I’m 36 hours into my first playthrough of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and while I was trotting along the lush Bohemian countryside with my trusty steed (Pebbles), it occurred to me that the game’s story would be perfect for television. Sword and shield epics like Vikings, Game of Thrones, and Knightfall are very popular nowadays, so why not adapt developer Warhorse Studios’ new RPG?

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Creating any new series is a difficult undertaking, but before the studio executives crunch the numbers, showrunners scout locations to film, sets are built and actors are cast, having a great story is paramount. KCD has one of those classic rags to riches tales with its lead character, Henry. He’s just a regular guy -- the son of a blacksmith who enjoys throwing poop at people’s houses, drinking at the local pub, flirting with the ladies, and occasionally trying his hand at swordplay even though he’s not very good when the game begins. After an attack on his village results in the death of his parents, Henry sets off on an epic quest for revenge where he gets involved in a large-scale conflict involving lords, kings, and popes.Other historically-based series have used stories akin to KCD’s, and while this style of storytelling is nothing new, it still makes for a compelling drama. The story of Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel) in History’s Vikings is similar to Henry’s -- he starts off as a farmer in Scandinavia only to become a great conqueror and leader of his people. In Knightfall, which tells the story of The Knights Templar searching for the Holy Grail in France, Landry (Tom Cullen) was orphaned as a child with no money or title but becomes a prominent knight and one of the king’s most trusted allies. Henry’s rise from someone without rank to a capable soldier is one of the more enjoyable aspects of the game. Without the fantasy-based abilities of magic or mutant powers, you really feel like Henry earns the right to be called a hero as you learn more about the game’s intricate fighting mechanics.Henry is also one of those great audience surrogates that’s easy to relate to. Many of us don’t know what it feels like to be a king or a lord, but hanging out with friends at the local pub...that’s definitely more my style. When telling a grandiose story like this one, it helps to have someone on the ground floor who has the perspective of an everyday citizen living in 15th century Bohemia. This particular story element is important to a television series as well. HBO’s Rome used two vital characters named Pullo (Ray Stevenson) and Lucius (Kevin McKidd) as the regular people who occasionally rubbed noses with the period’s prominent figures like Julius Caesar and Marc Antony. It’s a helpful way to establish a story in a new setting. Hobnobbing with royalty all the time can give you an unbalanced view of the world.Thankfully, KCD doesn’t feel unbalanced at all and even though Henry is the main focal point of the story, there are drunken priests, promiscuous nobles, and bath maids aplenty to make for an entertaining cast of characters worth further study. The Cumans, for example, are a Turkic nomadic people that I knew very little about before playing the game. For most of my 36-hour journey, they were a one-dimensional group of barbarians without any character development. A long-form TV series would be able to flesh-out their story further and make them more interesting. There’s also the larger story of the usurper King Sigismund and his dethorned half-brother, King Wenceslaus IV. You see a glimpse of Sigismund in one of the opening cinematics, but beyond that, the two figures are only mentioned in conversations. It would be nice to see KCD’s very own game of thrones on the small screen.One of our reviewer’s small complaints about the game concerned the length of the cutscenes and how they take the player out of the thrilling gameplay. I too wanted to get back on Pebbles and ride across the countryside, but while I was watching those long scenes of dialogue I was still intrigued by what the characters were saying. I want to know more about Bohemia in the early 1400s and the people that inhabit its lands. Hopefully, a television network or streaming site will come along and get this wonderful story adapted soon.

David Griffin still watches DuckTales in his pajamas with a cereal bowl in hand. He's also the TV Editor for IGN. Say hi on Twitter