4/5 ★ – MPT's review of Kingdom Come: Deliverance - A Woman's Lot.

the final and best KCD DLC gets that honour by being the game’s longest and most fleshed out. focusing on 2 great female characters and deepening the already interesting exploration of Christianity the game has going on, A Woman’s Lot is a very interesting tale, if inconsistent overall. its best part is the story in Sasau. the majority of the DLC focuses on Johanka, Henry’s friend from Skalitz, who’s helping the sick at the game’s monastery. at first she claims she’s having nightmares, and the first part of her story has you finding a cave she’s been dreaming of at the Skalitz silver mines and dealing with the “demon” there. it turns out to be a deranged serial killer who’s been murdering all kinds of people and dumping their bodies down a mineshaft in the cave. i find serial killer side stories in games especially interesting, like the ones in RDR2 and The Witcher 3 and even Skyrim, and there’s no change here. slicing up a deranged murderer is a great little way to start Johanka’s part of the DLC. it only gets better from there as you get to the meat of the story. She also claims Mary visits her in dreams with messages and that she has to proclaim them to everyone in Sasau. this gets mixed attention from the different kinds of people living there, but a lot start looking to Johanka for help, which is where you come in. from there, Henry helps a tailor’s wife curb his gambling addiction, saves a bath wench, gets a man’s treasure back for him, and deals with plenty of thugs who aren’t fond of Johanka’s claims. just like in the base game and other DLCs, there’s very meaningful decision making in each of these encounters, with instant repercussions or ones further down the line, and everything is important. that’s the main thing this DLC excels at: choice and consequence. the outcomes of each of these quests vary greatly, and even things that may seem minor can come back to either bite you in the arse Walter White style or contribute to a better outcome for the characters later. the pilgrimage quest, The Wicket Gate, proves this even more. Johanka spells out Henry’s sins to him and it’s absolutely hilarious because if your Henry is anything like mine then he committed every sin in the book. the dialogue here is just so comedic (“I was on a secret mission!” never gets old). she tells you to, on foot and in a penitent’s robe, walk to Uzhitz and visit shrines and conciliatory crosses along the way. when you get there, Father Godwin gives you a manuscript to read too. depending on how seriously you take all these steps (if you walked the full way, visited every shrine/ cross, and read the manuscript) directly affects the DLC’s final mission. you aren’t alerted to how it does so, but the fact decisions like this that may seem minor are actually bigger than they seem, and pepper the entire DLC, is just great RPG work. 👏Warhorse👏. throughout her whole narrative, you can support Johanka in your words and actions as much or as little as you want, and it all comes into play when an inquisitor gets word of her “visits” by the Virgin Mary. this is obviously something taken extremely seriously by the Church when it gets people this riled up, and his arrival brings the best section of the entire DLC, because it 1) explores the religious context of the time period and setting even further and 2) ties up every decision, minor and major, that you’ve made in Johanka’s storyline. her trial being the finale of the DLC is the perfect way for Warhorse to show off with the functions of religious trials and the role of the inquisitor, lengthy but well written dialogue, thorough choice and consequence, RPG systems coming into play with speech checks, and multiple endings to top everything off affecting Johanka’s fate. it’s deep, immersive and highly rewarding. the peak of Johanka’s storyline is brought down by the other part of the DLC though, that being Theresa’s storyline. you play as her which is very cool because it’s the only time in the game you control another character, and it takes you back to a lively Skalitz the day of the Cuman attack. interacting with Fritz, Matthew, Johanka, Bianca and even Henry through Theresa’s POV is neat as hell and adds context to the relationships between everyone in Skalitz, and even my goat the Charlatan makes a cameo, but for the most part Theresa’s story is tedious and linear. the side quests are boring, the main quests are slow, and even after the Cuman raid there’s somehow nothing exciting. thankfully it’s completely separate from the better half of the DLC, but Johanka’s storyline very clearly blows this out of the water. A Woman’s Lot stands out as KCD’s clear strongest DLC to me, even if it is one sided. Theresa’s storyline is good if you love Skalitz and are just interested in playing from a different perspective, but moves at a snail’s pace and makes you wish you were doing real life chores. thankfully it’s separate from the other half of the expansion which has some of the best themes, writing and RPG elements of the game. this part is lengthy and consistent, and most impressively, has choice and consequence that makes the base game’s main quest line shit its pants.