Video Gamers Podcast - Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 - Hanging with the Senior Game Designer!! - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Gaming hosts Josh and Ryan are STOKED to be able to bring you this unbelievable episode! We got to hang out with the senior game designer for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Warhorse Studios was kind enough to let us chat with them about what it was like to develop this game, talk about the insane release and response to one of gaming's biggest releases for 2025, get some insight into how they made this incredible video game and soooo much more. If you ever wanted to know what it’s like to release a major title in the gaming industry, this is the episode for you! It’s a gaming packed episode from the Video Gamers Podcast! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake, Disratory and Gaius Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is taking the world by storm and it's the hottest release so far in 2025. Highly anticipated with a fantastic reception, we've been playing it, but we aren't quite ready for the deep dive yet. What we do have is something incredible for you. We had the opportunity, nay, the joy of interviewing one of the game designers from Warhorse Studios who played a large role in the making of the game. This is an incredible interview and we are so excited to share it with you. But

first, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh, and joining me, you'll find him sleeping in strangers beds, stealing horses and failing miserably at brewing potions. It's Ryan. I was going to say, I was so annoyed today because I'm like falling asleep and I'm like, this is just like real life. Is this real life Sim? And I'm just falling asleep as I walk through and I'm like, oh, there's a bed It looks like you know, nobody's around and then next thing I know I wake up and everybody's trying to kill me again Every time I go to everybody just wants to kill me. Yeah. Yeah, they get really mad if you're sleeping in the bed I mean roughly so if you found somebody's there in your bed, you probably would have. Man, I was tired, bro. I'm just tired. Dude, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, we have been playing

it. There is so much to talk about in this game. I mean, our entire community is talking about it. The internet's talking about it. I mean, this is one of the biggest releases that has come out in a while. And we have been playing it almost every day, but it's, it's a monster of a game and we are not ready to do the deep dive just yet. So we're going to keep playing, but dude, we had such an insanely cool opportunity to actually talk to one of the game designers, uh, and kind of get the inside scoop on the development of the game, what it's like to release a game like this to the world, and the anticipation and nervousness, a behind the curtain look at game development.

I mean, what an awesome time this was, Ryan. I mean, I don't want like, what more can you say about this, dude? Dude, it was awesome. You definitely want to stay tuned and listen to the whole thing. Um, not only did we get, uh, kind of that behind the curtain, this guy was just totally awesome. Gave us some really kind of cool details about game development, uh, what goes into it, what his opinions are, you know, so it was, it was something that you're not going to hear from a lot of places. So it was definitely an interesting thing. Yeah. And we made a new friend. I mean, we're practically best friends now too. Basically.

That's how awesome this was. What did we just become best friends? Yup. Do you want to go do karate in the garage? Yup. So listen, we're going to get to that interview in just a minute. But Ryan, it's been a while. We've been so busy. We haven't done any housekeeping in a while.

And so I know people are excited to get to the interview. So we're going to make this quick, but we have to give some shout outs. The first one we want to give is to a new Epic supporter, Norwegian greaser. Thank you so much. Also we're expanding our like global presence, Ryan. This is like, we're, this is a good bit of people that are over the pond from us now. Dude, us, us little Americans over here, we just can't even fathom that man.

Yeah. I love this community because it's like right as we're like going to bed, they're all waking up and starting to chat and stuff like that. I love it dude. You see him over there. Yeah, and you see it's like nine o'clock, ten o'clock here, AZ time and you just see morning, morning, you know, normally it was back in the day. It was it was Mobox at like 3 a.m. You know Mobot we like to call them and and then now it's just we got all these people. It's the discords active And then now it's just we got all these people. It's the discords active like 24 7 now. I love it. I absolutely love it. So thank you, Norwegian Greaser, for signing up with epic support.

And then we had a new rare supporter. Now, I've known this guy for a while. I absolutely love this dude. And that is a supporter by the name of Noggin. Noggin has been playing rivals with us. One of the best Hulk players I have seen in rivals. by the name of Noggin. Noggin has been playing rivals with us. One of the best Hulk players I have seen in rivals, like honestly ever, like maybe it's just, you know,

we're not at that high level, but like Noggin is just a clutch Hulk man. And honestly amazing guy. So thank you Noggin for supporting the show as well. Um, we really, we appreciate it and we appreciate you also. And then Ryan, I think we've got something else. I think we do. Um, something that is absolutely amazing that we love to see and receive and we've been getting a ton of them and that's another review. Ooh, you know what, Ryan, you know, let's mix it up, man.

