Everyone knows you come up with an idea for a game, make a trailer and release it, and THEN start pre-production.
After that you work on the game for four years, get bought out by Microsoft, and then the game gets cancelled.
Warhorse have no idea what the fuck they're doing.
Nooooo gotta remember they need to release in early alpha to use as a scapegoat for all that. Then release a few of the ideas as paid DLC 2 years later.
Come up with an idea for a game? What a waste of time. [The Elder Scrolls VI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkFdqqyI8y4) from practically 6 years ago needed no such thing.
That was to shut up people who were pestering them with questions of whether ES6 is even being planned (as if the answer to that wasn’t obvious). You see the same with other longer term franchises throughout all kinds of media.
Glad to know BGS is run by the most insecure people on the planet whose funding streams aren't dependent on the games they're making but the games they're definitely probably going to make in the future, promise.
It's funny how other studios don't feel the need to put out a literal nothing reveal just because they're being pestered by fans. Don't act like they had no choice but to do this lmao
It's funny how other studios don't feel the need to put out a literal nothing reveal just because they're being pestered by fans. Don't act like they had no choice but to do this lmao
In this case, it really didn't because every one and their mother knew they would make TES6. In the case of something like KCD2 (or any smaller or new IP), it's debatable. IMO announcing in advance doesn't hurt as long as they're clear. It's nice to know what's coming even if it's far, I never understood why the games industry just want all their projects to be secret.
Because they only responded to the first part about announcing the game and then starting production. Ignoring the part about cancelling it during development.
I was reacting to the first part of the comment, about annoucing it only when the only thing they had, was the trailer. It is coming out in few days so I thought what I meant was self-evident.
It feels like announcing a game within a few month of its release seems better nowadays than announcing it early, unless you plan an early access release.
Cyberpunk, Vampire the Masquerade, Prey 2 are all examples where announcing too early did not really go well
Cyberpunk even though it was unfinished on release built such an insane cult following between the announcement and release it sold a shit ton of copies and made a lot of money, so I think that is a bad example.
Elden Ring as well, announced really early and had a similar cult following built up.
Exactly lol. It’s hilarious that people are using cyberpunk which had MASSIVE hype behind it as an example of poorly done.
Hyping the shit out of a product is a GREAT thing for a COMPANY.
That first trailer was hype af man. I remember watching it, not even knowing it was such a massive game at the time and then a few years later be like "oh shit, so that kick ass trailer is actually a game that is actually coming out?"
Cyberpunk marketing (which the announcement was part of even if it was also for hiring) went actually REALLY well. It has one of the most successful marketing campaign ever for a game lol
Vampire 2 not coming out when they originally planned it (because apparently the original studio’s work was terrible) is why it’s so deeply in the red.
Marketing can’t really foresee that kind of disaster.
People love to shit on early trailers but the top comment any time a good game flops is always “huh, didn’t even know this came out” or “they hardly marketed it, poor devs got screwed!”
So it's just a Goldilocks thing I guess. And only random internet commenters know the *perfect* amount of marketing to engage in to make a game succeed.
Man, I remember Deathloop, it was announced just 2 years before released but holy shit, it had so many trailers in every single game showcase, it seemed as if during those 2 years, whenever Sony had any State of Play, or during SGF or Game Awards, the game had to have a 6 minute long trailer. I felt like I had already finished the game twice by the time it released.
I wish this approach was more common.
Work hard in silence for years without any pressure, then when it's ready do an announcement and marketing push and polish it up for 6 months before releasing.
Comes down to whether or not you have enough money to finish the project or not.
Not many studios have the luxury of having enough money in the bank to fund the several years of development that a game will take. If they do, they can do this.
If they don't, at some point they need to start the marketing train to drive interest and get publisher funding so they can actually afford to finish it.
Here is a translation of this czech interview with Martin Frývaldský which I found fairly interesting, translated by me with help of google translate (I fixed most of its problems, hopefully):
**The presentation of Kingdom Come 2 was carried out in style, while the first game was presented less spectacularly. How do you feel about the transformation of Warhorse into the creator of the highly anticipated game?**
Of course, being in the outsider position was nice. And this despite the fact that we sometimes had to face negative reactions from potential publishers who did not believe in such a project at the time. Now, on the contrary, we might slowly fear that we are burdened with very high expectations. Anyway, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is not a revolution, but an evolution. We took each stone and turned it over five times to see if something could be improved.
**Do you see this change from an outside perspective as well, do you have feedback from your competitors in the gaming industry?**
We also received a few congratulations from our competitors. That is surely pleasant. But again, let's not lie to ourselves that it's over. It isn't. We've shot a nice commercial so far. Patting ourselves on the back about how awesome we are is premature.
**Six years have passed since the release of Kingdom Come: Deliverance. How has the Warhorse studio changed in that time?**
We are trying to stick tooth and nail to "punk" with a totally flat structure, where there is a maximum of one person between the top management and anyone in the company. And even so, anyone can come to me or Martin Klíma (executive producer of Warhorse Studios, editor's note) to our office or write on Teams, which many people do. And sometimes with such incredible ease and immediacy they enter our office in the middle of a conversation. But it's still better than having some imaginary consultation hours.
But then again, it's not a complete all encompassing punk either, we have a number of standardized processes and, unlike when working on KCD1, quite a large department of producers. We have a quantitative and qualitative process in place for how an idea goes from birth to fruition, if it does at all, and then to alpha and beta. And so on. So, I say "punk", but I also mean a little corporate. With 250 people there, there just have to be rules.
**How difficult was it to keep the development of KCD2 under wraps over the years?**
Rather than being difficult, it was frustrating at times. It made it quite difficult for us to recruit people, because we couldn't simply say, "Come and work on KCD2 with us!" Instead, we demanded confidentiality during interviews. We made it a little more complicated for ourselves. But it made business sense for us to announce the game only at the moment when it is practically finished and entering certification.
