Gone Gold with Simon Hill
Welcome to Gone Gold with Simon Hill, a show that features fun, insightful interviews with some of the biggest names in video games. From developers, to actors - this show delves in to what makes your favourite video games tick.
Gone Gold with Simon Hill
Warhorse Studios - Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 has been hailed as one of the greatest sequels in modern gaming history. Even receiving praise from 'The Witcher' developer CD Projekt Red. In this interview I'm joined by Lead Designer, Prokop and Communications Director, Tobi. As we delve in to the development of KCD2, we also hear funny field trip stories, building a passionate community and we find out what's next for the studio.
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Hello and welcome to another episode of Gone Gold with me, Simon Hill, esports host, industry presenter and TV personality. We are back for another episode, episode number six already. Thank you to my last guest, BAFTA Charlotte McBurney, who rose to fame playing Amicia in A Plague Tale. That has now become the most listened to episode to date. And it was such a fun interview with so many fascinating stories. So after you've listened to this episode, if you haven't already, go and check that one out. It's up there with one of my favourite interviews I've ever done. Talking of, let's get stuck into this episode. Now, some of you may have already seen this across multiple social media So I posted a clip where Warhorse Studios gave me a little exclusive on what's to come for Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. This is a really captivating interview with Warhorse Studios as we delve into the development, funny field trip stories, how they managed to capture a passionate community and what's next. It's all here. It's Gone Gold with Warhorse Studios. Very excited to be joined by the multi-award winning Warhorse Studios, famous for producing one of the most captivating IPs in video games. They're surely set for an early contention for Game of the Year with the grand, epic and immersive Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. All the way from the Czech Republic, I'm joined by the face of the place, Communications Director Sir Toby and Lead Designer on Kingdom Come Deliverance Procop. Welcome to the show.
Tobi:Thank you very much for having us.
Simon Hill:Yeah,
Tobi:it's
Simon Hill:so nice
Tobi:to be here
Simon Hill:let's kick things off with finding out how you and the whole team are feeling the game's been out a few months you've been hitting us with dlc drops and correct me if i'm wrong currently kcd2 has now sold over three million copies since launch in february you must be feeling over the moon right now in the studio
Tobi:well definitely you know for the longest time when you're a creative person you work on something for the longest time you think your product is shit until someone keeps telling you hey listen what you have have, there is really something. It could be a hit. It could be really great. I think for us, that moment was in January, I guess, when the first previews came in, when we sent out the review codes very early and people were like unitedly saying like, oh my God, we didn't expect it to be that good. And that was the point where we started to believe. But, you know, after release, there was one day off, maybe, not really, but It was a hangover day. So we do the release party the night before the release to be sure that no matter what, we have a great party. But then immediately we started to hunt for bugs, prepare patches, fixes, do the DLCs and everything. The feeling is overwhelmingly positive, definitely. But at the same time, we didn't manage to really take off properly. So we want to get the DLCs done now. And then by the end of the year... shut the studio for a month or so and then uh
Prokop:and that that's that's basically it we are we haven't stopped so that's the thing we released a game but we are really into you know patches and dlcs and everything so for us the actual you know amount of work that we're you know putting into the game will hopefully end with the third dlc we still want to push as much you know love for the community new dlcs new patches and stuff but maybe a little comment like what toby said that you think your game is shit it might be surprising to many gamers but the game actually is shit until very late into the development you know especially if you're making a complex rpg it really is terrible you know when you have when you play actual betas or alphas of your game it really is terrible it's not a good game until it is
Tobi:shout out to our qa team because they and that is something so many people don't know they think like qa is getting a i can be a tester because i love video gaming and i will you you you finish the game and then I will test it and tell you if it's good or not. And this is not how QA works. So QA gets those terrible, terrible early builds with, I don't know, five frames per second or something. Really, it can happen that they have a really shitty version like that. And on that, they already have to see if it's working or not. So I think QA is fun at the end of the life cycle, at the end of the development cycle, I guess, because then they kind of have the finished game. But yeah, kudos to our QA team who has to dig through the shit.
Simon Hill:Let's go right back. You've finished KCD1 and the industry were enjoying this whole new studio being able to produce a huge, sprawling RPG with a captivating story. What's the plan to always do a sequel and when did the initial plans for KCD2 begin?
Prokop:Originally, it was planned to do the content of KCD1 and the content of KCD2 in one game. But it was a very naive plan. It was like at a very, very early, we really wanted to do all of these things, you know, to have three maps and stuff like that in the first game. Obviously, it was, you know, undoable. Even the first game was like a really big beast. It was like 80 hours of, you know, game time. So it would be, it was like absurd. But yes, there was always plan to do the content of KCD1. of KCD2. And very early in development of KCD1, we decided that we can't make such a big game. So we always had this plan to do this as a second installment.
Simon Hill:You'd already crafted a living, breathing, huge open world with a fascinating story and unique quests, creating Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 with a map twice the size of the original and double the features. When you talk about you wanted this big, ambitious project to be your first project were you able to put all of that then into the second iteration?