This is a special episode. We've got an awesome dev interview that's about to go down. Why don't you take this one, buddy? Okay. Well, I don't mind if I do. So this one is from Butch. 987654321. Kaboom!

No, the Kaboom's not in there. Just the rest of the numbers. You gotta read them verbatim, Ryan. That's the deal. All right. All right. Fine. This one's titled best video game podcast ever. Five star review. The podcast is incredible as a gamer dad of similar age. I can relate to Josh and Ryan on so many levels. They bring plenty of nostalgia but also review new games and trends, always keeping the podcast interesting.

Great work, guys. Also, Josh is way older than myself or Ryan. What? Oh, what, what? Ryan, you failed already. That's not what the review says. Oh, okay. All right, maybe I had to come up.

You know what? You're on your off reviews, buddy. Aw, man. You can't just ad lib that stuff, man. My bad, My bad. Oh my goodness. You joker. That's it.

You're off. You're off reviews. All right. Fine. I couldn't help it. But seriously, thank you, Butch987654321. You are awesome for taking the time to leave a review. If you have not left us a review yet,

please take the time to do so. It helps the show immensely. It helps other gamers find this podcast. And it just lets us know how we're doing. Like honestly, the feedback, we love it. We love seeing it. It makes our days. We check them every day. So thank you for leaving those reviews. And if you haven't, what are you waiting for? Ryan, I don't know if I can wait any longer, buddy. I think it's time to get to this interview, dude. This thing is amazing. I really hope that the listeners enjoy this.

And DJ, run that tape. Hit it. We are insanely excited to be chatting with Andre from Warhorse Studios. Andre is a game designer for the studio and I'm sure is feeling all sorts of crazy emotions right now after launching one of the most anticipated games of 2025 Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Andre thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule

to talk with us with with the release of a highly anticipated game like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, there has to be this sort of like massive anticipation and nervousness that that happens right around the release of a game. And I just I got to ask man, what is that like? Like is is it is it exciting? Are the nerves through the roof? Try to give us a little bit of insight onto actually just putting your game out to the world. Well, OK. First of all, hi. Thank you for having me here.

It's a great pleasure. So basically, it's a bit different for me because in the design department, all the work kind of stops six months before the release, which I think is even worse because you have this like the train has left the station. And now everything I spot and I want to correct, I can do it, but it's going to be in like patch, you know, 1.3, which, you know, we will definitely have patches. But so so it's, you know, 1.3, which, you know, we will definitely have patches. Um, but so, so it's, you know, kind of frustrating.

And also it's crazy because you work on this for six years. And then all the attention is sort of like boiled down to two weeks. Your mom starts, you know, sending you links to local media. Then you go to the like, pick up like a box for you know, like a delivery service. And on the display, it's like logo of Kingdom Come. And then it sounds like I went to the subway and there was like Kingdom Come on the like big format ads and I was like, holy family friendly podcast. Holy moly or whatever you're saying. This is like massive and it's all in this two weeks and you're like, sort of feel almost

like invaded. Yeah. It's like, I've been working on this for six years and now it's like here and then it'll be gone. And then no one, I mean, like people still play the game, but all the attention will, you know, quite quickly shifts to something else because there's always something around the corner. Right.

So it's been a big max mix of emotions. But, you know, despite it all, we think we were relieved. The scores are great. The number of concurrent players were just 49. We broke the top 50 most concurrent players on Steam ever with quarter of a million people playing it over the weekend. We sold one million copies in one day. So it's awesome, man. Now, did you at at Subway, did you try to flex and get free food? Like, do you know who I am? No, the banner. He meant the subway, not the restaurant. Oh, the actual trace. I once got a discount for a pair of Adidas shoes, because I

wore them come hoodie and someone's like, I love that game. I was like, hmm, I did that game. I got a discount of about like 15 bucks. And, you know, hey, oh, that's awesome. Everything counts. Free 15 bucks. But you know, apart from that, I got no free food. Wow. That's where my brain's always at. It's more time, so I'm hungry.

