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Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a game firmly rooted in the Middle Ages. “We want to make the game as realistic as possible,” Warhorse Studios’ social media manager Jiri Rydl tells us. “Of course we have to make compromises to keep the game fun. For instance the doors are little bit bigger than in reality, just to be sure player will be able to enter the building. If I visit some historical places and buildings I always hit the door with my head!”

A game about 15th century medieval Europe is an intriguing concept. A time of great conflict for the developers’ home country of the Czech Republic, the 14th and 15th centuries saw the aftermath of Charles IV’s death and the civil war resulting from his two sons Wenceslaus and Sigismund’s claims to the throne. Daniel Vávra, responsible for Mafia and Mafia II and now Warhorse co-founder, had been searching through interesting periods of Czech history when he came across the Bohemian (Hussite) Wars. “We all learn about it at school, but you don’t pay too much attention when you are young.” Rydl explained. Rediscovering the political intrigue of the period inspired the team to create a game set around the bloody civil war.

Within their chosen time period Warhorse are aiming to tell the story of Henry, a poor blacksmith seeking vengeance against those who slaughtered his family. The three acts of the game tell Henry’s story, deeply embedded in the backdrop of actual historical events. Henry’s story reflects the struggles of the people during the Hussite Wars. Rydl explained that “after playing all three parts you can understand the reasons why people wanted to change the way they lived, the way they pray or you find out who will be the king.” Each part can be played separately and still be enjoyed, and Rydl expects a full playthrough of all three parts to take 60-70 hours to complete.

In addition to the historical background, Kingdom Come: Deliverance draws inspiration from many modern Czech film and literary sources. Rydl cites the 1970 film Witchhammer as an example, as well as Red Dead Redemption, Dark Souls, or the pen and paper game Dragon’s Lair, which is popular in the Czech Republic.

Augmenting the interesting historical setting is the fact that players can experience it all in a growing open world. “Right now you can wander [an area of] 3x4km, which is 12sq km of forests, villages, roads, cities and fields, where you can roam freely by foot or on the horse.” This world is growing as the game develops, however, and the size of the map in the current alpha build will increase as the game reaches maturity. While Rydl and the team think the main story is the most interesting part of the game, players who wish to go off and do their own thing are more than capable of doing so. “There are players who already spent hours in the technology alpha version we have released in October just by walking around the village, talking to villagers or looking for herbs in alchemy quest.” Rydl said. “So yes, you can do pretty much whatever you want.”

Flexibility of playstyle is a hallmark of RPGs and Kingdom Come: Deliverance is no different. Many different approaches to situations are possible, from persuasive chats, to something with a bit more edge – like a blade. Skills develop as you train them. Some skills help you more in certain situations – for example being good at deception can make some quests easier, but not everyone is fooled so easily. Choices are final, and repeating your decisions is impossible.

[su_note note_color=”#000000″ text_color=”#ffffff”]“You are looking to the sun staying on a meadow and listen to the bird songs. After a while the shepherd talks to you. His favourite sheep gets lost, can you help him? You start to look for a sheep in the near forest, but instead of a sheep you can see a bear behind the boulder, and what should you do? You draw a bow and shoot. Miss! The bear fortunately decides to run away. It was very dangerous situation! Suddenly something or someone hits your head from behind and you lose consciousness…”[/su_note]

Most in-game interactions are simple to control, with a single action button taking most of the unnecessary complexity out of the controls. Combat, however, is a different matter – combat is a complex affair that utilises “almost every button on the controller”.

Battles, which aren’t currently in the available alpha build, will take place on a massive scale, consisting of hundreds of NPCs. Rydl explained, however, that these battles are more like background events, taking place around you – “You are just one guy, not a leader, you do not move armies, just your legs and the best thing you can do when the battle begins is to hide somewhere. If you need to fight, choose weaker opponents. If you see someone on a horse, just run.”

Castle sieges will also play their part in setting the scene, and you are naturally able to take part. They are not designed to be easy to survive, though. Catapults, boiling oil, moats, archers – all will rain down destruction. Rydl’s suggestion to surviving a siege is to equip the best armour available and to stick with the other heavily armoured troops.

