Kingdom Come: Deliverance update 1.03 has dropped for PS4 players, and the patch notes are a little cryptic. For such a huge patch (16 GB) it doesn’t seem like version 1.03 brings a ton of changes to Kingdom Come. After doing some digging, we’ve got to the bottom of what Kingdom Come patch 1.03 actually does, and why it’s so darn huge.
Read on below for Kingdom Come 1.03 patch notes and a detailed explanation of what the update changes.
Kingdom Come Deliverance 1.03 Patch Notes
The patch notes for Kingdom Come Deliverance update 1.03 are pretty short on PSN. There are only four things that are listed as being changed in this version.
- Stealth and stealth kills adjusted.
- People now get dirty more gradually.
- Additional quest bugs fixed.
- Various optimizations.
These changes are actually the same ones that were added to PC a few days ago, so looking at that patch, we know what they do.
Stealth and Stealth Kills Adjusted
One chief complaint players had with Kingdom Come when they first played it was that you couldn’t use the bow while in stealth. This patch should change that so you can get silent kills utilizing the bow and arrow. It’s likely the distance to activate stealth takedowns was also improved. Furthermore, stealth has likely had some adjustments so that the player is less detectable.
People Now Get Dirty More Gradually
If you’ve played Kingdom Come Deliverance, you’ll notice that it’s near impossible to stay clean. It seems like even after having a bath and getting your clothes laundered you can walk two steps down the road and you’re already dirty again. Since you get a charisma boost for being clean, it’s frustrating that it’s so hard to keep Henry from smearing mud all over himself.
This update should increase the time it takes to get dirty, hopefully significantly. After going through all the trouble to keep my clothes and armor repaired, I hate when it immediately looks like I rolled around in a puddle as soon as I step outside.
Additional Quest Bugs Fixed
Well, Kingdom Come is undoubtedly buggy, as we noted in our review, and in particular, the “A Bird in the Hand” quest you get from the huntsman in Rattay is hard to finish because of glitches. Hopefully, this update ironed out some of the bugs we’ve seen so far with quest triggers failing to fire.
Various Optimizations
This likely has to do with improving framerate and dynamic resolution. I’ve seen that the game chugs a bit on the base PS4 and PS4 Slim so hopefully, this will bring players on those consoles some relieve.
Kingdom Come Update 1.03: Why is the Patch so Big?
It’s been frustrating for PS4 owners over the last week. Not only was there a giant day one patch for Kingdom Come, but update 1.03 weights in at 16 GB. It’s especially puzzling that patch 1.03 is this large when it doesn’t seem like it made anywhere close to the number of changes to justify that size.
Unfortunately, the way Kingdom Come‘s file system works means that every patch for the game is likely to be pretty big. The way the game’s engine works is that it takes all the files that make up the game and wraps them into 2 GB archives. If any changes are made to any of the archives, even if it’s as small as 1 KB, then the whole 2 GB archive has to be redownloaded. The more extensive the patch, the more archives it’s going to affect, and the larger the update download is going to be.
Warhorse Studios has a much more significant update planned for all platforms in the next couple of weeks that is supposed to address a massive swath of issues. Unfortunately, Kingdom Come patch 1.03 just tidies up a few problems and players will still likely run into a plethora of bugs.