Tobi:We have a thing at Warhorse Studios that we are not so good in calculating sizes however this time I think the story is pretty long you can look at it from different angles on one end and Prokop please then continue with that part I think it's very important that we were very that we are able and that's the reason why the game is so smooth right now that we were able to extremely early be sure what to cut from the game. So we could identify very early, and by very early I mean really half a year or a year into, not even, in 2019 or so, we really had that list in front of us and said really yes and no. And that is important for the overall quality of the game and for overall performance. ambition of the game. While of course, it's always sad to scratch stuff, but all these scratches mean that the game is so much more better, the final result is so much smoother. And that is very important to mention, I guess. And the other part I forgot, so Prokop, talk about that, please.
Prokop:Basically, the production process for the second game was way better. We improved on that regard heavily. We also had more people, so it was easier to segment the production process. So, as Tobi said, we had ideas for, as any developer, I guess, has, for way more quests, for way more features, but we were able to really like gouge properly what we are able to do with enough time for polishing and for optimization and everything like that.
Tobi:We said, we thought that we will do, so the size of KCD2 was supposed to be the size of KCD1 plus what, 25% or something like that. So we wanted to extend it by a quarter, right? Yeah, that was the idea. But as you know, that is not true at all. So it's almost double the size of the game world, more almost double the amount of quests, double the amount of new characters. It got way bigger again than expected in the beginning. But this very clever scratching of stuff made sure that we were able to put everything together in time. So that was important, I guess. But what is... The important line or the important thing to keep in mind is that KCD2 is now the exact game we imagined during Kickstarter in 2014. So in 2014, we had that idea about a medieval game and authentic and realistic and castle sieges and whatnot. And then we tried everything on KCD1 and It was good, nothing bad about the first game, but you saw that we were overly ambitious in many things and had to trial and error a lot of things. Many ideas and design stuff that looked great on papers then turned out that were too clunky in the video game, that it was maybe overly complicated or overly, not deep, but yeah, complicated probably is the right word. And we took a lot of feedback from the first game And we're able to smooth it out to a much more accessible and straightforward experience that didn't dump down or didn't neglect the ambition we had, but just made the experience way better. So the result, KCD2, with, again, the missing stuff we mentioned, but that doesn't bother us that much. KCD2 is really the game we always imagined it should be in during Kickstarter. And you
Simon Hill:mentioned... optimization there a huge shout out to the team for the incredible work they were able to do on optimizing this game it's huge there's so much detail in this world and it came out and we were able to play it and enjoy it and have so much fun uh the team did an incredible job on optimization it
Prokop:is definitely true you know they they really really it was like a very good job mainly of our pro programmers and they did tremendous job honestly if anyone of you guys are listening to this good job honestly it was amazing what you did really because they and they obviously wanted more time than they they we gave them because we you know there's always this like a struggle with uh you know you want to improve the game but on on one on some time you have to freeze the content and everything so give the give the time to have stable build for for everybody who's working on optimizations and bug fixing so it was this little struggle as everybody as every time it is And they really did magic.
Tobi:You have to optimize. The optimization thing is like everyday struggle. And maybe another interesting inside info is that very late in development, I mean, by very late, I mean like extremely late in development, the programming team had this eureka moment where they managed to get the 60 frames per second on console. That is something that came extremely late. And if we would have released in 2024, which we thought first, there is a chance that this would have never happened. We postponed it to 2025. It
Prokop:wouldn't
Tobi:have happened. There you go. The
Prokop:performance mode for PS5 happened only because we had this additional time.
Tobi:But we didn't postpone because of that. It was the A result of us postponing. They said, okay, fine. In that case, we will put more focus on optimizing again, bug fixing and whatnot. And they found this Eureka mode. And the interesting thing is that As I said, it came so late that for most of the marketing, I was telling media that we don't know and probably not and 30 frames and so on and so on. And then we had this situation happening. And that was
Prokop:also, you know, even our marketing materials for what PC hardware requirements you need. Exactly. We released that and it was actually, in the end, the guys in our offices managed to make it way smoother. So even with way lower hardware specifications, you could run the game. we
Tobi:should we should probably update that at some point we should because we can okay
Prokop:okay that's something we need to do i think it's still
Simon Hill:hanging up on steam see we even prompt action here on this podcast
Prokop:yeah
Tobi:thank you
Prokop:you're very welcome i'll write the tickets right now because it really needs to
Tobi:be done this podcast is called gone gold so there's like it's all about the last minutes and last seconds of uh adjusting and optimizing and so on so Yeah.
Simon Hill:It's a live podcast. a key focus going into this one?
