The most immersive video games make players forget they are playing a game at all, with minimal UI, realistic worlds, and NPCs who feel like real people, rather than glorified quest givers. A popular setting for immersion is the Middle Ages, with players being transported back hundreds of years.
With the original Kingdom Come: Deliverance game setting the standard for immersive medieval games back in 2018, more have followed, and players can expect new medieval games to keep arriving over the coming years.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
First-Person Realism & Living 24-Hour Days
The original Kingdom Come: Deliverance set a new standard for immersion in video games, and particularly for those taking place in the Middle Ages. Thanks to a first-person camera, players feel as though they are walking and riding around medieval Bohemia, and the requirements to eat and sleep make Henry feel like a real person.
Almost everything about the world is simulated with a 24-hour day, where NPCs have their own schedule and beds to sleep in. If players want to buy something from a merchant, they had better wait for a new day to begin and for everyone to break their fasts. These characters will also treat Henry differently in dialogue, based on how clean he is and what he’s wearing. Even the combat is immersive, with lowered visors impairing the player’s vision, and unlike other games, Henry is not the chosen one who can take down ten armed enemies at once.
Manor Lords
Every Building Is Built Piece By Piece By Villagers Who Have To Walk There
When it comes to historical city-building games, no title comes close to Manor Lords in immersion. First of all, detached from a grid-building system, players are able to build natural-looking villages, but even better is the fact that these buildings don’t spawn instantly. Instead, foundations are dug by villagers who currently have no other jobs, and then wood that has been felled is transported by an ox and its handler.
Piece by piece, the building is then constructed by workers, although if everyone is busy bringing the harvest in during autumn, construction will likely come to a halt. As alluded to, the seasons change, with ponds freezing over and more firewood being needed in winter. Crops also have to be planted at specific times of the year, and soil fertility is another issue, with players being encouraged to operate historically accurate three-field systems, where one field is left fallow each year. There is also an RTS combat side to Manor Lords, and the levies raised are mostly villagers, so for every man who dies on the battlefield, there is one less pair of hands to bring the harvest in. All of this is on top of realistic graphics and well-researched history, which results in a thoroughly immersive experience.
Medieval Dynasty
Some Historical Inaccuracies, But Lots Of Immersion
Medieval Dynasty falls short in a few places when it comes to historical accuracy. For example, the absence of churches or religion as a whole is fairly glaring, and the architecture is off, as well as there being modern-day pink pigs. However, the game is still immersive in the sense that players feel like they are a real person, surviving at first and then steadily expanding their village.
For example, trees are chopped down into logs first, which can be carried, and then these can be cut down into smaller pieces or used for construction. Players will also gain sticks and feathers. This is opposed to less immersive survival games where players will instantly get 10 Wood in their inventory. Farming is also immersive, with manure from farm animals needed, and the whole process is comprised of multiple steps, including threshing. It also feels immersive to visit other villages to trade, but here players will meet travelers whom they can recruit to their own settlement.
Ken Follet’s The Pillars Of The Earth
A Story Game Based On The Popular Medieval Book
Ken Follet’s The Pillars of the Earth is a visual novel game where choices matter, and it is based upon a best-selling book set in the Middle Ages Pillars of the Earth, which fans of these games would enjoy. The immersion and historical accuracy in the book is carried over into the game alongside beautiful art and sounds, helping players feel like they are part of the story.
Players will feel the stakes at hand with every decision, which they may soon come to regret. The three playable characters also offer views into different aspects of medieval life in the 12th century, with the monk Phillip having vastly different experiences to Aliena, a young noble woman, and Jack, the stepson of a builder.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
An Even More Reactive World Than The First Game
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 does everything the original medieval masterpiece did, but better and on a larger scale. The graphical jump and animations naturally help with immersion, but more importantly, the world is more reactive. For example, passersby call out Henry for not wearing any clothes or smelling, and players can respond with a few choice words. KCD2’s crime and punishment system is also more immersive, with players being put in the stocks for lesser crimes, with the punishments gradually getting more and more severe.
The best of these is being branded, and then Henry is being treated as a vagrant, with some merchants refusing to do business with him. In Hardcore Mode, this can even be permanent. Hardcore Mode is where immersion is taken to another level, with players needing to navigate by the sun, stars, or their own memory, and with practically no HUD.
