At long last, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's highly anticipated Legacy of the Forge DLC has finally been revealed, along with a release date that is actually sooner than expected. Initially, the DLC was slated for an Autumn 2025 launch, which technically would have put it anytime after September 22, the first day of fall. Fortunately for those of us who have been waiting for it, Legacy of the Forge will be released on September 9, and I personally couldn't be more excited.
I have been keeping a close eye on Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's Legacy of the Forge DLC, due to both my love for the franchise and my anticipation of what the expansion might bring to the base game. Speculation, including my own, has pondered whether the DLC would finally add a housing feature to the medieval RPG, and whether its scale and gameplay loop would be anything in comparison to the first game's From the Ashes DLC — which allowed players to build and manage a small village. As it turns out, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 really will be adding all that and more with its Legacy of the Forge expansion, and one of the main reasons I'm so excited about it is because it already feels like the Fable sequel I never got.
KCD2's Legacy of the Forge DLC Brings Me Back to My Favorite Fable 2 Feature
Revisiting My Favorite Part of Fable 2
The Fable series as a whole makes up a fairly significant portion of gaming memories from some of my most formative years, as the first game was released in September 2004, just after the start of my senior year in high school. While the first game was certainly a magical and unforgettable experience, however, Fable 2 is even more so. From my point of view, that sequel took everything great about its predecessor, improved it, and added a few cherries on top for good measure. But there was really one aspect of its gameplay that had me hooked from the get-go.
It's one thing for a city sim or cozy game to let players build or buy houses and businesses and then customize them, but it's an entirely different animal for an RPG to have such a feature. Fable 2 was that animal for me in 2008, as it offered me the chance to buy homes, shops, and businesses across nearly every settlement in the game and then rent them out to NPCs or run them as sources of passive income. I could then decorate the homes I owned by purchasing furniture from stores, which had rotating stock that encouraged me to check back often. Furnishing homes improved their value and increased the happiness of my tenants, thereby enhancing the quality of life for the people of Albion wherever my little side hustle stretched, which made all the work that much more fulfilling. It was one of the first cozy game-like experiences I had, and I've longed for another one like it.
How Legacy of the Forge Brings That Feeling Back
Hence, my excitement for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's Legacy of the Forge DLC, as it looks poised to deliver a similar experience and potentially give me a sequel to Fable 2's town management that I never got. While Fable 3 brought the idea of being a landlord back, it streamlined the whole process with a system that was mostly point and click, and as a result, it lost the depth its predecessor had that came with doing everything by hand.
The main thing telling me that I could be getting that Fable 2 experience back in Legacy of the Forge is a customization mini-game that allows players to configure the layout of Henry's home and the surrounding area, furniture piece by furniture piece. Depending on how much there truly is to manage in the DLC, it could be that same painstaking but pleasurable process I devoted hours to in Fable 2, especially given the fact that there are around 130 million different combinations players can arrive at. Of course, time will tell, but this next chapter in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's legacy already looks like one I have long waited for.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 89 /100 Critics Rec: 95%
- Released
- February 4, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Use of Alcohol, Blood and Gore, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity
- Developer(s)
- Warhorse Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Deep Silver
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- CryEngine
- Genre(s)
- RPG, Action-Adventure, Open-World