Prokop:It actually is a struggle when you're making RPG and especially if you're making open world RPG. If you have some hub places or a little closed RPG, you can pace the main story a little bit better. With the open world RPGs, it is always a struggle because players, obviously I do that as well, they just wander around. They play a main quest with something really important happening and they should Well, should. The story implies that they should do something immediately. But they wander around for 30 hours. So it kind of affects your pacing of the main story. But we're fine with that. This is like the... These are some things that just the open world RPGs has to have. But regarding like the systems-driven mechanics we have, that was a really big issue for us. It was like a conscious decision because we knew, for example, our crime system or the fact that you can kill anybody or even little things, you know, our like design principles, for example, when somebody sends you to find something or kill somebody, if you did it before you got the quest, it still should work. So all of these like conscious design decisions made... making of the quest way harder you know i think you know making quests in our game is way harder in some of other rpgs because we consciously make these decisions but we feel like this this makes our game unique so we are willing to put the work effort needed there
Simon Hill:yeah toby any extension on that you know the narrative journey within kingdom come deliverance 2 is probably up there with one of the best in in any rpg especially open world is hard to consistently deliver a good story and not bring you out of that world in an RPG. But with Warhorse Studios, you managed to keep that.
Tobi:Yeah, thank you. When we were thinking of the game, we had also this struggle in mind maybe that Kingdom Come Deliverance has a huge and very active and very proud community, which is really great. And we are really glad for we have them. We always are trying to have this community first approach that doesn't work always because we are growing. So things has to adjust. But still, we know where we came from. And we know that there's this loving bunch out there. So when we are creating KCD2, we of course, had to aim for a new, bigger market for people who never heard about the game. And keep in mind that there's, well, by that time when we announced KCD 2, I think we had 6 million or so sold of KCD 1. So we also had to keep in mind that there's a huge group out there that know the first game, played the first game and have some kind of expectations. I think the questing, especially the questing in the beginning of the game was really, in addition with the music of Kingdom Come Deliverance, was the kind of hook we tried to do to get both sides involved. So the game starts with this castle siege and everything is burning and you don't even see the main character. You see some characters and you are as a fan wondering, hey, where's Hen? Henry and what's what's going on there why why is he not there and why do I play as another character but then right the next after that part is gone then the next scene you see Henry and Hans Capon the new two best friends riding along on a horse and you hear a music tune that is inspired by the music tunes from KCD1 so and in music when you hear them you get this instant feeling it's a bit like oh I've seen that before I heard that before I saw that before right
Prokop:and that's the idea basically we we edit a lot of things like like the music but also a lot of things in text or a lot of things that for example uh you know with ss so some clothing that for players that knew kcd1 would be like hey you know these are the creators of a case that they know you play this they gave you these little things that you can know and you can feel like connected to first game but if you've never heard about kcd1 these things don't distract you you don't feel like you should have known something you don't feel like you should have played the first game first so this is like the way we try to and we put a tremendous effort for at the beginning of the game exactly for this reason because we wanted the new players not to feel alienated but at the same time for the players for the fans for the hardcore fans that spend hundreds and hundreds of hours with kcd1 to be validated for their time and for the knowledge of the game
Tobi:exactly they should have they should feel this oh i'm i'm back home that is the feeling we wanted to convey that's my game and for the newcomers they should be like oh those dudes are interesting and i know where i am and what i'm supposed to do i want to know more about them so that was a constant struggle but i feel like we managed this really really good because we have right now i think there's more new players playing kcd2 than so if you have the balance of people who played kcd1 before versus people who haven't played kcd1 before i think the pendulum is a little bit bit more on the side of people who never played the first game so i think the balance is really good there we struck a really by uh we struck it really well and um everyone can enjoy the game no matter if they have played or not the first
Simon Hill:yeah and to create a story you need a script and in typical warhorse fashion not just any script a potential guinness world record breaking script of over 2.2 million words interactive dialogue for this game has been the best I think I've ever seen in a game to date. Talk to us about the process of putting this huge script together and then executing it in game.
Prokop:There's like two approaches how to talk about this. Because the script for the quests is huge. And some parts, well, the most visible part of that is like the main story or the main, not only the main story of the main quest, but also side quests and everything. But, you know, the dialogues, let's say the quest dialogues, the story dialogues. But even in the quests, for example, when you're looking for somebody, when you should be asking about somebody around the village, you have to write specific lines for specific people around the village. Or even if you don't do specific lines for every character, which we sometimes we didn't, you have to record that without every, every, every character. And that brings me to the open world. So all the reactions of the world, of the people in the world, you know, when they see you, for example, naked, or when they comment that your horse feels cheap, which our community really enjoys or hates. It's like love-hate relationship because there's like this horse from KCD1, but it's not a really good horse at the beginning. And every NPC really comments that, you know, it's such a hack and you should sell it. But all these little reactions, which we really enjoy and which we feel is unique about our game, makes a huge part of the script, actually. When you count, and it depends how you count it, you know, the 2.2 million is the lines that need needed to be recorded. There's different views, you know, how we can look at it. But from these 2.2 million lines, more than 50% where these open world reactions, not only these reactions, but for some gossip and everything, but non-story stuff. So it's a huge amount of work. And this is, and once again, it was a conscious decision we did. We said, yes, it's worth it because this is like something that differentiates our game from the other, also amazing, but different games.
