Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Cut a Dream Combat System—and It Might’ve Been the Most Innovative RPG Mechanic in Years

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is shaping up to be one of 2025's most ambitious RPGs, promising a larger world, expanded questlines, and more refined swordplay than its already-impressive predecessor. But as development wraps up, a fascinating piece of cut content has emerged—a karma-based dream combat system that would’ve taken the first-person RPG genre somewhere we’ve never been before.

Revealed by Czech outlet CzechCrunch, this scrapped mechanic was more than just a moral gimmick. The idea was simple but powerful: players would be haunted (or rewarded) by their choices in their dreams. Play the role of a cruel, thieving knight? You’d be plagued by nightmarish spirit battles while trying to sleep. Play honorably? You might dream your way to secret loot. Not only would this add a deeply personal layer to how morality affects your character, but it would also bring an entirely new dimension to first-person combat in RPGs.

And frankly, it's a shame it got cut.

A Missed Opportunity in First-Person RPG Evolution

First-person combat has always been tricky to get right in RPGs. Most titles in the genre struggle to balance immersion with clarity and responsiveness. From Skyrim's floaty melee to Dark Messiah of Might and Magic’s physics-driven chaos, developers have experimented with all kinds of mechanics—but the genre still rarely breaks out of its comfort zone. Even recent innovations like Dark Souls-inspired stamina systems in games like GreedFall or Elden Ring tend to keep combat grounded in the real world. In addition, the data miners have captured that KCD2 will appear in Fortnite in the form of a new collaboration.

What Warhorse Studios almost pulled off with KCD2 was an emotional, moral, and dreamlike twist on that formula. Instead of throwing you into another fight with some bandits in the woods, the game would’ve asked you to reckon with your own actions in eerie, symbolic ways. That kind of mechanic doesn’t just make combat more interesting—it makes it meaningful.

Imagine waking from a grueling dream duel with some kind of spectral representation of a villager you betrayed earlier that day. You win, and you gain experience. You lose, and you start the next questline tired and groggy, your conscience dragging you down like a status debuff. That’s the kind of mechanic that sticks with players.

Kingdom Come 2: Ambitious, If Not Historically Accurate

While the original Kingdom Come: Deliverance was famously committed to gritty historical realism—down to accurate medieval armor layering and real Bohemian locations—its sequel seems more willing to bend the rules for storytelling. Learn more about the recently released Hard Core mod for KCD2. Warhorse has described KCD2 as more of a "sparkly historical fiction," with a bigger focus on drama, spectacle, and character-driven quests.

The dream mechanic, while admittedly veering into dark fantasy territory, would’ve fit perfectly in this new direction. It would’ve built on the game’s existing moral framework while deepening the role-playing possibilities. Not to mention it would’ve added a layer of procedural unpredictability—imagine not knowing whether your dreams tonight would help or hurt you.

We also know that other cut content from KCD2 included a blackmail-heavy questline and even the presence of babies in-game (which were reportedly removed due to concerns players would kill them for chaos or gain). It’s clear that Warhorse was flirting with bold, even risky ideas—and while some may have been too much for the final product, they show a studio willing to push the envelope.

Where Does First-Person RPG Combat Go From Here?

The dream system in KCD2 might be gone, but it highlights a growing hunger among RPG fans for combat that reflects narrative consequences. Games like Fable and Red Dead Redemption have had morality systems for years, but they’ve typically been shallow—changing your appearance or altering a few dialogue trees.

A true evolution of first-person RPG combat would integrate morality into gameplay mechanics, not just world reactions. That’s what Warhorse was about to achieve with its dream fights: an experience where your choices didn’t just matter narratively—they affected how you fight, how you rest, and how you grow.

It’s hard not to mourn what could’ve been. But at the same time, the very existence of this cut mechanic shows where the genre might be headed next. More introspective, more reactive, and maybe even a little surreal.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 was originally going to feature a dream-based combat mechanic where your actions in the game affected your sleep. Evil characters would face spirits in nightmares, good ones might find treasure in dreams—and your performance in these sequences would influence real-world XP or debuffs. The feature was sadly cut, but it reveals an exciting vision for the future of first-person RPG combat, where morality shapes not just the story but how you play. As KCD2 prepares for release, it’s clear Warhorse isn’t afraid to take creative swings—and we can only hope some of these bold ideas make it into future updates or sequels.