Kingdom Come: Deliverance wins the He-Man’s Manly Game for Men Award

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an open-world role-playing adventure set during medieval times in Europe. Developer Warhorse Studios promised historical accuracy and realism with the game, and that didn’t come across while playing it. Instead, the developer ended up a medieval version of Entourage.

And the game’s bro-y vibe is why it wins the He-Man’s Manly Game for Men Award as part of our GamesBeat Rewind 2018 retrospective.

You can listen to us discuss the award in the video above or as part of Bad Awards podcast below:

In Kingdom Come, you’re a blacksmith’s son who hangs out with three other bros. The writing reduces most women to nothing more than potential sexual conquests. And if the women in the game aren’t someone you can try to have sex with, then Warhorse doesn’t really have any interest in them.

The best example of this is an early quest where you have to go mess with the Deutsch. Up to this point, the game has given everyone a name, or — in the Deutsch’s case — a nickname. But as part of this quest, you have to harass the German by getting his wife away from their home so they can throw cow manure at it. But the Deutsch’s wife is just called “Deutsch’s wife.” She didn’t get a name. She only existed because of her relationship to her husband. And to drive this point home, the Deutsch’s son shows up to fight you for throwing crap at his house, and the son, Hans, does have a name.

I found this all indicative of what kind of game Kingdom Come: Deliverance is. It isn’t as concerned about “historical accuracy” as it is about making a game for guys.