Tobi:You know, my favorite quest, and maybe it's not even a quest, more like a situation is, so we talked about, there's two maps. in the game, right? The first map is around Trotsky, so more countryside and so on. The second around Kuttenberg, more industrious. In Kuttenberg, it's all about story and betrayal and death and really the hardcore shit is going on there. And on the first map, there's also these kind of things, but it's more about adventure and meeting new people and deep RPG systems and finding out the world and finding out yourself. And what I like and love a lot about KCD, and that is something we did not expect expect at all. So there's this one quest, right? It's the wedding quest, one of the main one of the very early main story beats where you have to go to push the story forward. By the way, we told the previewers in January, hey, you can preview the game, but only up until the wedding quest, which we did not realize or yeah well realize is that around that wedding quest it's like 40 hours 50 hours hundreds hours of gameplay if you don't go into you just simply don't go there and we figured out that our community is exactly doing that they did everything else but going to the wedding but the cool part is about that wedding if you actually go there And if you did some side questing before, my favorite part is of the entire game, and that is what Prokop said about the world being living and breathing and reactive and so on. You meet the people, you met... around the countryside and they would recognize, hey, Henry, how did you get here? And you say, that's the dude from that quest and that's the dude from that quest and she's from that other quest. And you meet like, it's like a family barbecue summer party thing going on there.
Prokop:That was very reactive. They really reacted, not only did they know you, but they reacted on how you solved their quest, you know, what were the outcomes and everything. So it felt, it was really interesting. Yeah, well, I didn't do that quest personally. It was Zdeněk actually, Zdeněk Glac. Kudos to you if you're listening. And not only him, but he was the designer of the quest. But it was really a masterpiece in this regard. It was one of the biggest quests we did in the game. I think it was the second biggest quest we did. But the reason for that was how reactive the quest was. It really reacted to everything you did before and it was really good.
Tobi:Our number one thing we wanted to achieve was every single word we are writing, with every feature, with every music beat, everything is immersion. We wanted to create, and I think Maybe we managed, but maybe it's other people who should judge that, but to create one of the most immersive...
Simon Hill:No, you definitely managed, Tobi.
Tobi:Thank you. He was
Prokop:fishing for that praise. He loves that.
Simon Hill:No, he absolutely
Tobi:was. But really, all jokes aside, I think really that we created one of the most immersive RPGs ever. And this year, when award season starts, I'm looking for the RPG... I don't care so much for the other ones, honestly. Of course, I do a bit, but I think in the RPG park, that is where we see ourselves at Warhorse. I think that is also for our future endeavors. We want to create more RPGs, stay there, we feel home there. And I think we have our own... trademark in a way of how we understand and interpret RPGs.
Simon Hill:I am going to ask more about the future in just a short while. Usually with game development you'll have a brief storyboard, you'll flesh out the plot and the narrative and then build the world around that. For KCD2 it almost seemed like it was the other way around. How much fun was it for you to research medieval Czech and Bohemia for somewhere that's roughly around four to Mal's wife from the studio?
Prokop:It was fun for us. If you're applying for a job in Warhorse, you usually want to do these kind of things. So for us, it's really something we enjoy. Either we research by ourselves or we let our historians to gather some interesting material, which we then dig through, be it like old manuscripts or some maps or something like that, or even Well, many, many little things which we then dig through. But you hit the nail on the head with the thing that we don't really necessarily like bend everything for the story. Actually, there's like two-pronged approach. The map is like one of the beginning, like one of the main pillars of the game. So, for example, we know where the story is going to be or around which region and everything is going to be. So the map, which is usually at KCD2, it was mostly, well, mainly done by Dan Vavra, our creative director. He chooses the region. and then they start working on that region so the map feels natural, authentic and historical. So for example we do some villages or some important places even before we know what quests will be there because just the authentic presence of that place is that important. In many other studios for obvious reasons they first do the content, like at least the outline of the content and then with that outline they will start creating the level. In our case it's like we do both at the same time. So sometimes we influence something that's in the level, but many times the presence of some structures or landscapes in the level influences how the narrative or the quest will go because we want to try to keep the level and everything in it as authentic as possible.
Simon Hill:I've been to Prague. It's a beautiful city, stunning architecture. I haven't ventured out much further than that, so I'll have to take the KCD2 tour someday. Maybe you can show me around, Toby. Designing the Middle Ages and appreciating the work that went into the landmarks, some of them we see in the game, that must have been a really fun process for both of you, especially being from around that area.