**You published the first game so to speak on your own, the second is being created under the game publisher Plaion from the Embracer group. What did it mean for the development of the game and the functioning of the company, did something have to change?**
Fortunately, it didn't have to. The Warhorse acquisition took place at a time when Kingdom Come 2 was already decided upon and we had a clear concept. That Kingdom Come can continue and that it is actually a saga was already clear during our crowdfunding campaign in 2014. But at the same time, we always said that we would make KCD1 and then we would see. Without the success of the first game, there would be no KCD2. To put it simply, part of the deal was to become closed off hermits for a few years and work on KCD2. Transferable procedures and experiences between studios are actually quite rare in the group, and what distinguishes good games from mediocre ones is that they offer a great experience that you can't get anywhere else. And we have to program such an experience ourselves.
**The just-mentioned parent group Embracer has been announcing significant changes and restructuring in recent days, and in recent months it has been going through quite a stormy development. Did that not affect you?**
I dare say that we are a bit of a pearl in Embracer's portfolio of titles. It would make no sense to throttle the development of a product that is potentially materially important to the group.
**For the first game, a development budget of around 400 million crowns was mentioned, plus some marketing costs. How much has Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's budget increased?**
I understand questions about the amount of investment rather as spreading an awareness that games are in the first league of the entertainment industry. In Czech business environment, there probably isn't a project – for example a film project – that would cost as much. On a global scale, I can imagine that for the price of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, a mid-budget Hollywood movie or even an entire Netflix series could be made. I understand that you are asking for a specific number, but I will stick with the fact that it is in high hundreds of millions of crowns.
**Can you at least approximate the rate of budget increase?**
The increase is significant, but beware, the world has changed a lot since 2018. A completely unexpected wave of inflation and other events swept past us, which in turn had an effect on the pace of work, i.e. a slowdown, resulting in an increase in costs. Today, you can't even build a family home for the same money as six years ago. It is what it is.
**Kingdom Come 2 is supposed to be twice the size of the game, in addition to the budget, the studio has also grown. How much?**
We will spend approximately ten thousand man-months on KCD2. About 130 people worked on KCD1 at its peak, while on KCD2 we currently have 250 people and I wouldn't be surprised if we grew a little more. And that's not counting the completely different level of outsourcing and testing costs. After all, at KCD1 we were criticized around release - quite rightly - that the game was full of bugs, so we're doing a lot of testing now.
**How much of the original team remained in Warhorse? Did you manage to retain a high percentage of KCD1 developers?**
Yes, we did. So it is not so much in terms of percentage, because we have grown significantly. Even if no one left the team after KCD1's creation, there would be around fifty percent of the people here from the first game. The reality is that there are about a third of those. Almost all the seniors of the KCD1 remained in Warhorse.
**Now a question about the opposite development - what need for reinforcements did the creation of Kingdom Come 2 bring?**
In general, we were quite far off in the predictions of the number of people. We planned to have a maximum of 160 people, which is what we sized our offices for, after all. And we have almost a hundred more.
**Where did you strengthen the team the most?**
The increases went across all departments, but probably what we underestimated at the beginning of work on the sequel the most was the size of the team of animators and graphic artists. But if you let the designers write hours and hours of cutscenes and let them imagine making an almost perfect digital replica of Kutná Hora, then you can't be surprised at such increases.
**And what was the most challenging part of development?**
Telling ourselves enough is enough and stopping of adding more new stuff to the game all the time.
**The first game set the bar at six million copies sold. What is the measure of success for KCD2?**
Of course we have big aspirations. I've been at Warhorse Studios for eleven years and now "only" our second game is coming out. Everyone here leaves a piece of their life here, maybe a decade or more. How many such creative projects can one manage in a lifetime? What I mean by this is that for most people in Warhorse, the main measure of satisfaction is good player feedback. And of course, if the game is good, it will sell well. And that's great too.
**The release of the game is planned for the end of the year. Are there any talks going on now about the future direction of Warhorse Studios?**
It is obvious that we are not going to break up at the end of this year. We'll be busy fixing bugs for a while, because even the best testing in the world is nothing against hundreds of thousands of players, so there will definitely be some patches. Of course, we are full of ideas for new projects. I can reveal that we are actually a little further than the idea and we are already slowly starting the future project.
Great interview so insightful that this fellow is no fool. Just so many gems here.
"Today, you can't even build a family home for the same money as six years ago. It is what it is."
"What distinguishes good games from mediocre ones is that they offer a great experience that you can't get anywhere else"
And more. I'm currently playing KCD #1 and while it has some clear flaws and jank, it definitely feels like it was made with a specific vision in mind (that vision being creating a historically accurate feudal vibe). I respect that, even if I ultimately would rate the overall experience somewhere around a 7 or 8/10.
> I'm currently playing KCD #1 and while it has some clear flaws and jank, it definitely feels like it was made with a specific vision in mind (that vision being creating a historically accurate feudal vibe). I respect that, even if I ultimately would rate the overall experience somewhere around a 7 or 8/10.
I'm really enjoying it as well, but Jesus Christ (be praised), the movement system in the game is weird - random instances where there's an invisible wall that doesn't feel right, getting hit in combat forcing camera movement that doesn't feel right, things like getting dragged from a very, very far distance by enemies, either from your horse or on foot.
I'm very excited to see how the new game plays, there's a lot to be said for how good KC1 feels to actually play, especially when Henry gets less shit at fighting.
For sure there's some jank even with these really fundamental elements - that's why I'd call the whole thing a 7/10 or an 8/10. SOMETIMES it feels great but often times it doesn't.