That's awesome. So as a game designer, you kind of brought up a good point that you guys, like you said, that last six months, I mean, it's go time for six years basically, but then the time kind of leading up to close to the release, you kind of just get to breathe a little bit, right? Oh, I mean, hold your breath would be better. Yeah. Because, well, I mean, like we still do things like we fix, you know, very critical bugs.

Sure. Once you see like, oh my God, this is like not good, like something more substantial or something like some deep rooted issue. It is a very hard fight with the producers to actually fix that. And so you have to basically have to pick your fights like. Right. We have this like limited political capital design money and we have to spend them on the things we really really because otherwise we would be fixing everything all the time and we would completely broke break the game, which unfortunately didn't happen this time. Because they were like very, very strict about that. But you still doing things, but you have to pick your battles and you have to be like, there's a lot of extra steps to go through the fix things.

Otherwise, that would otherwise take one day to fix before that. And now you have to spend a week sort of like, you know, getting the QA to test it, whether it really, really, you know, fix the bug, uh, or if it didn't add it, no new box, which is usually the case, like you fix one thing and three other things break. And so, and also if it involves localization, we have to like localize the 16 languages and all that. And obviously if it contains voiceover things, that's over. That's like, that's done. If someone tells you I can't like go South and someone, you know, move the thing East it's gone.

Like you can't really fix that. I didn't think about that. That's an interesting point that some things are just locked in because of the work that's done previously. So, so Andre, I want to talk because I mean, we, we have been playing the heck out of this game. We have a large community, our listeners, everybody has been raving. I mean, raving about this game. So you know, there's a hype level, I mean, for us as gamers, and I'm sure for you guys as well. So I kind of want to ask a couple of questions about just

the release of the game. And I mean, you guys are in a great spot because this has been very, very positive. I mean, every gamer that we talk to on social media, people are posting screenshots and they're praising the game. What is that like? When you release a game and you start to see the reviews roll in and you see, you know, the, the Metacritic scores and the critics are re you know, reviewing

it, but then you have the gamers and like, do you guys dive into the reviews? I mean, you know, we're a podcast, people leave us reviews and it's like every time a new review pops up, we read it and we go, Oh, that was great. Or if somebody's like, hey, we don't love it, you kind of go like, oh, like, oh, that hurts, man. So what is that like to kind of see the reception to the game? So last time, six years ago, when we did KCD one, I just stopped for a week. And I watched streams for a week and I watched streams nonstop. My wife would just bring me pizza or good wife. He's in the game by the way. She's Bianca in the first game. So, oh wow. Okay. So that's cool. And she, you know, did some other stuff for us. She's very involved with the war horse. War horse is actually very, you know, like a large family type of thing,

with the Warhorse. Warhorse is actually a very large family type of thing. A lot of partners and people will be like, we know each other, so it's cool. But cool wife, great point. I'll tell her later. So I was just nonstop watching streams. I tried to do this this time as well, but since then we kind of got two kids and that gets in the way a lot. Just a little bit. Yep. Yeah. I just, just, you know, LLA, we're both dads. We get it. You know, mobile phones kind of help. So it's okay.

So I still watch streams, but this time, and this is amazing. Last time I was worried, like every time, sorry, there's not a, cause I'm on my phone, there's notifications. Um, last time I was worried, like every time someone loads a safe or opens a door or it goes to combat I was like praying that it doesn't break this time. I'm enjoying it far more I can like enjoy it like watching that not being like anxious all the time and then obviously we read the reviews are all the time and then obviously we read the reviews we try to respond I sometimes respond to social media to like the same posts. Today I was kind of bummed out because I found out that a lot of people have trouble with

my mission in a game because maybe you made it too hard. It's the castle mission when you're like locked in. I haven't made it there yet, but now I'm really interested in this. Spoilers. I haven't mentioned which castle it is. So there's multiple games. So it's fun. So, you know, I'm kind of like, oh yeah, but now I have this like thing. I can be like, okay, I need to fix this in the next patch somehow. So we try to like tackle all the... Obviously we have the external QA and all that stuff, but as designers we try to... Because I can't do anything with your game crashing on Nvidia card or whatever, but I can be like,

okay, in this mission or in this quest there's this really frustrating thing. And sometimes people from production are like, oh, you can still finish the game and I'm like yeah but if the people turn off the game because they're frustrated that counts almost as a crash it's even worse than a crash yeah that's really really bad especially in the first two hours because of refunds right but yeah now don't take me seriously on this one. The money I'm totally not about the money. So, so we try to identify these and be like, Hey, we need to fix this.

