Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 will probably go down as one of the biggest duds of the 2025 awards show season. Unfortunately, it competed against Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in most of its categories, something no game could topple.
However, just like Clair Obscur, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has a huge and very dedicated fan base. That fan base doesn't just play the game either, but engages with the story through fan work, especially fan fiction – so much so that it was one of the most popular mediums at AO3 last year.
Czech president brags about Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 in his New Year's speech
KCD2 receives much-deserved praise from the President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel.
Two different studies of fan fiction statistics on AO3 have ranked Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 in the top 100 most popular categories on the site last year. In both cases, the only couple to make the top 100 from the game was, to no surprise, the relationship between Henry and Hans.
Henry and Hans from Kingdom Come: Deliverance were very popular on AO3 last year
The first list was compiled by the AO3 user center of these lights. This method of analyzing the launch of fanfic in 2025 places Hans/Henry as the 41st most popular ship of the year.
However, there are some problems with this method. For example, the listing suggests there were no Hans/Henry movies before 2025, but that's not the case. In fact, there have been movies written about the pair since the first game launched, although the vast majority were written and published after the sequel was released.
An alternate list, compiled by Reddit user Agamar13, places Hans/Henry at 75th, just below One Direction fanfiction. That's a sentence I never thought I'd write.
Ironically, this means that what gives Kingdom Come: Deliverance much of its staying power is the very thing that attracted the most controversy (from a certain crowd that gets upset about everything) at launch. At the time, the developers had to defend the inclusion of a gay romance option in the long-awaited sequel, but it seems most players either didn't mind or were very excited about the opportunity to trash Hans.
Elsewhere on the list, League of Legends is the biggest winner, snagging both first and third place thanks to Arcane. Here, the most popular ships are Jayce/Viktor and Caitlyn/Vi respectively (both dropped to second and seventh on the options list).
- Released
-
February 4, 2025
- ESRB
-
Mature 17+/Use of alcohol, blood and grime, sexual content, strong language, intense violence, partial nudity
- Developer
-
Warhorse Studios