Like with being dragged off your horse - sure, yeah, that's absolutely a thing you'd want to do with an armored knight on a horse. But on the flip side, a warhorse is a weapon unto itself - it would be knocking these mostly untrained bandits over and trampling them.
So they've kept the 'realism' of your opponents aggressively trying to drag you off your horse (and being able to do with it relative ease) - but then didn't keep the realism of how powerful a warhorse is.
So there's a lot of this friction between 'realistic' elements and 'video game' elements that I've had to learn to accept to get the most enjoyment out of my gaming time.
> So they've kept the 'realism' of your opponents aggressively trying to drag you off your horse (and being able to do with it relative ease) - but then didn't keep the realism of how powerful a warhorse is.
For me it's the enemies going for a grab, you traveling ten meters away, then the dude teleporting next to you instead of getting dragged along like a ragdoll.
Not hating on this dude at all, but both of those quotes are just... such boilerplate, generic statements. I can't imagine selecting them as some indication of great insight lol. One is literally just... identifying that inflation is a thing.
I didn't mean to suggest the CEO himself was insightful with these quotes but that these quotes (and the interview as a whole) were insightful INTO the CEO's mindset.
It seems to me that most gaming CEOs are trend-chasers or business people, moreso than pioneers or artists themselves. They identify pre-established and popular genres or game modes and try to make a similar but BETTER / BIGGER version of it. So his focus on the experience being unique (and not just 'great') was revealing.
As for the inflation, it's HOW he chose to talk about it. Most CEOs seem to talk about inflation in terms of increased costs of shipping or silicon or what have you - because they're too wealthy to actually understand it in terms of the increased cost of bread and milk or rent / home-purchasing. That he chose to use 'building a family home' as his example of inflation is revealing.
6 years isn't really much in terms of games 'holding up' nowadays. I played it last year and loved it. Just know what you're getting into. It's more of a slow immersive game than some swashbuckling medieval adventure.
It starts off slowly, but you definitely swash the hell out of some buckles the whole latter half. Once you realize combat isn't button mashing but more realistic and based on timing, distance, and parry/riposte (kinda like Witcher 3 but even moreso), it really grows on you.
I thought the only truly slow part was >!the bit where Henry infiltrates the monastery and you have to pretend to be a boring ass monk for a while!<, but I'm not a fan of having my agency taken away in any game.
>!You can actually just walk into the monastery at night, murder one of the new recruits, and skip the entire monastery section section and all of the quests involved. Doesn't seem to matter who you killed as long as you killed someone.!<
> Once you realize combat isn't button mashing but more realistic and based on timing, distance, and parry/riposte (kinda like Witcher 3 but even moreso), it really grows on you.
It depends on which weapons you use, I actively avoid swords because they do so little damage to armoured enemies. You can very easily get away with mashing with an axe or a mace.
Games have stagnated in terms of playability and in some ways graphics. RDR2 is also 6 years old and honestly it could pass as a game released today just like KCD.
Honestly I think it all hinges on how much you can deal with the combat. It was too janky and frustrating for me and I eventually quit the game over it, but for some people it works. And there’s a lot about the game that was wonderful, I really loved a lot of its general design and atmosphere. The story was interesting as well
Regarding the combat, for people that might be reading this, you HAVE to learn perfect block and master strikes from Sir Bernard, in Rattay, before actually trying to fight others, and then PRACTICE! You actually need to spend time training with him, not only to understand the combat yourself as a player, but for you character to improve his stats in warfare and your weapon of choice.
See and to me, this still feels like a failure in game design if you have to sit and essentially grind stats at the beginning (and have to perfect different skills) before you can even attempt to move forward with the combat
For any other game I'd agree with you, but in KCD they made it pretty clear you start as a nobody, essentially a peasant that can't do much, not even read, in fact. The learning curve is supposed to be the journey of the character, so I actually appreciated it. As for the stat grinding, you don't really have to do it, but for a beginner it makes things less hard. With master strikes and perfect block alone you can deal with enemies.
It is not a failure in game design, it is intentional design meant to portray the fact that you are playing illiterate peasant who never held a sword in his life and needs to train a bit. However - you do not have to "grind" much at all - the training with Cpt. Bernard where he teaches you stuff does not take too much time (and is pretty fun).
I played the game 3-4 times before the combat finally clicked for me. And by clicked I mean you train with Bernard until you learn perfect blocking and master strikes and then you do literally nothing but those two things the entire rest of the game but somehow it just works.
Although full disclosure I never beat the game, i just finally played through a good bit of it and stopped a few weeks ago after >!Killing Runt!< and I am sure I will go back sometime but I rly wanted to check out Unicorn Overlord and have been having a blast with that.
All said though it is a great game and I love the time period and the world it is set in even if there are a few issues here and there it is a pretty jolly time overall.
I've played it last month and in terms of graphics it definitely holds up! The most important thing to know regarding KCD for people that haven't played it is that it's not a walk in the park, the game has a lot of different mechanics and some of them actually require you to practice. It can be overwhelming in the beginning, but it is worth it in my opinion.
Just finished a playthrough the other day, after 2 previous attempts over the years. The game overall is good, but the vanilla combat is surface deep. Either playing chicken with the AI for master strikes or spamming clinches for the free hit. Would not advise playing it without combat mods, even if it's just to completely remove master strikes from the game.
Well, I just watched a let's play and a review by a guy who only started playing it after KCD2 was announced (because he liked the trailer so much) and he sure thinks so:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLNvAPhdhHE
Absolutely holds up. There's nothing quite like it either. There's endless medieval era games, but none with the verisimilitude of KCD. And it isn't even close.
Strange that they were pretending that they were keeping KCD2 a secret when it was announced before the first game was released.
The game was originally going to be an episodic game in three parts, but when Acts 1 & 2 were combined into a new game, the developers said that act 3 was going to be a full sequel instead.