So we definitely read, try to read everything. We kind of have this like, Oh, I'm watching this streamer. You're watching this stream. So we can watch like different people and in different languages. Um, so, you know, so kind of cover it. And we has desires have to do this because certain other, like people from QA sometimes might not pick up on the sort of like big picture thing that we're trying to like, whether the balance of the economy is good, whether, you know, the

feeling of this is right, maybe music in the scene is off. So, you know, it's a little bit weird. So, so we're trying to like fix all these things and there's still plenty. Oh, it's a, it's a big game. Uh, I think I'm 20 some odd hours in and I feel like I've just scratched the surface so far. You know, there's probably a lot more to do. I just think what a luxury you guys have now, though, as designers to have the ability to do those patches. I couldn't imagine the stress back, you know, in the 90s and 80s and stuff like that.

You know, there's no patches. You just have the game that came out. I can't like, I don't understand how they do that. Like I'm like, I remember times before the internet. Yeah. Yeah. Before the swine stripping. I remember there in the magazines, there was like these like guides and things for,

you know, if you get stuck here stuff that you look up in like 10 seconds you know this 10 age you got youtube and you watch the which kind of adds something but also removes like you have way less like um patience with certain things like you just like and then you feel like, oh, you know, you feel like you need to take a shower because you basically. People love just Googling the answer to something right away instead of figuring it out. And it's like, do we spend so much time on this? And you're just Googling the answer.

And we try to like teach them a little bit, like bring it a little bit back, you know, bring back a little bit, like bring it a little bit back, you know, bring back a little bit, like you play the game, you know, the guy on walkthrough who wrote, he doesn't play the game. You play the game. So I can't imagine how, how first thing it was. Also, I kind of don't understand people kind of, you know, some people are bucked about first day patches. And I'm like, that's six more months of fixes usually, right? Especially if you get console

certification that takes time. So I mean, yeah, it's like 40 gigs again, because or 60 gigs, because but you know, just, you know, that that's what it is like, that's six months of work is in this patch. That's interesting to hear. that's six months of work is in this patch that's interesting to hear that's so cool like a peek behind the curtain of that there's still so much development and fixing even when you guys are done then there's still so much more to do especially on a like big open-world game I can give you a broken game or I can give you a less broken game but you have

to like download yeah 60 gigs which usual gamers are vining. You do it anyway. So, I mean, yeah, one more question about the release here, Andre. And then, and then we'll, I'd love to a little bit more about what you do on this, but I don't want, I don't want any, you know, specific games or anything like that mentioned. But when you get close to the time to release a game, I have to think a studio probably has a good idea whether their game is really good or not.

We've seen some games release and then they come out and they're just terrible, you know? And that's just the nature of some games. And so it's like, did you guys, did you know that this game was awesome? some games. And so it's like, did you guys, did you know that this game was awesome? Was there a fear that it's like, oh, man, we don't know how people are going to like this. Like, I got it. I got it. I just guess that you guys like, we're like, dude, this game's awesome.

Why? Like, first of all, you don't want to offend the gods. So you go like very humbly, like, never think that you get the victory in your pocket because that's just karma is a friendly, friendly, but an evil old lady. But we knew that the game is way less buggy than the first one. So that, you know, made us kind of happy. We didn't know whether people will buy into it because the concept is still very niche. I think the kids you're referring to, they know, like they know they're gonna catch a lot of flack for like, you know, doing the same thing all over again or releasing it unpolished, unfixed or uninspiring or whatever. But they know that their brand is so strong that they can carry into next thing they're going to do.

Interesting. Because I think that mainstream gaming has been started to be absolutely like repetitive. I think like, you know, agree that you can only play as many. Well, I don't want to mention like I don't want to. I mean, you can I just didn't want to put you on the spot. We talk about games all the time. So you don't need 150 hour long SSN screen every year. I really don't. Yes.

And it's, I always say that this is a bit of a different thing. But I always say that it doesn't really matter how long it is. It matters if your sessions like differ. So I hope that if people play Kingdom Come, they're like, oh, yesterday I, you know, brewed potions and then I went there and I met bandits and the next day I got drunk and they stole my shoes. And then I met Pilgrim and whatever. And they have like a different like stories for every gameplay session. Like they can name, like if you could name that session, put a name on it. Yeah.

