Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 (KCDII), developed by Warhorse Studios and published by Deep Silver, directly follows on from the end of Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Amidst the turmoil of a civil war, Henry, the son of a blacksmith, is fighting against the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund, and his allies. 

KCDII has ridden a wave of social media success up to and beyond its release on February 4, 2025. We believe this success is down to the campaign’s willingness to double-down on the game’s identity, embrace the tone of internet culture, and do all this in a polished manner.

We expressed KCDII’s bold personality in ‘social media terms’. Meaning parody, slapdash memes, and self awareness were the campaign’s most prominent themes. However, we broke the tone of these themes in one important way: we produced assets that were more premium and polished than are typically used in memes, parodies, and self-aware content. This demonstrates that KCDII isn’t trying to pretend to be ‘one of the kids’ or be something it’s not. We took the best of both worlds: the polish of creative agency delivery and the sensibilities of social media.

Now, let’s show we understand social media with a young, hip, up-to-date medium: Print! We took the traditional advertising style of the 1970s and mixed it with the game’s 15th Century setting. Choosing the products to promote was easy, as KCDII offers many in-game items that each produce various effects and bonuses. Importantly, we gave the ads a comedic, internet-friendly tone; one that wasn’t afraid to show its rough edges.

Typically, games post earnest content about why they think they’re great and then the gaming audience will post responses and user-generated content (UGC) making fun of it. For KCDII, we’ve embraced this cycle by creating content that highlights the silly, sticky, and meme-worthy aspects of the game ourselves. This doesn’t prevent people from taking it further and making fun of our content, but it shows ‘we get it, we’re on board, bring it on.’

To make fun of players and their nefarious inclinations, we put together the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ series, highlighting the various ways players can behave badly. This appealed to our audience because they obviously want to see the various ways they can be bad, but it also represents the kind of content the audience would otherwise have made themselves.

Our campaign content has been viewed more than 5 million times on YouTube shorts, 12 million times on TikTok and received over 303,000 engagements on Instagram, from more than 12 million views. These numbers make it clear that KCDII’s social media campaign has engaged the community, and likely several new and adjacent audiences. But, beyond raw numbers, what gives us confidence that we’ve taken the right approach in this campaign is the way our content has been used by influencers. Our work has been the subject of ravenous scrutiny and ‘clue hunting’ by influencers and streamers, showing a willingness to go beyond normal engagement into full-on analysis. This warm reception reassures us that our approach is working: double-down on the game’s identity, embrace the tone of internet culture, and do all this in a premium manner.