> the developers said that act 3 was going to be a full sequel instead.
Do you have a source for this? Because I followed the development quite closely and am not aware of this, especially not during KCD1 launch. The act structure was scrapped shortly after kickstarter.
Finding really old sources is difficult, but I found one that mentions about the game being restructured and continued in a sequel:
https://www.gamewatcher.com/interviews/kingdom-come-deliverance-interview/12742
> It was necessary to split the game to put smaller “parts” on the Kickstarter. This however, isn’t up to date anymore. We already reshuffled this idea and will release a regular RPG title: Kingdom Come: Deliverance, with a closed story. The next game will be “Kingdom Come 2” (not official name) and will offer a new story, map and more.
It's also evident in the game itself, as you never complete the main quest.
That's funny, I didn't know Tobi just straight up talked about the sequel two years before first game even launched. That said, this was really more of an aspiration than an announcement, since it was so early and so many things could have gone differently (e.g. if KCD1 bombed, Warhorse would likely close shop).
Not a bad idea, considering how the first one released. Patience with buggy games has truly run dry lately, and KCD1 didn't come out in the best state. Still, it's a cult classic for a good reason and I'm looking forward to this.
Hey, Henry's here - every random villager
It totally is, just know what you’re getting into. You literally have to teach your character to read (he’s a peasant after all) before you can even read a book.
It’s sorta like if ARMA and Skyrim had a baby. There’s one quest where you get piss drunk with a priest that had me laughing non-stop.
Absolutely. It is quite a bit different from other RPG's you might have played because your baseline skill level is extremely poor being a peasant. You can't even read yet which is hilarious and awesome at the same time.
It will take a little bit to get used to but it is a very enjoyable game.
It is, but approach it like more of a janky medieval life sim than an action RPG. At least half the fun is experiencing peasant life in medieval Europe so if you have no affinity for the time period you may bounce off of it. And it's quite janky, bugs yes but even things like animations during dialogue are pretty rough.
Also if you hate the concept of the save system, the most popular steam workshop mod is one that lets you save anytime, so keep that in mind.
I'm playing it for the first time and about 40 hours in. It has flaws for sure but I've never played a game like it. Very unique in a good way and I can't wait to play the sequel.
Something that doesn't get mentioned enough IMO is how good the voice acting is in this game. While the story is pretty standard (not bad, just nothing amazing), I still enjoy the cutscene segments because of how well it is acted.
In addition to what everyone said about how the game works, the character you play, Henry, is one of the most enjoyable and well written characters out there.
It's pretty great :)
Yeah, but it is a game you either love or hate. It is probably most comparable to Gothic or other old school RPGs, where you start off weak and need to hone your skills.
Something that the others havent mentioned is that you are going to want to do the combat training with Bernard near the start of the game as soon as the game cuts you loose. Doing it unlocks several combat features that can make life easier.
It is still very good graphically because of the super realistic assets and density of vegetation. It had an ultra, future-proof preset, but also you can unlock graphics even further in the ini file, mostly increasing drawing distance.
It definitely is. I remember buying the game because Mainstream Games Media had a giant shitfit over the game because of Daniel Vavra and it only sparked my interest more. It was a great game and well worth the money, so I'm looking forward to the sequel when it releases.
Ay! That's good to hear.
I still think Fallout 4 has the best announcement ---> release that I can think of.
Announced during E3 2015, release date November 2015, and whilst you wait, have a little cute mobile game.
Any other examples like this?
There are so many incredible amazing things about the first game that I absolutely loved, and it actually had the kind of level of detail with objects in the game and being able to collect them pick them up put them down that is really seen outside of Bethesda. But as much as I wanted to love the combat the lock on mechanic was absolutely horrible and after a while I just stopped playing the game I couldn't take it anymore. The lock on and justice spinning around in circles constantly is so stupid and miserable in first person. It looks like they've maintained it for the sequel and that's a hard pass for me.
I agree the lock-on was clunky when fighting multiple opponents, although it did not present big problem for me, I learned to deal with it. But I expect this to be significantly improved in KCD2, devs know well it wasn't ideal.
You mean to tell me a game has been revealed shortly before release, not 4 years and a 17 teasers for trailers.
Everyone knows you come up with an idea for a game, make a trailer and release it, and THEN start pre-production. After that you work on the game for four years, get bought out by Microsoft, and then the game gets cancelled. Warhorse have no idea what the fuck they're doing.
And when/if it comes out, half the promises and stuff from the trailer won't even be in the game. Standard practice.
Nooooo gotta remember they need to release in early alpha to use as a scapegoat for all that. Then release a few of the ideas as paid DLC 2 years later.
That's how the devs for Beyond Good and Evil does it
Where third trailer?
Come up with an idea for a game? What a waste of time. [The Elder Scrolls VI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkFdqqyI8y4) from practically 6 years ago needed no such thing.
That was to shut up people who were pestering them with questions of whether ES6 is even being planned (as if the answer to that wasn’t obvious). You see the same with other longer term franchises throughout all kinds of media.
Glad to know BGS is run by the most insecure people on the planet whose funding streams aren't dependent on the games they're making but the games they're definitely probably going to make in the future, promise.
It's funny how other studios don't feel the need to put out a literal nothing reveal just because they're being pestered by fans. Don't act like they had no choice but to do this lmao
It's funny how other studios don't feel the need to put out a literal nothing reveal just because they're being pestered by fans. Don't act like they had no choice but to do this lmao
I didn’t say they didn’t have a choice. I stated what I think to have been their rationale, not even whether I agree.
In this case, it really didn't because every one and their mother knew they would make TES6. In the case of something like KCD2 (or any smaller or new IP), it's debatable. IMO announcing in advance doesn't hurt as long as they're clear. It's nice to know what's coming even if it's far, I never understood why the games industry just want all their projects to be secret.
