It’s not a story that has much time for women. Since you play the pre-designated character, Henry, it’s down to the supporting cast to provide different perspectives. Unfortunately, female characters typically fall into the categories of maidenly love interest, prostitute or surrogate mother, in keeping with the portrait of a “purely patriarchal” society described by Kingdom Come’s historical database. I don’t know enough about 14th century Bohemia to address this, but I’m not sure the defence of historical accuracy extends to blokier character buffs like “Alpha Male”, which confers a +2 charisma boost when you visit the brothel.
Tedious macho elements aside, there are other questions about the depiction of the people of early 14th century Bohemia. During development
director Daniel Vavra claimed that there were “no black people” present in the area of Bohemia covered at the time of Kingdom Come’s events and though the game doesn’t present the region as a bastion of monoethnicity, the issue of race deserves further examination. I’d especially like to read a critique of its portrayal of the Cumans, a Turkic nomadic people represented by other characters as vicious killers, who often feature among the ranks of your enemies.
Vavra has defended the research that went into the game’s racial diversity and apologised for some of his comments, and it’s important to note that the development has been a collaborative effort of more than 100 people rather than the work of one man. If Kingdom Come existed in a vacuum, the treatment of the Cumans might seem like a meaningful depiction of the othering of outsiders, which might in itself help us to understand characters and the setting. In reality, it’s reasonable to dig deeper into the game’s claims to accuracy in this and other regards now that the whole picture can be seen, and that’s something we’ll be doing.
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