Kingdom Come: Deliverance II - Churns Up MASSIVE Launch & Unexpected Optimization Secret
Remember the arrival of the first Kingdom Come: Deliverance? It was a niche title, a realistic historical RPG considered by some to be too hardcore for mainstream audiences back in 2018. The sequel, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, has arrived and proven those doubts wrong. The successor has exploded into view.
Steam Charts and Daniel Vavra's Pride
Gamers have responded with their wallets and playtime. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II has rocketed into Steam's top 50 most popular releases. It attained as many as 256,000 concurrent players at launch, a huge number. Currently, it occupies 49th place in the Steamdb charts, indicating the sequel's success. Creator Daniel Vavra expressed pride, stating:
New record today. I don't think online will be higher on weekdays, but I want to see 300k players at least someday big like in Starfield. I love such trials.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II launched on February 4th, hitting PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series consoles. While critics are generally positive, some players have noted story elements and character choices. However, the game's popularity is undeniable.
The Xbox Series S Optimization Secret
A significant surprise is Kingdom Come: Deliverance II's optimization across all platforms. Many held reservations given the technical state of the first game. Warhorse Studios has delivered on performance. The secret to this optimization is reportedly the Xbox Series S.
Tobias Stolz-Tsville, PR Manager for Warhorse, mentioned this during the Iron Lord podcast. He shared that optimizing for the Xbox Series S actually improved performance on all platforms.
"The sharpening of the game under the Xbox Series S helped a lot in the case of other platforms," he said.
The Series S is the least powerful of the new generation consoles. Developing for it necessitates hyper-efficiency, smart compromises, and maximizing hardware performance. This optimization approach benefits all platforms.
Stolz-Tsville elaborated, "In the case of 'older' platforms, you can focus only on them or resort to the tricks that were used for the Xbox Series X / S so that the game starts more smoothly. It does not imply that these versions will look worse than they might. They start working better outright."
This approach appears effective. PC Gamer noted the PC version's excellent optimization and smooth performance on diverse hardware. Warhorse Studios deserves recognition for this clever strategy ensuring smooth performance across the board. The Xbox Series S has become an unexpected contributor to PC and PS5 optimization.