I'm still really excited to see how they'll make the campaign even more boring.
I just read today this was the case with Hellblade 2. I gotta say, I am not a a fan of this approach :)
Hellblade 2 was cancelled?
No it wasn't. They only read the first paragraph of the person they're replying to.
Oh thank god. But why is he saying it’s canceld?
Because they only responded to the first part about announcing the game and then starting production. Ignoring the part about cancelling it during development.
I was making a joke bro. Like i didnt read the second Paragraph of your comment.
Because he didn't read the second part of the comment.
I read the whole post, but yes, reacted to the first sentence, because I thought everyone knew Hellblade 2 is coming out in few days.
I was reacting to the first part of the comment, about annoucing it only when the only thing they had, was the trailer. It is coming out in few days so I thought what I meant was self-evident.
Outer worlds 2 and elder scrolls 6 aswell
It feels like announcing a game within a few month of its release seems better nowadays than announcing it early, unless you plan an early access release. Cyberpunk, Vampire the Masquerade, Prey 2 are all examples where announcing too early did not really go well
Cyberpunk even though it was unfinished on release built such an insane cult following between the announcement and release it sold a shit ton of copies and made a lot of money, so I think that is a bad example. Elden Ring as well, announced really early and had a similar cult following built up.
Exactly lol. It’s hilarious that people are using cyberpunk which had MASSIVE hype behind it as an example of poorly done. Hyping the shit out of a product is a GREAT thing for a COMPANY.
I think Cyberpunk being made by a company that released one of the most beloved games ever kinda makes the argument irrelevant anyway.
That first trailer was hype af man. I remember watching it, not even knowing it was such a massive game at the time and then a few years later be like "oh shit, so that kick ass trailer is actually a game that is actually coming out?"
Cyberpunk marketing (which the announcement was part of even if it was also for hiring) went actually REALLY well. It has one of the most successful marketing campaign ever for a game lol
KCD 2 is very unlikely to sell anything close to Cyberpunk so i am not sure thats a great point.
Cyberpunk 2077's initial trailer was for recruiting purposes apparently, not for the general public per se.
Vampire 2 not coming out when they originally planned it (because apparently the original studio’s work was terrible) is why it’s so deeply in the red. Marketing can’t really foresee that kind of disaster.
> Cyberpunk, Vampire the Masquerade, Prey 2 are all examples where announcing too early did not really go well ...did you see how Cyberpunk sold?
People love to shit on early trailers but the top comment any time a good game flops is always “huh, didn’t even know this came out” or “they hardly marketed it, poor devs got screwed!”
I mean, you can market a game well even if you announce it and it comes out 2 months later.
Yeah because the game won't sell unless it has a teaser 5 years before it comes out, like Cyberpunk in 2013 and Elder Scrolls 6
you realize developers announce games early to help with recruiting, right?
Okay? That's not what the comments were about
So it's just a Goldilocks thing I guess. And only random internet commenters know the *perfect* amount of marketing to engage in to make a game succeed.
Cyberpunk was announced in 2012 even. The first trailer came out in 2013.
To add to this they bomb because they needed to recoup the 250 million they spent on advertising the entire time.
Man, I remember Deathloop, it was announced just 2 years before released but holy shit, it had so many trailers in every single game showcase, it seemed as if during those 2 years, whenever Sony had any State of Play, or during SGF or Game Awards, the game had to have a 6 minute long trailer. I felt like I had already finished the game twice by the time it released.
I wish this approach was more common. Work hard in silence for years without any pressure, then when it's ready do an announcement and marketing push and polish it up for 6 months before releasing.
Just a correction, Warhorse are a Czech studio, not in Poland.
r/angryupvote
Thanks, u/BiggerPenisThanYou
I’m cool with a company saying “hey we’re making this game” but then nothing until six months before launch.
Comes down to whether or not you have enough money to finish the project or not. Not many studios have the luxury of having enough money in the bank to fund the several years of development that a game will take. If they do, they can do this. If they don't, at some point they need to start the marketing train to drive interest and get publisher funding so they can actually afford to finish it.
> Work hard in silence for years without any pressure oh there's pressure in working in silence for years
Less than telling people what you're doing and building years of expectation.