Tobi:Yeah. So, Prokop mentioned it. If you started a Warhorse Studios chat Chances are high that there's a lot of alcohol involved and field trips. So we did those field trips. We went to those places. Exactly as you said, it's an advantage that it's very, very close to the studio. Trotsky is roundabout an hour north. Kottenberg is roundabout an hour southeast. So it's close. The thing is, here in the Czech Republic, KCD is kind of a big thing. When we go somewhere and people start to figure out who we are and what's going on, then it gets funny really quick. And we went to Kuttenberg back in the days, 2018, 19, somewhere there. Most of the stuff is really publicly accessible because there are museums and whatnot. But some of the historical stuff are in private property. So we tried to talk to the mayor. who's very open, very friendly, helped us everything possible. But then also we literally had to like ring at doors and say, hey, excuse me, we are this game developing studio. We can't tell you what we are working on, but we would really want to see your basement if possible. And basement because in the basement you see the original layout of the building and the original materials and so on. That's the first part. And they were like, oh, Are you? no are you and we're like it's just
Prokop:studies and so on and and it's actually we are so well in chikorov it's a small country so they they know about the success of kcd a lot of people do know so when we go around the country we have to be very careful if you're you know researching something for maybe something next we really must not wear the kcd merchandising or warhorse merchandising yeah exactly this this t-shirt So that's something we have to be aware of because otherwise people will always remember, okay, here? Okay, what will it be? And something
Tobi:like that. But you guys are laughing. I'm getting emails. I'm not kidding. I'm getting emails from villages and mayors from Czech Republic sending me, hey, and by the way, we have a really nice historical village here. There is a castle and there was this noble and whatever. We are sure that this would be a great story. Do you want to make a game about our area? I mean, like... Thank you. Not only from Czech
Prokop:Republic. It's mostly from Czech Republic. All around the world. Listen, I just, not just, but a few months ago I read something from a Scottish guy who's living next to some really nice castles and it's always like, hey, have you seen this nice castle?
Tobi:It's really the Nuremberg region, so the east of Bavaria. But the point here is i think we are laughing about this but the point that we have to maybe realize here is that we manage something with kcd that wasn't planned but kind of happened itself and that is that we are kind of hopefully again i have to stress the hopefully here breaking the the bubbles and stigmas of video games that video games is not only for fat nerds in the basement but that video games are a real thing that it can be a cultural thing it can could be something more than just a video game and it shows a lot here in the czech republic now with kcd2 because the identification with this product is so extremely high that czech people are going on the forums and youtubes and internets to talk to them hey and hear our game and if you come to the republic we will show you around and so so they take this as some kind of national pride and i think it's amazing and not
Prokop:only not only with the czech people obviously because they're proud about the product we did but i think we tapped into the community of the history buffs and you know people that are reenactors and everything because they really want more games with this real history focus and i would love that as well because i'm one of this community you know if any studio i don't know from anywhere would make game about their history or their important parts without magic you know with the focus on this is like how that happened it's really fun way to learn something i really loved it
Simon Hill:yeah yeah i mean you're changing the industry you're changing the entire genre i think and it's one thing that i saw dan mention in a an interview about people being scared to not do an rpg that's surrounded by magic or fantasy or ogres or whatever else is that now with warhorse studios You've come out and gone, no, you can do this with real-time historic events and make it fun. And I think one of the interesting conversations within the entertainment industry is historical accuracy and the sacrifices sometimes that Hollywood makes when it comes to historical accuracy and entertainment. War Horse Studios weren't about to cut corners like Hollywood do to recreate this world. You guys just wanted to go out and show that you can actually deliver a fun product that is true to the world thank you you have to
Tobi:be fair with Hollywood here they only have what 90 minutes or so 120 minutes to convey their message video games have a bigger spectrum or possibilities however we were hoping that after the success of KC1 more people jump on that wagon and that something like that happened I had an interview with an Italian journalist who told me that he would wish that any Italian developer sees the game and tries to do something about our region kind of a problem not the problem but a problem is that it requires a lot of extra work like a lot of extra work which maybe isn't something everyone wants to invest so all the research and everything it's amazing this leads to the result we have here but that is sometimes when you have to really like do we create a media core game in a year and cash in or do we do something we did we took seven years for KCD2 and it was we only could do that because kcd1 was such a success but it's a
Prokop:it is a lot of a lot of effort to do it really like uh correctly and authentically and historically accurate but you know when you take the you know budget of the whole you know game development it's not That much more, especially the research at the beginning. And what I mean is that even, and I understand, you know, we will, I think our game is really good, but I am not so bored to say that everybody will start to make games like ours. I completely understand, you know, that the fiction and magic and everything is really important for many people. And I'm glad that there's this variety on the market. But what I'm meaning to say is, even if you're making a very fictional game, if it's based on something that's happened in history, there is actual value for the players if the fictional history that it's based on, there's something authentic and real in the game that you, for example, give description. You don't have to make it completely fictional. There's fictional history, books and movies and everything. So don't be afraid to base your game on real history. and then make the fictional twist. Because if you make it, you know, based on real history, then there's some value for many people. You know, let's say this is like some important event in the history and then the, you know, then the events changed and that's why we are in here. But, you know, really, I think there's value in there.