Be able to, I don't love that thinking with a lot of open world games today. You can't do that. Like every, all of your sessions, like you get better, you progress your stats, but all of these sessions would be. Average session. Number one, two, three, four, like you get better, you progress your stats, but all of these sessions would be average session number one, two, three, four, like no, they're bland narrative. They're very like similar, although they're crafted really like with the animations and voiceover, everything's crafted to perfection and they can, but it has no, I guess soul is the word.

Yeah, no, I love that. I know exactly what you're talking about. And we can feel that we can tell. has no, I guess, soul is the word. Yeah, no, I love that. I know exactly what you're talking about. And we can feel that we can tell. Yeah. Yeah. So what we're aiming at is a game with a lot of soul, but also it's very different in so many areas. So we didn't know where people will buy into it.

Cause this thing has been so strong that some people are like unable to escape the sort of clutches of many maps and markers and fetch quests and they sort of do it for all the instant gratification basically all the mechanics that tell you all you're so good because you click the button. They work, that's why they do it, it's dopamine based science basically. But there's a point where you kind of tear down the veil and you're like, oh, I really haven't done anything very substantial. But this is a hard thing to take people from that type of thinking to the type of thinking. Like in Kingdom Come, you start, you all played, I guess, through the intro, and you have nothing. You have nowhere to sleep, you have nothing to eat, you have some very raggedy beggar clothing. You don't really know what to do. We put the character there, the beggar, the girl. It wasn't there. We put it there when the telemetry data went back and people were like, I kind of didn't know what to do.

So we put put her there and we were like, Oh, maybe it's too much. And then I watched the streams and people ask her all the questions and they go all the answers and then they like turn around and like, okay, so what now? So so actually the level of how people stopped, you know, taking a J agency in their own gaming is like, I guess. I don't think it's good. And we're trying to do the opposite way, but it's hard to take people from that thinking to like, oh, you really have to think for yourself. So we didn't know we didn't know where it's going to be be receptive like, like this, like we weren't sure at all. Yeah. Every, well, every time you try something different or new or unique, you

know, it's always that hesitance on, is this going to land or is it going to be rejected, but I can say it's been, it's been great so far. Yeah. That's good. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. It, it really, it really has been great so far. Yeah, that's good. That's great. Yeah. Yeah, it really it really has been great so far. We'll talk a little bit about, you know, people are kind of comparing this to like games like Witcher three, which is, I mean, that's about as high of a praise as you can get, you know, in our opinion. And so we're seeing some very, very positive response to it. And I know as gamers, we've been gaming our whole lives. I mean, you know, we're older guys and we've been gaming.

And it's like, this game's something special, man. It really is. Like, I am absolutely enthralled with it. I love playing it. It's really cool to see, like, the passion that you guys have for it also. So Andre, I want to ask you because you know, it's not every day that we get to talk to a game designer. Um,

and you've talked about a little bit about what you do on that. And I think as gamers, we kind of go, Oh man, there's all these roles or these jobs in gaming that just sound incredible. You know, you mentioned voice actors earlier, you know, every gamer's like, Oh, I'd love to be a voice actor. And it's like, oh, if I could be a game designer, you know, and stuff like that. So it's like, give us a little bit of a peek. You know, we all think you have a pretty awesome job. Um, but, but we also know that no job comes without, you know, yeah, exactly. It's work. So what are some of the challenges like, you know, like, what. It's work. So what are some of the challenges? Like, you know,

like, what are like, obviously there's good points or you wouldn't be doing what you're doing, you know, but what are some of the challenges that you face as well as a game designer? I think that, you know, we're already kind of bumped into it previously with the question about like, what we feel before the release. It takes time to build games. And so you spend... And there's really not a lot of like milestones where you could be like, oh, we did this or we did that. Sort of like collapses on the last moment into the game.