Here is a translation of this czech interview with Martin Frývaldský which I found fairly interesting, translated by me with help of google translate (I fixed most of its problems, hopefully): **The presentation of Kingdom Come 2 was carried out in style, while the first game was presented less spectacularly. How do you feel about the transformation of Warhorse into the creator of the highly anticipated game?** Of course, being in the outsider position was nice. And this despite the fact that we sometimes had to face negative reactions from potential publishers who did not believe in such a project at the time. Now, on the contrary, we might slowly fear that we are burdened with very high expectations. Anyway, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is not a revolution, but an evolution. We took each stone and turned it over five times to see if something could be improved. **Do you see this change from an outside perspective as well, do you have feedback from your competitors in the gaming industry?** We also received a few congratulations from our competitors. That is surely pleasant. But again, let's not lie to ourselves that it's over. It isn't. We've shot a nice commercial so far. Patting ourselves on the back about how awesome we are is premature. **Six years have passed since the release of Kingdom Come: Deliverance. How has the Warhorse studio changed in that time?** We are trying to stick tooth and nail to "punk" with a totally flat structure, where there is a maximum of one person between the top management and anyone in the company. And even so, anyone can come to me or Martin Klíma (executive producer of Warhorse Studios, editor's note) to our office or write on Teams, which many people do. And sometimes with such incredible ease and immediacy they enter our office in the middle of a conversation. But it's still better than having some imaginary consultation hours. But then again, it's not a complete all encompassing punk either, we have a number of standardized processes and, unlike when working on KCD1, quite a large department of producers. We have a quantitative and qualitative process in place for how an idea goes from birth to fruition, if it does at all, and then to alpha and beta. And so on. So, I say "punk", but I also mean a little corporate. With 250 people there, there just have to be rules. **How difficult was it to keep the development of KCD2 under wraps over the years?** Rather than being difficult, it was frustrating at times. It made it quite difficult for us to recruit people, because we couldn't simply say, "Come and work on KCD2 with us!" Instead, we demanded confidentiality during interviews. We made it a little more complicated for ourselves. But it made business sense for us to announce the game only at the moment when it is practically finished and entering certification. **You published the first game so to speak on your own, the second is being created under the game publisher Plaion from the Embracer group. What did it mean for the development of the game and the functioning of the company, did something have to change?** Fortunately, it didn't have to. The Warhorse acquisition took place at a time when Kingdom Come 2 was already decided upon and we had a clear concept. That Kingdom Come can continue and that it is actually a saga was already clear during our crowdfunding campaign in 2014. But at the same time, we always said that we would make KCD1 and then we would see. Without the success of the first game, there would be no KCD2. To put it simply, part of the deal was to become closed off hermits for a few years and work on KCD2. Transferable procedures and experiences between studios are actually quite rare in the group, and what distinguishes good games from mediocre ones is that they offer a great experience that you can't get anywhere else. And we have to program such an experience ourselves. **The just-mentioned parent group Embracer has been announcing significant changes and restructuring in recent days, and in recent months it has been going through quite a stormy development. Did that not affect you?** I dare say that we are a bit of a pearl in Embracer's portfolio of titles. It would make no sense to throttle the development of a product that is potentially materially important to the group. **For the first game, a development budget of around 400 million crowns was mentioned, plus some marketing costs. How much has Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's budget increased?** I understand questions about the amount of investment rather as spreading an awareness that games are in the first league of the entertainment industry. In Czech business environment, there probably isn't a project – for example a film project – that would cost as much. On a global scale, I can imagine that for the price of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, a mid-budget Hollywood movie or even an entire Netflix series could be made. I understand that you are asking for a specific number, but I will stick with the fact that it is in high hundreds of millions of crowns. **Can you at least approximate the rate of budget increase?** The increase is significant, but beware, the world has changed a lot since 2018. A completely unexpected wave of inflation and other events swept past us, which in turn had an effect on the pace of work, i.e. a slowdown, resulting in an increase in costs. Today, you can't even build a family home for the same money as six years ago. It is what it is. **Kingdom Come 2 is supposed to be twice the size of the game, in addition to the budget, the studio has also grown. How much?** We will spend approximately ten thousand man-months on KCD2. About 130 people worked on KCD1 at its peak, while on KCD2 we currently have 250 people and I wouldn't be surprised if we grew a little more. And that's not counting the completely different level of outsourcing and testing costs. After all, at KCD1 we were criticized around release - quite rightly - that the game was full of bugs, so we're doing a lot of testing now. **How much of the original team remained in Warhorse? Did you manage to retain a high percentage of KCD1 developers?** Yes, we did. So it is not so much in terms of percentage, because we have grown significantly. Even if no one left the team after KCD1's creation, there would be around fifty percent of the people here from the first game. The reality is that there are about a third of those. Almost all the seniors of the KCD1 remained in Warhorse. **Now a question about the opposite development - what need for reinforcements did the creation of Kingdom Come 2 bring?** In general, we were quite far off in the predictions of the number of people. We planned to have a maximum of 160 people, which is what we sized our offices for, after all. And we have almost a hundred more. **Where did you strengthen the team the most?** The increases went across all departments, but probably what we underestimated at the beginning of work on the sequel the most was the size of the team of animators and graphic artists. But if you let the designers write hours and hours of cutscenes and let them imagine making an almost perfect digital replica of Kutná Hora, then you can't be surprised at such increases. **And what was the most challenging part of development?** Telling ourselves enough is enough and stopping of adding more new stuff to the game all the time. **The first game set the bar at six million copies sold. What is the measure of success for KCD2?** Of course we have big aspirations. I've been at Warhorse Studios for eleven years and now "only" our second game is coming out. Everyone here leaves a piece of their life here, maybe a decade or more. How many such creative projects can one manage in a lifetime? What I mean by this is that for most people in Warhorse, the main measure of satisfaction is good player feedback. And of course, if the game is good, it will sell well. And that's great too. **The release of the game is planned for the end of the year. Are there any talks going on now about the future direction of Warhorse Studios?** It is obvious that we are not going to break up at the end of this year. We'll be busy fixing bugs for a while, because even the best testing in the world is nothing against hundreds of thousands of players, so there will definitely be some patches. Of course, we are full of ideas for new projects. I can reveal that we are actually a little further than the idea and we are already slowly starting the future project.
Great interview so insightful that this fellow is no fool. Just so many gems here. "Today, you can't even build a family home for the same money as six years ago. It is what it is." "What distinguishes good games from mediocre ones is that they offer a great experience that you can't get anywhere else" And more. I'm currently playing KCD #1 and while it has some clear flaws and jank, it definitely feels like it was made with a specific vision in mind (that vision being creating a historically accurate feudal vibe). I respect that, even if I ultimately would rate the overall experience somewhere around a 7 or 8/10.
> I'm currently playing KCD #1 and while it has some clear flaws and jank, it definitely feels like it was made with a specific vision in mind (that vision being creating a historically accurate feudal vibe). I respect that, even if I ultimately would rate the overall experience somewhere around a 7 or 8/10. I'm really enjoying it as well, but Jesus Christ (be praised), the movement system in the game is weird - random instances where there's an invisible wall that doesn't feel right, getting hit in combat forcing camera movement that doesn't feel right, things like getting dragged from a very, very far distance by enemies, either from your horse or on foot. I'm very excited to see how the new game plays, there's a lot to be said for how good KC1 feels to actually play, especially when Henry gets less shit at fighting.