Tobi:Didn't the Andrzej Sapkowski, the Witcher author, do exactly that? He was, I think, doing the Hussite Trilogy. This is, by the way, the biggest, at least Daniel Vavra says that one of the biggest inspirations why he even started doing, thinking of a Kingdom Come Deliverance. So he did, he wrote the, the Witcher author, he wrote the Hussite Trilogy and it's like really, he tried to be very accurate and authentic and immersive and whatnot. But then you have, I think, like vampires or something. in there. But other than that, he tried to really show it as it could have been With vampires.
Simon Hill:Yeah. And you've mentioned in the past some of the games that the studios took inspiration from, likes of Red Dead Redemption 2, Fallout, Dark Souls, Skyrim, just to name a few. Now it seems as though there are studios talking about you for inspiration. Recently, CD Projekt Red came out and had praise for you, which is incredible. What's it like now as a studio that has gone from a Kickstarter to now being an inspiration for others in the industry? Wow. And I
Prokop:think we still don't really grasp that in the studio. As I said, you know, we released the K-Seed. We obviously, everybody in the studios know it was a great success and that we released a very good game. But the mood in the studio didn't really change that much. You know, we are still hard at work. We still want to deliver as much value to our fans as possible. So new patches, new features, new DLCs and everything. So we don't really like, you know, I don't know, understand it completely. It's just, it's still just, it feels a little weird. You know, it feels awesome. Unreal, a little weird, but it didn't really change anything in the studio. We still go in the offices every day and we're still working on something cool that feels cool for us. We don't really think about affecting other developers. It's not really something that's constantly on our minds,
Simon Hill:I guess. And as in your role, Toby, you must be seeing a lot of the comments or talk about the project and the studio It must be really... flattering and overwhelming to the reception you've had so far?
Tobi:I think for me, it's absolutely. And of course, if giants, absolutely industry champions like CD Projekt say, hey, the new Witcher 4 will take inspiration from KCD, at least from the deep and cool RPG systems, that is, of course, like being knighted. That's a thing. But generally, what is more important is that the world recognizes us as people valid and relevant and important developer in europe i think that is that is important that we are not this backcountry hobo redneck studio somewhere in who knows where but that we had a success with kcd1 and we confirmed it and even outperformed kcd1 with kcd2 of course this means the stakes are higher and and expectations are higher and whatnot but this also means that bigger companies are looking at us studios are looking at us and we are being a relevant player in the industry, which I think we just recently opened a new office in the east of Czech Republic. So we are close to 300 developers now. And this in itself, while the industry was unfortunately not doing so well in the last years, we are kind of countering that curve. So we are doing good and then hiring and expanding. So yeah, I think Warhorse... We'll be here for a while. And as I said earlier, RPGs seem to be our forte and we want to do better next.
Simon Hill:Before we do get on to that, what's your favorite additions into KCD 2? Prokop, I'll go with you first.
Prokop:Well, there's obviously like the big ones, like, you know, the gunpowder weapons and stuff like that, you know, the new blacksmiths and many more. But for me, I really enjoy the little things that make the world a little bit more reactive. I'm really proud about what we call a chat system, where you can interact with a lot of people while still being in the gameplay. You know, in the KCD A lot of people reacted about, you know, your presence or what you did in the world or, you know, how well dressed you are. But it was always in this like, you know, you had to speak to somebody if you wanted to react to that. And you had this like, you know, cameras and dialogue system and everything like that. And KCD2, you can like have this quick reactions, you know, when somebody says, oh, you're drunk so early in the morning, you can tell him, oh, sorry, I will, you know, sorry about that. Or you can tell him, fuck off, man. I will drink whenever I want to. And you don't have to, you know, you don't have to go to him. You don't have to initiate a dialogue system. You can just, you know, you ride your horse and just have this quick reaction. So just, you know, go anywhere. So all these little things, you know, like you can, for example, pray. If you have the correct perk, you can pray at the little shrine and stuff like that you can just interact with the world or even like even smaller things like we added that makes the world a little bit more real for example when you want to in the KCD2 you can now lean from the walls and it's something it's so small that you don't really realize it but there's a little system that when you approach the walls there's no interact or anything like that Henry just places his hands on the walls and he'll lean forward so you can easily like look around so all these little things even though they're not as flashy, so Tobi can't really use them in his marketing materials and big talks. I really love that. I really love these little things that make the world feel more authentic and livable and real and interactive.
