Summary
While morality is often ambiguous inKingdom Come: Deliverance 2, how ruthless players are as they go through the campaign will have an impact on the game’s ending. There are several key choices players have to make about whom to kill and who to spare, as well as a more general tracking of the player’s overall “honor.” That’s governed by things like whether players steal a lot, or take innocent lives.
With that said, there are some NPCs throughout the game that players should kill, or at least have compelling reasons to. That might be for story reasons,for a reward, or just because it’s really, really tempting to take these NPCs down. These are the NPCs inKingdom Come: Deliverance 2that players are going to want to kill.
The NPCs discussed in this topic have deep relations to both the main campaign and various side stories in the game. As such, this article will contain spoilers for key moments inKingdom Come: Deliverance 2, up to and including the end of the main story.
1Anyone Who Insults Pebbles
They Deserve It
Far too many NPCs inKingdom Come: Deliverance 2are happy to sling insults atHenry’s faithful horse Pebbles. How dare these medieval peasants besmirch the honor of Pebbles? Cut them down where they stand, they clearly deserve it. Perhaps drink a Savior’s Schnapps first.
While it’s understandable that this level of insult would drive players into a murderous frenzy, it’s probably best to remember that the law may not take insults to the players' horse as seriously as murder. Henry can and will end up at the end of the hangman’s noose if players don’t endure the vile slander of his faithful steed. Many would argue that it’s worth it to defend the honor of Pebbles, though.
2Konrad
The Easier Option
While following the Blacksmithquest line early in the game, players will be tasked with retrieving a Damascus sword that has been promised as a wedding present. This sends players on an investigation that eventually leads to a hermit who knows of the sword’s location. Unfortunately, before the player gets the location from the hermit, Konrad, they’ll be forced to make a decision.
Konrad is being sought by his fellow Knights of the Cross for crimes he may or may not have committed. These knights will force the player to either side with them and kill Konrad, or side with Konrad and kill them. No spoilers on which choice is the “correct” one, but siding with the group of knights against one man is certainly the easier fight. Players can still complete the quest for the sword, whatever choice they make.
3Jakesh
Weighing Jakesh’s crimes in the associated side quest, players may well decide there’s a decent justification for killing him. Whether to do so or not is a choice that players will have to make carefully, though. Jakesh is part of a later side quest involvingBozhena and Pavlena, the two women who help Henry and Hans Capon recover from their wounds in the game’s opening hours.
The quest involves the player tracking down Pavlena, who’s gone missing. Getting Pavlena back alive is not guaranteed in this quest line and players will have to approach it carefully. Once the rescue is done, Bozhena will want the player to kill Jakesh, as he is responsible for the events. Players can choose to spare him instead, and the results of each choice are significantly different.
Players can get away without getting arrested for the kill if they do it quietly, but their reputation with the city will go down regardless. However, they’ll get a huge reputation boost with Bozhena and Pavlena, which unlocks some new dialogue with Pavlena and a unique reward. As the reward for the opposite choice is merely Groshcen, and no loss of city rep, killing Jakesh is probably the better choice.
4Hired Hand Ventza
The Treasure Map
While the player doesn’t necessarily have to kill Hired Hand Ventza themselves, they will at least have to do some killing to get to him and loot his valuable treasure map. While the player is on the Blacksmith quest line, at one point they’ll be tasked with completing a quest with a lot of steps calledThe Jaunt. Part of this quest involves clearing out a bandit camp in search of a lost cart and the hired hand.
Players will have to kill the bandits along with Semine and Gnarly to be able to search for the hired hand, at which point they’ll find him and can choose several options for how to deal with him. Killing him isn’t the only way to get Hired Hand Ventza’s treasure map, but it is the fastest, and the map points to the location of a valuableearly-game crossbowas well as some other loot.
5Hashek
Siding With Semine
Killing Hashek represents one of the key moral choices that players will have to make inKingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s main story. The situation isn’t exactly black and white, but siding withthe Semine estateto save them from slaughter, which leads to killing Hashek, is considered to be the better moral choice, by the game at least.
Making this choice, along with a whole host of other decisions throughout the story, will determine whether players see the “good” ending of the game. No matter how many other good decisions the player makes, though, siding with the Semines in this situation is required for things to progress along that path. Players are free to make their own choices, but killing Hashek can be considered the better option here.
6Istvan Toth
Fighting Dirty
No matter what players choose to do in the confrontation with Istvan Toth, he has to die. The player can choose to duel him and give him an honorable death, or they can simply end his life dishonorably and save the hassle. Either way, he won’t be coming back. Given his antagonist role for much of the early story ofKingdom Come: Deliverance 2, players probably won’t feel too bad about that fact.
Toth is a constant, if distant, threat to Henry in the first half of the game and many players will already have a little grudge left over from the first game anyway. That means it might be tempting to kill him without regard for honor. Players should be aware that their decision here will have a lasting effect on Henry, though.
7Vauquelin Brabant
Saving Some Trouble
Brabant is standing in the players' way in one of the game’s final quests, “Reckoning.” His death is another moral choice that players will have to make, but there are a couple of reasons that many will want to see him dead rather than sparing his life. The first is perhaps the most obvious and petty - Brabant is a deliberately unlikeable bad guy, so cutting him down is the far more satisfying option.
If that’s not compelling enough, there’s also the fact that after surrendering and begging for his life, if the player spares him, he’ll immediately turn tail and call for help. This alerts the guards in the rest of the mission and makes Henry’s life much more difficult. Sparing Brabant is considered the morally correct choice here though, so if players want the good ending they unfortunately have to let Brabant live.
8Markvart Von Aulitz
Sweet Revenge
Encountered in the same mission as Brabant, “Reckoning,” Markvart von Aulitz is anoptional part of the mission. Players may well want to seek him out though, as back inKingdom Come: Deliverance, it was this man whose company of soldiers slaughtered the village of Skalitz. Finding Von Aulitz during the Reckoning mission finally allows Henry to get revenge for the death of his family and friends, if players so choose.
The player can choose to brutally dispatch him where he sits, or give him a more honorable death by letting him stand and stabbing him face to face. Like with Brabant and other key NPCs, revenge is seen as the bad moral choice in the game’s terms. As such, players who want to pursue the good ending will have to choose neither of these options and spare Von Aulitz instead (though he still dies, just not at Henry’s hands).