And 90% of the time the game looks like this can't you know you can't really sell this to people this is garbage it's glitchy buggy it's like so so this is like a hard thing for people who love to complete tasks right it's never complete. It's never done. Even now. It's still not. It's like DLCs and we have all these fixes and then next year we're going to be like, oh yeah, that's it for Kingdom Come 2. And there's going to be still 10,000 tickets in the system with things we wanted to do or ideas we didn't really, you know, put in the game. So this is hard. And the other thing is, um, you really work on something you're really passionate about, which is a great thing, but it's also kind of curse because

you really care about it. You can't just be like, Oh, well, you know, also they'll pay me anyway. And I can be like, Oh, whatever. I've in my previous job, I do did like QA on like an email server. No one really cared about that. Like you could, Oh, sorry. You could, you could totally, you know, release a hot mess and people would be like, Oh yeah, okay. We don't really, you got, you did a new version. So, a lot of people are invested in it, the developers, the fans are invested. So it's very like tense. And so these are, and also you start to like, see games through the lens of a game designer, which is like the biggest curse. Like if you love playing games, making games teaches you, like I really, it's hard to enjoy a certain type of game.

So you start playing all these like quirky indie games because they offer some new mechanics like the triple a big budget things they sellside you because partly you see that you don't really remind it of that. Partly you see things or you're thinking how did they do this? So it's really strange. So this is how it is. It's funny because I think a lot of people, like even for us again, you know, I mean, we do this podcast, but sometimes, you know, we play a lot of games for the podcast and it can absolutely make it feel like work sometimes where it's like, here's this thing that we love to do.

I mean, we've been gaming our whole lives, but we have to play this game. Now, luckily for King Come 2, it's a joy to play, but not every game is like that, you know? And so it's like, Oh, I gotta play this game again for a little while. And so I think people don't think about the like the negatives that come with a job like any job is still work, you know, in that regard and it comes with things that are difficult. Um, all right. So since we have you, and again, it's not every day we get to talk to a game

designer, I have a question that every gamer in the world wants to know. Okay. And that is we joke as gamers about certain quests. So for instance, fetch quests, escort quests, water levels in games. Oh, water levels. Like, you know, yeah, nobody likes water levels, man. And people don't like escort quests. So, and I'm not saying you guys do this,

but why is it that if gamers don't like a certain type of quest structure, that developers still put those in their games? I think that, what you described, especially fetch quests and escort quests, there's these patterns that are kind of easy to grasp for gamers. They might not like it, but for you as a game developer, you're still a value in a gamer easily understanding what they should do. Because that's an easy task, you know, to tell people where they should go, how they should do it. Like people joke about

the bird droppings on, you know, ledges or yellow, yellow doors, paint, right? Yeah. on you know ledges or yellow yellow doors paint right yeah ain't yellow paint things and that's there because of a reason like because you can't really have a environmentally rich level while you know actually not telling people what to interact with and whatnot like if you play Zelda you can climb on every mountain, right? It's great. All these mountains are just one polygon faces with a texture. So you really like there's no detail. If there was a detail, it wouldn't work like that ever. And that's why you have the runes and got a war and all this. So all these things are there.

So gamers can more easily understand what they should be doing in a world where you are limited. Like you don't know the limits. It's called affordances. It's like, can I jump over this gap? Okay. So if I make the gap really wide, I know I can't. But if I make it like, you know, these frustrating things, like it seems like I can almost jump there, but I can't.

That's right. That's bad level design. Basically that's bad. The affordances are not mad. And so, and something similar goes to like quests, like the narratives, like fight, like bring me this or find, find me person X, Y that's in every story, which are free. Find Siri. It's super simple. Person X, Y. That's in every story, which are free. Find Siri.

It's super simple. There's no complicated narrative, but it's very understandable. And also you come and go during quests. Like you, you go to do something else. You, you end your session and then you reload. You don't have this with movies or TVs or something. People usually finish the episode, finish the movie. So you can't really afford to have like very complicated narratives. However, you can mask it a little better than a lot of these games are doing that.

Like they don't really care. Usually it's through the world and the characters. Like in Kingdom Come, if someone wants something for you to bring them, it's usually, it has a reason reason it ties into their story There's a reason for you being the person who can bring this it's not like I'm a hunter and I want five wolf belts Getting yourself your hunter for Christ sake like yeah, you know, so The this is like this is the bad part. I think. Fetch quests are fine, but their setting is usually so lazy, uninspiring, that it sort of comes out as like, yeah, it's a fetch.

Escort quests have a different, like, the NPC moving on their own. I know that's the challenge with those. Yeah. Levels, I guess, are just for like a change of pace. In some games, you like the, you know, nurses, like in Max Payne, like you get, you know, drugged. And then there's this like line, you go on the lines and then it's like, I don't know if you have played the original Max, but there's like a level where you just walk in the dark.

