Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is a huge experience, an undertaking not to be taken lightly, lest you'll end up losing potentially hours of progress due to dying out in the open world. It can be as unforgiving as it is immersive at times, but if you want to make Bohemia a place that's as nice to live in as it is pretty to look at, then follow along with these tips.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II has a pretty substantial prologue. It'll take you a couple of hours before you're thrust into the open world, and the instant urge will be to run off into any direction and find yourself a side quest or just see what the map has to offer. However, you'll be starting the game pretty much totally naked, with no gear, and not even a place to sleep for some much-needed rest and to save the game. If you try to go back to Bozhena's hut, where you start the game, she'll kick you out and treat you like a criminal. So, instead you should start one of the main quest paths. Either the blacksmith or the miller will give you a place to rest your head and get some food, so while you're hunting for gear, at least you have a safe place to go.
Leading onto our next tip, this might start to be a bit specific, but it's worth mentioning that you're not locked into either the blacksmith or miller path once you start one in the game's main quest. As both of these NPCs give you side quests, it means that even after the wedding (which is your overall goal at the start of the game), you can follow along these quest lines. Both the blacksmith and miller's quests will lead to some great early game loot, like dark clothes for thieving in or a nice club and shield, while also teaching you some valuable game mechanics. You don't have to follow them both to completion, but starting them out is for the best.
Right, now that you've got some stuff from the main quest lines, you're probably feeling a lot more confident about exploring. When you set off out in the world, though, make sure you're not walking up to some seriously skilled enemies, or even facing more than one enemy without backup, for that matter. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II's realism means that unless you're on the top of your game with your weapon skills, you can't take down an armoured opponent without significant protection yourself. In our playthrough, we got lucky when a bandit ambushed us, as some local merchants ambushed the bandit, allowing us to loot his corpse for the starting armour we needed. So, if you're looking to get some gear from the bodies you leave behind, just make sure you're fighting someone with only slightly better gear than your own.
I don't mean go off and do some Dragon Ball type of training in the woods here, but actually take up the Combat Training I & II quests from Master Tomcat, an NPC you can meet in the Nomad Camp just to the West of where you start the game. Tomcat will teach you how to fight properly with a sword for free, including the all-powerful master stroke, which is a counterattack allowing you to get a hit in against an opponent so long as you swing from the opposing direction. One-on-one duelling becomes much more manageable once you have these tricks, and you're sure to feel more confident when swords are drawn.
At the start of the game, like a Disney princess Henry is joined by two animals on his adventure, Pebbles and Mutt. Mutt, your canine companion, has his own quest for you to track him down, so it's as easy as just completing that quest if you want him by your side, but Pebblles is a bit trickier to find. You can find your trusty steed in the Semine stables, located in the South West of the map. Once you find her, you can persuade the stable's owner to get Pebbles for free, or you'll have to pay a fee for her. If you don't particularly care for Pebbles, later in the game you'll get the chance to have a different horse, or you can also register wild or stolen horses you find with a guy at the Nomad Camp. But, you will go to hell if you abandon Pebbles, so just be careful how heartless you want to be.
In Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, as well as needing sleep as we mentioned, you'll also want to eat, and stay clean. You can clean yourself at a water trough, but if you want to really scrape the blood and dirt from your clothes, find some soap and a local laundry. If you want to get your hygiene in tip-top shape, be sure to visit a bathhouse. For eating, it might be tempting to grab as much food as you can carry, make sure you're at least cooking your food so it doesn't go off as quickly. Drying or smoking food makes it last much longer, but no matter what you do with it, keep an eye on it, lest you poison and kill yourself with some bad cheese, like we did in our playthrough.
While it's great if you have an idea of the Henry you want to be going in, it's worth noting that there are a lot of great changes in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, particularly to the game's combat, which means you might find another weapon more rewarding. After being committed to longswords in the first game, we took our Henry in a more agile direction with shorter blades this time around, completely ditching shields. Essentially, even if you've started off wanting to be sneaky, there's nothing stopping you from grabbing a club and bashing some shields in.
Let us know if you've got any tips you'd give to beginners in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II and best of luck adventuring in Medieval Bohemia!