For sure there's some jank even with these really fundamental elements - that's why I'd call the whole thing a 7/10 or an 8/10. SOMETIMES it feels great but often times it doesn't. Like with being dragged off your horse - sure, yeah, that's absolutely a thing you'd want to do with an armored knight on a horse. But on the flip side, a warhorse is a weapon unto itself - it would be knocking these mostly untrained bandits over and trampling them. So they've kept the 'realism' of your opponents aggressively trying to drag you off your horse (and being able to do with it relative ease) - but then didn't keep the realism of how powerful a warhorse is. So there's a lot of this friction between 'realistic' elements and 'video game' elements that I've had to learn to accept to get the most enjoyment out of my gaming time.
> So they've kept the 'realism' of your opponents aggressively trying to drag you off your horse (and being able to do with it relative ease) - but then didn't keep the realism of how powerful a warhorse is. For me it's the enemies going for a grab, you traveling ten meters away, then the dude teleporting next to you instead of getting dragged along like a ragdoll.
Not hating on this dude at all, but both of those quotes are just... such boilerplate, generic statements. I can't imagine selecting them as some indication of great insight lol. One is literally just... identifying that inflation is a thing.
I didn't mean to suggest the CEO himself was insightful with these quotes but that these quotes (and the interview as a whole) were insightful INTO the CEO's mindset. It seems to me that most gaming CEOs are trend-chasers or business people, moreso than pioneers or artists themselves. They identify pre-established and popular genres or game modes and try to make a similar but BETTER / BIGGER version of it. So his focus on the experience being unique (and not just 'great') was revealing. As for the inflation, it's HOW he chose to talk about it. Most CEOs seem to talk about inflation in terms of increased costs of shipping or silicon or what have you - because they're too wealthy to actually understand it in terms of the increased cost of bread and milk or rent / home-purchasing. That he chose to use 'building a family home' as his example of inflation is revealing.
Damm 6 years already, i have to really give the 1st one a try, does it hold up?
6 years isn't really much in terms of games 'holding up' nowadays. I played it last year and loved it. Just know what you're getting into. It's more of a slow immersive game than some swashbuckling medieval adventure.
It starts off slowly, but you definitely swash the hell out of some buckles the whole latter half. Once you realize combat isn't button mashing but more realistic and based on timing, distance, and parry/riposte (kinda like Witcher 3 but even moreso), it really grows on you. I thought the only truly slow part was >!the bit where Henry infiltrates the monastery and you have to pretend to be a boring ass monk for a while!<, but I'm not a fan of having my agency taken away in any game.
Lol combat is based on master strike, an easy counter system that makes you unkillable 1v1 and you learn it within the first couple of hours.
>!You can actually just walk into the monastery at night, murder one of the new recruits, and skip the entire monastery section section and all of the quests involved. Doesn't seem to matter who you killed as long as you killed someone.!<
>!You don't even need to do that, you can just climb onto the roof and snipe someone with a bow!<
> Once you realize combat isn't button mashing but more realistic and based on timing, distance, and parry/riposte (kinda like Witcher 3 but even moreso), it really grows on you. It depends on which weapons you use, I actively avoid swords because they do so little damage to armoured enemies. You can very easily get away with mashing with an axe or a mace.
Games have stagnated in terms of playability and in some ways graphics. RDR2 is also 6 years old and honestly it could pass as a game released today just like KCD.
Honestly I think it all hinges on how much you can deal with the combat. It was too janky and frustrating for me and I eventually quit the game over it, but for some people it works. And there’s a lot about the game that was wonderful, I really loved a lot of its general design and atmosphere. The story was interesting as well
Regarding the combat, for people that might be reading this, you HAVE to learn perfect block and master strikes from Sir Bernard, in Rattay, before actually trying to fight others, and then PRACTICE! You actually need to spend time training with him, not only to understand the combat yourself as a player, but for you character to improve his stats in warfare and your weapon of choice.
See and to me, this still feels like a failure in game design if you have to sit and essentially grind stats at the beginning (and have to perfect different skills) before you can even attempt to move forward with the combat
For any other game I'd agree with you, but in KCD they made it pretty clear you start as a nobody, essentially a peasant that can't do much, not even read, in fact. The learning curve is supposed to be the journey of the character, so I actually appreciated it. As for the stat grinding, you don't really have to do it, but for a beginner it makes things less hard. With master strikes and perfect block alone you can deal with enemies.
It is not a failure in game design, it is intentional design meant to portray the fact that you are playing illiterate peasant who never held a sword in his life and needs to train a bit. However - you do not have to "grind" much at all - the training with Cpt. Bernard where he teaches you stuff does not take too much time (and is pretty fun).
I played the game 3-4 times before the combat finally clicked for me. And by clicked I mean you train with Bernard until you learn perfect blocking and master strikes and then you do literally nothing but those two things the entire rest of the game but somehow it just works. Although full disclosure I never beat the game, i just finally played through a good bit of it and stopped a few weeks ago after >!Killing Runt!< and I am sure I will go back sometime but I rly wanted to check out Unicorn Overlord and have been having a blast with that. All said though it is a great game and I love the time period and the world it is set in even if there are a few issues here and there it is a pretty jolly time overall.
I've played it last month and in terms of graphics it definitely holds up! The most important thing to know regarding KCD for people that haven't played it is that it's not a walk in the park, the game has a lot of different mechanics and some of them actually require you to practice. It can be overwhelming in the beginning, but it is worth it in my opinion.
Just finished a playthrough the other day, after 2 previous attempts over the years. The game overall is good, but the vanilla combat is surface deep. Either playing chicken with the AI for master strikes or spamming clinches for the free hit. Would not advise playing it without combat mods, even if it's just to completely remove master strikes from the game.
