Kingdom Come: Deliverance — crime doesn’t pay … except when solving RPG quests

I’ve just started on my quest in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and I’m not sure what to think about it yet. The medieval open-world adventure — that I’ve started describing as “Skyrim minus fantasy” — takes its time before unleashing you on its world, so I’m still unsure what options I have to solve any particular obstacle. But I found out organically that committing crimes is often a means to achieve certain ends even if it’s in a roundabout fashion.

Kingdom Come is out now on PC and consoles. It’s beautiful thanks to developer Warhorse’s use of the powerful CryEngine development kit, but it’s also quite buggy with a tendency to crash. I’m only a few hours in, which means that my parents are dead, my village is gone, and I’ve found myself embroiled in the matters of the state. But as I started playing today, I was facing a basic challenge: leave town.