. It’s interesting that one problem with in-game dogs not finding the right pathing was found to be slowing things down and has now been fixed.

At first glance, the list of fixes may not seem very long, but it seems the focus is more on making the game stable than on big changes to how it plays. The workers focused on fixing big problems that slowed things down instead of looking for every small visual bug. Reports say most of the remaining problems are minor.

There isn’t much new information in the update. After finishing the prologue, players can get a new horse caparison by making an account with Deep Silver and adding it to their account. Besides that, this update is mostly about improving performance and technology, not adding more material.

One big change for console players is that translation support has been increased. Voiceovers in Czech and Japanese are now available for PlayStation and Xbox users; they were only available on PC before. This change makes the game more accessible to more people and makes the mobile versions more like the PC versions.

Warhorse Studios did not work alone on the update.

Saber Interactive worked with others on the update. Saber worked on getting the game to the Nintendo Switch before, which was a big technical accomplishment at the time. They probably helped make the next-gen patch work better, which is why current-generation systems are faster and more optimized.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is often compared to its follow-up, but it still has its own personality. Some players like how real the story is and how low-stakes it is, even though the scale is smaller and the filmmaking ambitions are lower than in the sequel. If you liked the simpler, more personal parts of the beginning of the movie, going back to the first one might feel like coming home.

Accessibility may be the most important thing to remember. Players who quit the computer version because it wasn’t working right can come back and continue where they left off. Existing save files will still work with the update, which takes away a big problem for players who want to play again.

This release also comes out slowly. Instead of being promoted for months, the change came out without a lot of fuss. That choice may have helped people not expect too much and perceive the upgrade for what it truly is: a much-needed update to the technology, not a remake. Would players have been more excited if they had known about it for months?

Maybe. But as it is, the upgrade gives a lot of gamers what they've been asking for for years:

games that run quicker, look better, and are more stable. The update comes at the same time as the game’s eighth anniversary, which makes it even more of a party. Not many games get this much support almost ten years after they came out, and even fewer manage to come back in such an important way.

This update changes the talk for new players who may have started with the sequel and skipped the original because it was thought to be old. Now that consoles can meet current performance standards, it’s much easier for people to get into the game. A free next-gen upgrade stands out in the world of video games, where remasters and remakes usually cost a lot. It might not be a new idea, but it does make the armor look better.

The roads in Bohemia from the Middle Ages are now better than ever. The fights are better. The towns feel alive without putting too much stress on the gear. Kingdom Come: Deliverance doesn’t feel like an old game anymore after eight years. Instead, it feels like a new game. The question now is whether this new spark will be enough to get veterans back on the horse and newbies to finally answer Bohemia’s call.