With the addition of Hardcore Mode in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, the immersive world of Trosky and Kuttenberg becomes even more so with brutal, new perks that make Henry more flawed. These negative perks affect all parts of gameplay and can be tailored based on your playstyle.
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While all of these perks can make your playthrough more difficult, especially after choosing three, some are more effective at creating a challenge than others. If you want to ensure you aren’t shooting yourself in the foot with your choices, then some perks are more recommended than others.
10
Punchable Face
Punchable Face is one of the hardcore perks that makes the game significantly more difficult, making all combat encounters more likely to kill you. Even if you survive these encounters, you are more likely to get injured and become bleeding, forcing you to use more resources and rest more often.
Since this perk increases all damage taken and enemy combat skills, being outnumbered is a death sentence, and archers can simply shoot you down if you’re not careful. You should only pick this perk if you’ve mastered combat or are attempting a stealth-only run.
One of the worst perks for the first half of the game, Heavy-Footed, makes it extremely difficult to succeed in stealth, since your skill is already so low. Even with the right gear to reduce noise levels, unless the entire house or encampment is asleep, you will be heard before you reach your target.
This perk isn’t as impactful later on as beneficial perks and late-game footwear negate it entirely, especially with a high Stealth skill. However, the additional damage to footwear makes having to find and carry repair kits even more of a nuisance, making this hard to justify over other perks.
8
Bashful
Bashful is hard to place as it is a perk that can be easily worked around depending on your familiarity with the game and access to third-party resources. Not having access to the bathhouse buff isn’t really losing anything, as it isn’t game-changing or even especially necessary, and the experience debuff isn’t detrimental.
The main problem with Bashful is not being able to ask for directions, which can be crucial in hardcore mode, as this is the only way to show where you are on the map. If you have already played through the game once, have TheGamer’s KCD2 map open, and always know where North is, then this perk might be trivial.
7
Numbskull
Numbskull is simple in that it gives you a flat 40 percent debuff to experience gain, making leveling significantly more difficult, but not impossibly so. Early-game, this will hit the hardest, as fights will feel like a struggle all the way through Trosky, and sneaking, pickpocketing, and lockpicking will remain difficult throughout.
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However, in the normal mode of the game, you will likely nearly max out a handful of skills by the time you reach Kuttenberg. This perk allows the game to feel like you’re progressing your skills during the entire playthrough without denying you max level perks by the end.
6
Menace 
Menace is a perk that sounds brutal on the surface, but doesn’t actually make you more likely to receive punishments like branding, execution, or being caught for stealing. With the ability to reload saves, run away from guards, and return later, or just not get caught, you can avoid any punishment.
Even when called by guards to enact random searches, you can simply store your stolen items on your horse until their status changes, like a mobile safe. If you are playing immersively and don’t want to save scum, then this perk actually makes punishments more realistic and can add a unique dimension to hardcore.
5
Somnambulant
Somnambulant is a unique perk in that it technically only has one drawback in forcing you to sleep more often, which isn’t difficult considering how much access you have to beds. The other part has a small chance to teleport you anywhere on the map after you sleep.
This can be quite far from where you slept originally, possibly making you completely lost if you can’t find anyone to ask for directions. This adds an interesting challenge for hardcore that can actually put you closer to unique locations or goals, only losing you time otherwise.
It is not recommended to take Bashful and Somnambulant together unless you are wholly familiar with the map’s landmarks.
4
Bad Back
Early on, Bad Back can be difficult to justify as it quarters your carrying capacity, forcing you to be more picky with your inventory. This is easily solved after obtaining Pebbles as a separate inventory, which you can do as soon as you are able to leave Troskowitz.
The other part of the perk forces you to become randomly hobbled after picking up enough herbs, which can slow you down for a decent amount of time and makes combat slightly more dangerous. However, this can also be avoided by spending some extra groschen on dried herbs or sleeping it off.
3
Hangry Henry
Hangry Henry’s main drawback is making the debuff for being hungry more severe, mostly just affecting your ability to pass speech checks. It will also make you have to eat more food more often to achieve the same results as normal mode.
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What makes this perk fairly ignorable is that you can find food almost anywhere, and stockpiling as you go and eating out of pots when you find them will keep you going through the rest of the game. With just a little bit of effort, you can easily avoid the worst effects of this perk.
Combining Picky Eater and Hangry Henry is not recommended, as you will be forced to constantly focus on food for the rest of the game.
2
Picky Eater
Unlike Hangry Henry, Picky Eater does not give you a debuff for being hungry, only affecting how quickly food in your inventory spoils. As available as food is in KCD2, if you take the time to search, this is almost a nonexistent perk in terms of potentially going hungry, especially with dried meat and access to pots.
The main drawback is making the harvest from animals less bountiful, meaning you will have to hunt four times as much to get the same amount normally. This isn’t as much of an issue as in the base game, since one boar alone usually has enough meat to last you quite a while in-game if dried or smoked.
1
Sweaty
Sweaty is easily the least impactful hardcore perk, as the only thing it affects is how quickly you start to stink and make you extra smelly. While this can be enough to be the difference between passing a speech check or being spotted while sneaking, it is the easiest perk to avoid.
That is, wash basins are so abundant that you cannot enter any established settlement, sometimes even huts in the middle of nowhere, without being able to wash up. While in some situations you might actually notice the effects of this perk, most often it can be worked around without making an extra effort.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
- Released
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February 4, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ // Use of Alcohol, Blood and Gore, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity
- Developer(s)
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Warhorse Studios
- Engine
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CryEngine