Tobi:but it makes sense and by walls he means battlements like this you know so that when you because when you wanted to shoot down from the there was not so much opportunity in first game but still you had always those like pillars in front of you now you can actually lean forward and then but everyone can shoot you as well so but for me personally it's really hard to say so the little things definitely the fact that you have three different outfits which you can choose change by with a click on the button unless you are in combat that is cool that you have to that you play more with the outfits you have a talking outfit a fighting outfit a stealing outfit and people understood that really quickly and not changing around depending on the situation which means that they are trying to read the situations more, which I think is really great. Something is in front of you and you're thinking, I mean, okay, that's going away from realism, of course, but still you're thinking, okay, which outfit should I take now? Am I going to fight those dudes or should I rather talk my way through and then you have to change accordingly? The overall thing that I think is amazing, and Prokop talked about it a bit already, is the responsiveness and the world being alive. I think it's amazing if you sit down in a pub talking to someone playing dice or whatever and around you you hear pub noises people talking to each other they're actually talking about something they are ordering beer there's some dude watching you play dice if you're playing there and commenting on what you do and if you are stealing in
Prokop:the village they're talking about some weird thief or people getting missing or something like that they talk about the things you did
Tobi:there's a huge now spoiler If you haven't played it, then skip for 10 seconds or so. But there's a huge situation going on around the Samin Fortress, which is very early. And this can be extremely dramatic with deaths and the most terrible, horrible, brutal cutscene I've seen in a while. Or nothing at all can happen. And the point here is not that you are missing out something. The point here is that the game really shapes according to your decisions. And you do something, you decide something, You talk to someone, you don't talk to someone, and the thing, the game will continue. I mentioned earlier the wedding quest. If you did the questing before, they will all greet you and then like, hey. So this gives you as a player this constant feeling of, yeah. I'm living in that world. They know who I am. I know who they are. And I'm part of that all. And this immersiveness is something that we really cranked up on steroids on KCD2. And that's by far my biggest highlight of the game.
Simon Hill:And before we start to wrap up, gents, we've mentioned the characters. They have now become iconic in the gaming world. Henry and Hans K. Bonn, played by Tom and Luke over the last last nine years what has it been like for you to get to know those guys and they've also been the voice of Warhorse Studios for the last nine years your first two games
Prokop:they're you know they're both of them are amazing you know amazing actors definitely everybody saw it but amazing people they're really fun to work with they you know it's really nice when I always when I'm seeing them and I work with them or when I just see them in the offices it's always nice to just you know say hi and everything and they also Also, I was like with Tom McKay because he was recording DLCs like last week or a week before, something like that. We went for a dinner close to the offices and he was talking about how KCD is a really big part of his life. As you said, it's nine years. So not only the game, but the studio, the places, Prague, everything. People on the street, they do recognize him. When we were ordering the food, when the waiter, when he was coming back, he told Tom, well, you look quite hungry. People just know them. So it's really, as I said, we were together for nine years with them.
Tobi:Absolutely. Absolutely. So I know many studios say that, and I know this sounds a lot like some PR talk, but actually they, especially Tom and Luke, but also the other actors, of course, we have a huge amount of English speaking just living here in the Czech Republic and they identify so strongly with the game and the studio that I would absolutely really call them friends, family, part of the studio, actually. Luke, after all, even moved to the Czech Republic like last week or last month even. So, um, the, They are a huge part of our life and a huge part of War Studios and vice versa, I guess. Both of them are amazing. Both of them riding this wave of success of the game. And I'm happy that they are creating kind of their own thing as well. Lou becoming an international pro streamer right now and Tom starting as well. So, yeah. It's
Simon Hill:cool. Fantastic to see. Fantastic to see. And I have to ask about this new news that has recently come out. And I think there's definitely fans out there that would enjoy a Kingdom Come Deliverance TV series or a film adaptation. Until that becomes a reality, the studio has announced that the game will be shown at an international film festival in the Czech Republic in a cinematic cut. What can you tell us about that, Toby? I'm assuming not a lot, but I'm going to try
Tobi:anyway. You know, if there's one thing known about... me that then it's the fact that i'm constantly spilling the beans so don't worry i tell you everything you want to know but uh you know uh the the film adaptation or or series adaptation was on the table already uh when x netflix uh exec was reaching out get the license of kcd and wanted to create something uh but then uh covid happened unfortunately so uh this this never really uh happened at the end. And now there are ideas, but nothing concrete. It's coming up every now and then that there could be something, but there's unfortunately nothing concrete. However, we were actually connected and approached by the Carlo Vivari International Film Festival, which is... I guess, among the top 10 in the world. So it's not some, again, backwater festival, but a real deal. And we were creating, because there's no K-City movie per se, but cutscenes are extremely Hollywood-esque, movie-like scenes. We took the cutscenes from the Trotsky region, so the first half of the game, if you want to call it like that, put in some... gameplay bridges because not everything is really explainable by the cutscenes because not everything is a cutscene so there must be some gameplay bridges in between but we are we created a two hours movie of the first half of Kingdom City 2 which means that in future there could be a second half if people like it and right now it will be presented in at this movie festival and again it's as I mentioned earlier it's great that video games again becoming more relevant and breaking kind of the bubbles and so on and that it's more again than just video games but can be this like audio visual highlight and after that we are we will see what to do with this movie but there are really interesting discussions already about cinema and TV but there's nothing concrete there as well but that movie will be great we will show it there and then definitely try to find a way how to get it to the people community first after all
Simon Hill:yeah definitely very exciting very exciting and final question we're going to wrap up I'm mindful of your time we're running out of it but the game is incredible gents and no doubt there are more awards to come there's still DLC planned for KCD 2 can you reveal any information on those just yet Procop I'll go with you first
Prokop:sure so we We already released one of the DLCs. It's Brushes with Death. And it was like we really wanted to keep coming with new content for our fans. So we really are, you know, schedule for DLCs is pretty hardcore. So we really wanted to give players every three months something really, you know, something that's quite big. The first DLC already released. It's a small one. It's like a story edition with a new feature with, you know, you can paint your own shield and it's really nice. I think it's a small one, but if you want some new content, it's really good for you. And the next two should be bigger. The second one is... about building your own forge. So there's some, a really big new feature. So, because you know, Henry is a son of a blacksmith. Well, I will not spoil anything, but let's say son of a blacksmith. And the last one should be a big addition as well. and something with the Skalitz Monastery and the mystery is there. So there's like, we'll open a new region in the map for the last one, which will be a big story edition. And I think it's really nice. And we always, we're always trying, even with these DLCs, obviously are paid. I think they're very reasonably priced, but they're paid. But we also always are releasing the new patches with new bug fixes, sometimes with new little features. So I think, can I... talk about
Tobi:the tour. I mean, we are between us here, between friends.
