Forged to perfection.
By Ameer Ammar
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 remains my personal Game of the Year for 2025, and Legacy of the Forge was the DLC I was most looking forward to after finishing the main game, which took me about 100 hours to beat, and it has met all my expectations and then some.
Focusing on Henry's journey as he becomes a full-fledged blacksmith, honouring his father's legacy by restoring an old forge located on the edge of Kuttenberg back to glory and undertaking a task that would fully honour his father Martin's life, Legacy of the Forge can be played as soon as you get to the Kuttenberg chapter and adds about ~15-30 hours of content.
This DLC fixes KCD2's main issues I had with the main game back at launch, First being that KCD2 has no actual "endgame", meaning that once you completed all the quests, there is nothing left to do except start a new game because there are no repeatable tasks or a final grind to spend the piles of coin that you have saved up, the other issue is that Henry has no home, forced to sleep in inns or at barns, I couldn't help but constantly wish Henry had a place to call his own and allowed me to display some of the unique weapons I had similar to Skyrim's player homes, Legacy of the Forge aims to fix both of these issues completely.
Henry finds an old burnt-down forge that his father was once an apprentice at and takes on the task of restoring it to its former glory. The story here is pretty light, mainly serving as an introduction and then as the closer, as the entire main middle portion is entirely dedicated to completing various "guild tasks", a new type of quest serving as the main bulk of content of this DLC.
Legacy of the Forge's main achievement is that it gives KCD2 an actual endgame. Guild tasks are a repeatable form of side quest; a lot of the repeatable ones come down to smaller tasks that you can undertake to level up your forge's "prestige level" - A new rank system signifying how famous Henry's forge is. Every time you level up your prestige, new options get unlocked to customise your very own forge and home. Henry's home is an awesome addition, you finally have a base of operation; this is where all the coin you have made throughout the entire game will finally go into. Upgrades are not cheap, but thankfully guild tasks in general pay well. Seeing this decrepit burnt-down building go from that to a gorgeous cosy home for Henry is a satisfying process.
There are a ton of customisation options here to make this truly your own through a clever new menu that lets you choose everything from the type of bed you want, wall decorations, roof, walls, paint, to the outdoor area, adding a horse stable for example or a wine cellar. There is way more here than I expected; you can even open an armour smith and a gun shop in your very own forge if you play your cards right and make the correct relationships over the course of this expansion. One frustrating element, however, is that despite how massive of a focus there is on forging items, I found it insanely strange that there's no materials chest next to the forge to quickly store and use crafting materials; instead, if you plan on storing crafting materials, then you'll have to constantly run between the second floor and the forge to get everything. It's a super odd omission that feels quite obvious to include, but it's nothing game-ruining.
After the opening of the expansion, you are tasked with reaching level 13 Prestige to unlock the rest of its main quest, making the bulk of this experience all about completing Guild Tasks with the story being more of a bonus than the focus.
Guild tasks are not all just meaningless tasks; many of them are wholly unique new quests, and the main bulk of the DLC deals with that. Most of these are disconnected from each other, but they will have you doing various things, from crafting a sword for a nobleman to make his neighbour jealous to then having to craft horseshoes for his wife so she can run away from him because he started to sleep with said sword. There are a ton of these new quests, and I'm fairly certain I didn't get through them all. While forge commissions serve as a large part of the experience obviously as this is about running your own shop, this DLC does go beyond that by enriching the town of Kuttenberg with new characters and quests. For example, there is a series of new thieving quests here as a bonus to the Hole's already great thieving quests, which I always loved. There is a tonne of new side content here that makes Kuttenberg, which was already a content-heavy city, even more filled with content; the developers really take advantage of every corner of the city with this DLC.
Another great quality of life change that this DLC adds is a chest in the forge where you can sell items from; if you simply just place stuff you want to get rid of in that chest, it'll get sold over time and you can go ahead and collect your coin, saving you the trouble of going from armourer to armourer in town selling off everything one by one. this turns selling into a mostly passive process and I absolutely love this addition, In general the forge itself is a massive QoL upgrade because once you have it all built up, it turns into your sole base of operations where you can do everything you could need before going off on an adventure, this means if you're planning to replay the game, I can imagine the forge making a massive difference in the experience because you'll always want to return here to wash up, craft some potions, put some goods on sale, take on a couple commissions before going off to take care of the main questlines, I will definitely be sure to replay KCD2 once all the DLCs are out and see how much of a difference makes.
I liked this expansion way more than "Brushes with Death" which overall disappointed me and felt like a side questline that should be played alongside the main quest and not something that adds much to the experience of people who already dumped a hundred hours into this game, but Legacy of the Forge absolutely succeeds in enriching the experience of KCD2 veterans and I am quite curious to see how Mysteria Ecclesiae - KCD2's final expansion will go.
The obvious point of comparison to Legacy of the Forge is KCD1's "From the Ashes" DLC which had you rebuild the town of Pribyslavitz, KCD2's Legacy of the Forge does a far superior job at the concept of owning and customizing your own propety, it is in my eyes leagues better than From the Ashes and if you are someone who didn't enjoy From the Ashes and are afraid you'll be disappointed with Legacy of the Forge, I am happy to report they really nailed it this time.
FINAL VERDICT:
Overall, Legacy of the Forge is more Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2; it doesn't seek to change the game or add new groundbreaking mechanics. It serves as an extension to the already established experience, with quests that range from 15 to 30 hours to get through, a new place to call home and customise with a ton of options, and repeatable quests that serve as the endgame to this massive experience. It is a great expansion and one that I thoroughly enjoyed.