Okay, confession time. Here I am, supposedly living my best hardcore, historically accurate medieval life in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, meticulously polishing my halberd and practicing my courtly bow… only to find myself completely, utterly distracted. Not by the allure of stolen groschen or tavern brawls (well, maybe a little), but by something far more potent: pure, unadulterated curiosity. And it hit me like a poorly aimed longsword swing – this feeling? It’s exactly like the time I spent 300 hours in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom doing anything but defeating Ganondorf. Seriously, Warhorse Studios and Nintendo? Did you guys share notes at some secret open-world designer summit? Because the parallels are getting ridiculous.

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Medieval Henry looking surprisingly at home next to Link. Separated by centuries, united by rampant curiosity?

First off, both games have basically deleted the concept of ‘going straight from Point A to Point B’ from my gamer vocabulary. Tears of the Kingdom mastered this. See a weird rock formation? Hear a strange chime? Off I go, tumbling down a hillside or paragliding into the abyss, quest forgotten. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, bless its historically grimy heart, does the exact same thing, just swap paragliders for slightly less graceful horseback riding (seriously, Pebbles has opinions about steep slopes). Sure, KC:D 2 has more map markers than a scribe’s fever dream compared to Zelda’s minimalist approach, but does that stop me? Nope! The world itself is the siren song.

  • Zelda: See smoke rising from a distant peak? Gotta investigate! Might be a Bokoblin camp, a hidden cave, or just a really enthusiastic Korok having a BBQ.

  • KC:D 2: Hear a peasant shouting bloody murder from a field half a mile away? Or spot a suspiciously isolated hut nestled in the woods that definitely wasn't on my meticulously purchased map? Sorry, important noble quest, you'll have to wait. Someone might be getting mugged! Or… maybe they just stubbed their toe? Only one way to find out!

It’s the environmental storytelling, the audio cues, the sheer promise of discovering something unexpected. Both worlds feel alive and reactive, not just static backdrops waiting for my quest marker to activate them. They reward the easily distracted, the nosey parkers, the explorers who treat the main quest like a loose guideline rather than an actual objective. Isn’t that the real magic? When the journey is the point?

Then there’s the whole ‘creative solutions’ debacle. Tears of the Kingdom gave us Ultrahand and Fuse, turning every encounter into a slapstick physics experiment. Need to cross a chasm? Why walk when you can build a questionable hoverbike out of tree trunks and shrine propellers? Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 doesn’t have laser swords or glue powers (much to Henry’s disappointment, I’m sure), but the spirit is weirdly similar. It’s less about wacky contraptions and more about interacting with the world’s own internal logic and systems.

  • Zelda: Need to clear a camp? Go in sword-swinging? Nah. Distract them with a well-placed banana (Bokoblins are weird), drop a boulder from above, or just set everything on fire with a pinecone. Emergent chaos ensues.

  • KC:D 2: Need to infiltrate a guarded camp? Charge the gate? Please, I’m a (slightly inept) nobleman, not a berserker! Maybe I can…

    • Charm the guard with fancy speech (if my charisma stat isn’t abysmal that day)

    • Pick the lock on a neglected side gate (quietly… so quietly…)

    • Wait until night and sneak past drunk guards

    • Start a diversionary bar brawl nearby

    • Bribe someone? (If I haven't spent all my groschen on fancy hats)

    • Or, y'know, just poison the stew pot. Medieval solutions!

The game doesn’t tell me these are options most of the time. It just presents the situation and the tools (social, stealth, combat, alchemy, lockpicking) and goes, "Figure it out, chucklehead." And when a plan comes together through sheer, unscripted player ingenuity? Chef's kiss. It feels earned, just like sticking a rocket to a minecart in Hyrule. Different methods, same satisfying payoff of bending the world to your will (or at least nudging it slightly).

That moment when you realize bribing the guard costs more than the loot you're after... classic Henry.

And the longevity! Oh, the longevity. We’re well into 2025, and I still boot up Tears of the Kingdom just to see what weird contraption I can build today, or find that one Korok seed I swear I saw behind that waterfall. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 gives me that same feeling. I can put it down for a week (life happens, even virtual medieval life), come back, and instead of feeling lost or pressured, I just… wander. Maybe I’ll finally deliver that letter for Sir Divish. Or maybe I’ll spend the afternoon hunting rabbits in the woods to perfect my archery. Or perhaps I’ll just sit in the Rattay tavern, listening to the gossip, getting slightly drunk, and enjoying the ambiance. The point is, it’s my choice. The world doesn’t collapse because I ignored a quest marker; it hums along, waiting for me to engage with it on my own terms. Isn't that the ultimate luxury in an open world? No pressure, just possibilities.

So yeah. On the surface, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom couldn't be more different. One’s a gritty, historically grounded RPG about a blacksmith’s son navigating Bohemian politics and warfare. The other’s a vibrant fantasy adventure about an elf boy saving a magical kingdom with glue-powered engineering. But strip away the aesthetics and the specific mechanics, and you find the same beating heart: an absolute, uncompromising faith in player curiosity and agency. They trust us to find our own fun, to get distracted by the journey, to experiment, and to make the world our own playground (or battlefield, or hunting ground, or tavern crawl route).

They don’t hold our hands; they point at the horizon and whisper, "Go see what’s over there. It might be wonderful. Or it might get you killed. Either way, it’ll be your story." And honestly? That’s why both games are dominating my 2025. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I hear someone shouting near that suspiciously unmarked forest path…