The NPCs in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 are smarter than some gamers might think. There was even a funny moment during the game’s testing.
Stealth mechanics in video games are often not very realistic. Whether it’s in Splinter Cell, where you take out dozens of enemies and no one asks, “Where is everyone?” Or when you clear an entire map of guards and NPCs in Hitman without anyone ever calling the police.
In Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, however, the developers wanted to take a more realistic approach and give the NPCs abilities that are probably found in very few other games.
Here you can watch the trailer for the last DLC for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2:
Smart NPCs
What about the NPCs? In an interview with Gamerant, design director Viktor Bocan spoke about the development and systems of the role-playing game. He shared a funny moment that occurred during the testing of the complex RPG.
A tester examined the stealth mechanics. He went into a shop, waited until the NPC turned around, punched him, and then robbed the shop. To his surprise, the next time he was in the region, he was visited by the guards, who wanted money as compensation for the robbery.
He reported this as a bug to the developers, as the NPC couldn’t know who had robbed the shop. However, the developer explained: “Okay, but you were the only one in the shop, right? […] So the shopkeeper turned away from you and was magically overpowered by someone invisible, and everything was stolen. Well, then he just assumed it was you.”
However, the tester argued that the NPC didn’t catch him during the crime, so this must be a bug, but the developer disagreed: “No, he’s just not dumb.”
Why did the developers include this? The design director explained that they wanted to create a realistic world. The NPCs should not just be stupid background characters, but real actors in the story. The developer concluded: “These little, inconspicuous details may go unnoticed by players, but they give the impression that the world functions as it should […] and the people there are not dumb; they are real humans who have understanding and comprehend the world around them.”
The developers of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 have captivated many RPG fans with their game. However, even though the NPCs are meant to feel alive, players often choose to fight against them: Big RPG hit of 2025 on Steam shows: You are worse than the black death