And that's it. Yeah, but there's like a level where you just walk in the dark and Everyone hated it, but everyone remembers that that's such an iconic scene that everyone like all original mix paint the one where you just Get you know high on something and then you walk through dark level trying to find an exit. So these are for change of pace, but I think all of these are not bad on their own. The concepts aren't bad, but the execution is. I will say this is not a spoiler, but I am currently on the quest to go see the hermit and, you know, to get the sword from the hermit.

And it's like, I mean, theoretically, that's a fetch fetch quest but I know already that this is setting up so much more I don't know what's to come because I haven't actually you know I just started it but I think this is where you guys really excel because you talked about that can you remember your play session right like I played yesterday and I remember what happened yesterday and you know everybody in our community is talking about this game and it's like you know somebody's again I don't want to get in a spoiler so I'll be a little bit vague but somebody got into where two different sides are kind of facing off over a pasture and his outcome was very different than my outcome and we talked about that and that gave us that cool thing to kind of talk about and I think this is where you guys have done

a masterful job on this, is that even though there may be fetch quests, those quests are only a narrative to tell a bigger story at that point. Then it doesn't feel like a fetch quest. It feels like you're just still playing the game. Even when you read a book and then you have to like, wait, what was I?

And you have to go back to the previous page like the next day next day this you don't like if you do and design it right like you guys have having that ability to just instantly pick back up even a few days later knowing where to go and what you have to do because you're excited to continue the story that you're a part of there's something big there. It's awesome. something big there. It's awesome. You made an excellent point with the choices and consequences. I don't know if you remember this, but there was a time in gaming when CNC choices and consequences. It was like a marketing password. Oh, yeah. And people with money loved it because it means replayability, right? Like, sure.

I'm going to play whole Mass Effect free to get a different colored ending. Smart, right? Doesn't work like that, but it does work in a in like a in a different way that if you share the experience, like you can see there was like there was an actual choice there. Right. Like you can feel. So often these games are way better now when you have like reddits and YouTube's

because people can like pick up on, oh god it was really I did I had a completely different experience so I now know that was a true choice or there was like a true branching. make me replay the game, which with single player games, I will probably never ever like, I don't know how many people replay a hundred our single player like hardcore fans do, but most people just don't even if they're multiple endings, they just put them on YouTube and they're like, Oh yeah, I could do this. I could do that. So, so I think it's great. And that's something we try to do as well as like the sort of rabbit hole of adventures. Like you go on a simple fetch quest and then it, yep. The narrative is in like, Oh, now I can't have the thing because, or I can't find the thing because, or I had the thing and I don't have it now because like you, you can like expand, but that all means more scripting because the fetch quests

means more scripting because the fetch quests are pretty simple like you go there the game you know you have five rabbit pelts ding objective go back everything's super simple you can't really get lost but with our requests it's kind of hard to sometimes even we like struggle a lot but like how to tell the player what to do detective quest quest. That's like super like complicated, like how to tell them what to do without actually revealing the answer. Um, and, and it gets messy. And so you have to be more, I guess, attuned to be like, I really, I really don't need the journal or the objectives.

I need to like finger for my own. So that discovery though is, is such a good thing. Like honestly, the sense of discovery and just coming across something in a game is something that a lot of games don't do. We talk about the dumbing down of games and even with the choice, right? Like now we're getting the illusion of choice,

where a game might make it look like you are making a choice, but you're really not. The game's going to continue on no matter what. And it's like, as gamers, we get frustrated with that. We're not dumb. We understand. And so I think that's why it's so refreshing to play a game like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, where it's like,

my choices actually do matter. I can see that my buddy made a different choice, and the outcome was completely different for him. And that lets us talk about it and kind of get hyped up over it too. So it doesn't mean I love it. Yeah. And it doesn't really matter that the main like all of the stories have one ending, you know, like all the main quest is like just main ending. There's like a teeny tiny like decisions there and there, but the journey is different. And that's like exactly. So you all see the same cut scene, but you get there a different, different way. So we ended discovery.

