Czech computer games firm hopes for deliverance from medieval project

One of the biggest events is taking place in the Czech computer games markets with the official launch of Kingdom Come: Deliverance. The game is the creation of a relatively new Prague studio, taking players back to the Czech lands during the troubled times of the early 15th century, with a lot riding on its success.

Photo: Warhorse Studios

The computer games market worldwide is now bigger than that of Hollywood film studios with turnover already exceeding 100 billion US dollars in 2016.

But it’s a market where relatively small players can still make it big if they come up with the right idea that becomes a hit. And that’s the hope of the Prague development company Warhorse which was created in 2011. On launch day of Kingdom Come:Deliverance, I spoke to executive director and one of the founders of the company, Martin Klíma, about the theme of this strikingly realistic game.

ʺKingdom Come :Deliverance is a computer role playing game set in medieval Bohemia. The difference as opposed to the other games of this genre is that it’s focused on realism so there are no fantasy elements. In the run of the mill role playing game you will have dwarves, dragons, and magic spells while in our game you only get blood and toil.ʺ

'Kingdom Come - Deliverance', photo: Warhorse Studios

And the importance of this project – how many years have you been working on it and how much money have you invested in the project?

ʺWell the company was founded in 2011, so some of us are working on this game for six and a half years already. But we ran a successful kickstarter campaign in 2014, so the development in earnest started after that. So we have been working on it for almost exactly four years.ʺ

But how important is this project four you? If you have been working on it for all those years it must be incredibly important….

'Kingdom Come - Deliverance', photo: Warhorse Studios

ʺYes, for us as a company or as a studio it’s a do or die. It is a completely non- negotiable thing for us for this game to succeed. If it does not then it’s game over. We are very much invested in this game.ʺ

And, so far, what are the expectations on the worldwide market for this game and how much success does it seem to have already, maybe in reviews or in expectation or anticipated sales?

ʺIt’s difficult to gauge at this moment. The game was only released this morning so the reviews are only just coming in and we are not quite sure. But so far the pre-orders were very successful and so far we are very happy with the players’ reception of the game.ʺ

'Kingdom Come - Deliverance', photo: Warhorse Studios

I’m not quite sure how this works out, is this part one of the game and are there others or how does it actually work out?

ʺWell, it’s a game on its own. It’s not a sequel to anything. But if this game is successful – and we hope it will be – then we will probably create more games in this vein.ʺ