The Warhorse team are working towards implementing combat in one of the alpha builds, with Rydl telling us they are aiming for inclusion in the 0.4 or 0.5 alpha versions.

“You are not [an] experienced soldier or a magician with superpowers; you are a poor smith from small village in 1403, so you have to think twice about your decision. The fights can be deadly and you should use your other skills first. The world is very fragile and your actions have consequences. The experience is close to the real world – if you said something wrong you can make new enemies and some quests stay out of your reach.” Kingdome Come: Deliverance is using Crytek’s gorgeous CryEngine 4, the same engine powering Ryse, Evolve, and Star Citizen. The team’s familiarity with the engine played a part in choosing to use it, but there were also significant technical advantages.

“The engine is very complex, it can handle big open world with hundreds of NPCs and it is supporting every major platform like PC, Xbox One and PS4” Rydl explained. “Of course we need to develop some enhancements on our own – for instance the clothing system, which gained attention of Star Citizen development team, but the engine is very capable and Crytek is very supportive if we need help.” CryEngine’s multiplatform support has helped the team’s push to get the game on consoles – “Thanks to CryEngine we can focus on the development of the game, not to split rare resources to development for three different platforms. We already make some performance checks on both consoles and it worked.”

Kingdom Come: Deliverance didn’t spring into the world fully formed, however. The concept of the game began as Daniel Vávra’s singular vision of a game set in Medieval Bohemia. Vávra drafted up a basic design document and took the idea to potential investors over several months. Eventually, Vávra was introduced to Czech entrepreneur Zdenek Bakala, who provided the support to open Warhorse Studios in 2011 with Martin Klíma as executive producer. Over the next year the team recruited developers, including lead graphic designer Roman Zawada. In 2013, Vávra and Klíma took the project to publishers looking for interest, and, after that proved unsuccessful, the team decided to take the project to Kickstarter in February of 2014.

Going through Kickstarter was critical to Warhorse getting Kingdom Come: Deliverance off the ground. The team’s success was helped by their strategy going into the Kickstarter. “Every project is unique, and it is important to explain this uniqueness to the potential backers.” Rydl explained. “On the other hand there are some similarities in cases of successful backed projects. You need to show the best of your project, not just a few ideas, but important parts of your research, at least some artworks, if you have even trailers. The more you have the better. Also introduce members of the team or advisors who helped you. Introduce the project to your friends and ask them, if they would back it – use their feedback to improve the campaign.”

Rydl and the team have no illusions about how vital the Kickstarter process was. “[Without the Kickstarter], well, probably we would have no interview now. The studio would be closed.” Warhorse is very grateful to their backers for the chance to make Kingdom Come: Deliverance. One way of showing this is through the frequent updates on their development blog. “For one we can show what we are working on, for second we can get early feedback so we can implement the changes. For us the community is extremely important, we develop Kingdom Come: Deliverance for them, without them all the fun would be lost.”

“We are very grateful to our backers and overall to every supporter of our idea, so we share our thought and vision with them.”

Rydl attributes the wide range of talent available in Europe and the Czech Republic to the Cold War. “In Czech Republic we can utilise great education thanks to large number of technical universities and our national passion for DIY. We used to live behind the Iron Curtain, so everything from personal computers to applications had to be developed by Czech hobbyists. The passion is still here and people in [the Czech] gaming industry are all fans of gaming.”

It’s not all roses, though. The toughest part of development so far for the team has been hashing out the AI systems. NPCs, creatures, and even “intelligent” objects all require AI, and that has been a complex challenge to address, but the team keep working through it. Working in a smaller independent studio really promotes the team feeling, and the internal status meetings where each department presents their progress over the past few weeks are some of the most enjoyable moments for Rydl.

“Thanks to you and all the backers we can do what we love. Thank you!”

Warhorse are aiming for a December 2015 release, although they acknowledge that a release “may be later”. Kingdom Come: Deliverance will come to PC, Mac, and Linux, and to PS4 and Xbox One pending platform holder approval.