Prokop:Yeah, sure. So we are heavily improving the photo mode. So it will be heavily improved in one of the next patches. And we're looking forward for all the screenshots and everything and the content that community will create with that. So we are always trying to give something free with the patches that's substantial. So even with the people that don't really want to spend more money, they have something great to be looking forward to.
Tobi:But don't tell anyone, Simon. and it's a surprise.
Simon Hill:Sure. Spoiling me here, it's just between us three. Gents, this has been incredible. Thank you so much for giving up your time. I know this has been a tight schedule. Toby, you've got some very exciting trips coming up. I like to end my episodes with the guests having the last word. From a Kickstarter campaign 10 years ago to starting with around 20 people to now, studio that's thriving, breaking records, winning awards and sales that are also showing the industry that it's still possible to make really good games without a Hollywood budget. Have you had time to take it all in? And once again, thank you for taking time to be here today and I'll leave the floor with you to talk to the community the fans the studio whoever it might be thank you very much gents
Prokop:okay so first thank you thank you uh and you know regarding the you know awards and the success and the sales it's it's really great. It's tremendous and it gives us resources to build more. But for me personally, I appreciate way more when I'm watching a little Twitch stream with a streamer that doesn't really have a lot of views, enjoying the game, when I'm reading the comments on Reddit and somebody says, okay, I did this thing and it's really nice. This interaction with the community is way more important for me. And especially, I think our community is so welcoming. It's really nice that I, you know, I enjoy a lot of other games and I, you know, interact with their communities as well. And there's a lot of hostility usually. And the fact that Kingdom Come community is so welcoming, so helpful, so inviting for other people and, you know, still, you know, creating all these discussions and new fun art and new, you know, mods nowadays, that is something that means a lot to me. So people, you know, you might not realize that, but, you know, a lot of people from the studios, including me, we are actively reading everything you do, everything you create. And that's the amazing thing for me.
Tobi:Absolutely. And Prokop and I, both of us joined very early in 2014. Prokop was there with Kickstarter. I was right after Kickstarter. So we were like a month or two or three or so apart. So we are with the team since we were like extreme punks. So for many people, This was the first project, KCD1, I mean. It was the first job, actually. I was a journalist before Prokop. I don't know what you did before, but I'm not sure if you did video games before. I think not. I didn't. This was my first video game
Prokop:job.
Tobi:And we all got the chance. Of course, the studio had those industry veterans in there, but it was a bunch of enthusiasts getting together. And now we are where we are. I would say we managed and still do manage, hopefully, to stay humble and true to ourselves and true to our community. We are still... maybe not the same punks as we were in 2014, but we are still maybe more organized punks. We are trying to not tick boxes, but do what we think is great and what the community think is great. And I would say that we are kind of growing together and trying really hard to not divert from the community, but stay close to them at any given possibility. And I think that's a And I hope that this became also a Warhorse Studios thing and a Kingdom Come Deliverance thing. So I'm very grateful for where we are, where I am, what I have achieved, what the studio has achieved. I can only do a job because the product is so good and because I have the full trust of the team and vice versa. So I think it was many lucky moments in the past. People saying the right thing at the right time, doing the right thing at the right time it was a coincidence but a lucky coincidence and we are very glad to share that with the world
Simon Hill:what a fascinating insight into warhorse studios and the development of one of the best sequels in modern gaming history warhorse studios now have a pedigree of being one of the pioneers of the rpg genre kcd2 is a phenomenal game the first iteration was a great experience as well and I really can't wait to see where this studio goes in the future really nice of them to give us that insight and that exclusive as well the development of photo mode and the update on the future DLC plans for Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 very excited to get my hands on those well what another packed episode don't forget to subscribe follow and like across social media Gone Gold Show and be sure to leave this show a rate on your chosen platform. We'll be back next week with another killer episode with a fascinating guest. You don't want to miss it. You know what to do. Keep it gone gold.