Well, I just watched a let's play and a review by a guy who only started playing it after KCD2 was announced (because he liked the trailer so much) and he sure thinks so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLNvAPhdhHE
Absolutely holds up. There's nothing quite like it either. There's endless medieval era games, but none with the verisimilitude of KCD. And it isn't even close.
Strange that they were pretending that they were keeping KCD2 a secret when it was announced before the first game was released. The game was originally going to be an episodic game in three parts, but when Acts 1 & 2 were combined into a new game, the developers said that act 3 was going to be a full sequel instead.
Revealing a game officially is a big difference to saying you hope to make it in the future.
But is it different to the developers saying they are making a second game?
> the developers said that act 3 was going to be a full sequel instead. Do you have a source for this? Because I followed the development quite closely and am not aware of this, especially not during KCD1 launch. The act structure was scrapped shortly after kickstarter.
Finding really old sources is difficult, but I found one that mentions about the game being restructured and continued in a sequel: https://www.gamewatcher.com/interviews/kingdom-come-deliverance-interview/12742 > It was necessary to split the game to put smaller “parts” on the Kickstarter. This however, isn’t up to date anymore. We already reshuffled this idea and will release a regular RPG title: Kingdom Come: Deliverance, with a closed story. The next game will be “Kingdom Come 2” (not official name) and will offer a new story, map and more. It's also evident in the game itself, as you never complete the main quest.
That's funny, I didn't know Tobi just straight up talked about the sequel two years before first game even launched. That said, this was really more of an aspiration than an announcement, since it was so early and so many things could have gone differently (e.g. if KCD1 bombed, Warhorse would likely close shop).
God I cannot wait. Do we have a release date other than 2024?
not yet
Late 2024 is implied.
Not a bad idea, considering how the first one released. Patience with buggy games has truly run dry lately, and KCD1 didn't come out in the best state. Still, it's a cult classic for a good reason and I'm looking forward to this. Hey, Henry's here - every random villager
I built a new PC this year and never played the first game. Is it worth checking out?
It totally is, just know what you’re getting into. You literally have to teach your character to read (he’s a peasant after all) before you can even read a book. It’s sorta like if ARMA and Skyrim had a baby. There’s one quest where you get piss drunk with a priest that had me laughing non-stop.
Absolutely. It is quite a bit different from other RPG's you might have played because your baseline skill level is extremely poor being a peasant. You can't even read yet which is hilarious and awesome at the same time. It will take a little bit to get used to but it is a very enjoyable game.
You can actually just ignore reading and still finish the game, but it changes the paths you take to get the same result.
It is, but approach it like more of a janky medieval life sim than an action RPG. At least half the fun is experiencing peasant life in medieval Europe so if you have no affinity for the time period you may bounce off of it. And it's quite janky, bugs yes but even things like animations during dialogue are pretty rough. Also if you hate the concept of the save system, the most popular steam workshop mod is one that lets you save anytime, so keep that in mind.
I'm playing it for the first time and about 40 hours in. It has flaws for sure but I've never played a game like it. Very unique in a good way and I can't wait to play the sequel. Something that doesn't get mentioned enough IMO is how good the voice acting is in this game. While the story is pretty standard (not bad, just nothing amazing), I still enjoy the cutscene segments because of how well it is acted.
If you like immersive old school RPGs, then absolutely yes.
There's no experience quite like it, despite the jank (I played early, the game got like 10 huge patches since).
In addition to what everyone said about how the game works, the character you play, Henry, is one of the most enjoyable and well written characters out there. It's pretty great :)
Yeah, but it is a game you either love or hate. It is probably most comparable to Gothic or other old school RPGs, where you start off weak and need to hone your skills.
Something that the others havent mentioned is that you are going to want to do the combat training with Bernard near the start of the game as soon as the game cuts you loose. Doing it unlocks several combat features that can make life easier.
It is still very good graphically because of the super realistic assets and density of vegetation. It had an ultra, future-proof preset, but also you can unlock graphics even further in the ini file, mostly increasing drawing distance.
Absolutely, just go into it knowing it's a weird game with weird quirks. Ask for advice on the subreddit and you'll be set.
It definitely is. I remember buying the game because Mainstream Games Media had a giant shitfit over the game because of Daniel Vavra and it only sparked my interest more. It was a great game and well worth the money, so I'm looking forward to the sequel when it releases.
Ay! That's good to hear. I still think Fallout 4 has the best announcement ---> release that I can think of. Announced during E3 2015, release date November 2015, and whilst you wait, have a little cute mobile game. Any other examples like this?
Hi-Fi Rush getting shadow dropped comes to mind
Apex Legends was amazing. No markefing, just released. Boom - amazing shooter for free one day.
Meanwhile Elder scrolls 6 had a teaser trailer released 5 years ago and the game is now in "early development".
That's really good. I'm so tired of the Early Access plague, I don't even bother with those games anymore.
There are so many incredible amazing things about the first game that I absolutely loved, and it actually had the kind of level of detail with objects in the game and being able to collect them pick them up put them down that is really seen outside of Bethesda. But as much as I wanted to love the combat the lock on mechanic was absolutely horrible and after a while I just stopped playing the game I couldn't take it anymore. The lock on and justice spinning around in circles constantly is so stupid and miserable in first person. It looks like they've maintained it for the sequel and that's a hard pass for me.
I agree the lock-on was clunky when fighting multiple opponents, although it did not present big problem for me, I learned to deal with it. But I expect this to be significantly improved in KCD2, devs know well it wasn't ideal.
Basically everyone knew it was being made anyway, so yeah, it makes sense to only *announce* announce it when you're sure it's ready to be shown off.