You know, we always say that if you have to, you know, if, if there's a marker, it doesn't really feel like you explore. Like if I have a magical radar, it's's and also if something is always there, something is always around the corner, then I kind of get to this like rhythm of like, Oh, I discovered that. So it's a fine tuning of like how many things you can because you want to cram as many things as you can in the map. But you don't want to overdo it because if you overdo it, you're in the Disney world sort of yeah go and everywhere something is over how marmang the map looks ridiculous it doesn't have the feeling of like I'm there and you know you're playing a game so this is and this is a fine

edge and I don't even know how we did that like I don't know like I don't know what was the formula I want to know it because I want to repeat it. But I'm sure like what we did and how we did it. It kind of feels there's like interesting stuff, but there's not too many things. I guess. Yeah, no. I think you guys did an incredible job. Like, honestly, I know Ryan feels the same way. We were kind of letting the cat out of the bag a little bit,

because generally when we're covering a game, we don't spoil our thoughts on a game for people until it until we do like our review episode. But I'm just going to say it, man. This game's freaking great. Yeah, we usually don't have developers on from the from the game as well. So yeah, we're so we're just going to we're just going to say it up front. All right. So we are running out of time, Andre. And I want to just respect your time as well on this. It's fine. Like, I mean, you guys are really like cool about it. So it's great. So, Oh, awesome. Well, we love hearing that too, man. So one other question, cause this is, I think this is a burning question in a lot of gamers minds, especially for game designers

or just studios in general. And you touched on this. I mean, you worked on this game for six years, you know, day in day out, you worked on this game for six years. Day in, day out, you get to the point where the game is releasing. And maybe not you specifically, but just in general, or you specifically, do you guys actually go back and play the game after its release to kind of see what it's like from start to finish?

I would assume no, but he's not just shaking his head. He's like from start to finish. I would assume no, but I don't know. I'm shaking his head. He's like, nope. No, I mean, well, I mean, it's really differs. If I have made a multiplayer game, some cool mechanics. Okay. Yeah, I'll probably do that. You know, because if I've done some board gaming stuff, I play those board games.

I wait a story game, that's about exploration. That's really like what, why would I do that? Like I know, I only torture myself because I see all the things that are wrong. Like, obviously I play the game, you have to play the game. I will play the DLCs and all that. But if I go home and I sit down, I don't play my game. Is it more like you're analyzing it at that point? Because you're seeing you were too close. Wrong. Like you, like, okay. Where and this line could be different than this voice is not really matching

the hat and then it ended up. And again, again, if I made a game with cool mechanics, I would play it probably if it was especially it was multiplayer, but to share it with people. But a single player narrative game about exploration, kind of, I know all the space. I know how the narrative ends. I play, I have so little gaming time that I didn't go to other games.

That makes a lot of sense. That was kind of my thinking, but then it's like, do they go back and play? I know personally for me, I do all the audio editing and stuff for the pod. And I mean, we record, I have to listen to it when I edit it. After that, I really don't listen anymore. I don't listen to the episodes after that. Yeah. So, well, listen, Andre,'t listen to the episodes after that.

Yeah. So, well, listen, Andre, this has been a blast, man. I can't thank you enough for coming on and talking with us. You're a cool guy, man. So that really makes it even better to just hang out. I feel like we're hanging out with, you know, with the bros and just talking games, which is amazing, man. So, uh, really wanted to just say thank you. I mean, not only for coming on the show, but legitimately this game is awesome. You guys got something. I mean, as gamers, like to, I, I have to go to work right after this. And it's like, I, I I'm already excited to come home and play again.

And there's not a lot of games that give you that feeling like legitimately. And like kingdom come deliverance too 2 is that game for me right now and I know it is our community is nothing but just sharing talking about it. I mean there's something special is what I'm saying and so thank you guys. Thank everybody honestly when you know when this is over just tell people hey you know these guys there's something here someone coming here around with shots and stuff. I see him every occasionally, yeah. It's okay. I'll do a big round.

Yes, there you go. So just please tell everybody thank you. But yeah, I mean, what a joy to be able to play this. Honestly, what a joy to be able to talk to you about it as well, man. So thank you so much for your time on this and for hopping on the show. Okay. No problem. Awesome. Thank you for having me, Aud on this and for hopping on the show. OK, no problem. Awesome. Thank you for having me, Audentes Fortuna Juvent. Dude, I can't tell you how excited we were after this interview.

Like, Andre, we're best friends, buddy. You can come on this show any time you want. What an amazing guy. What an amazing studio, dude. Warhorse Studios knocking it out of the park, dude. Out of the park. And for a group that he said is very family based, family orientated, he said his wife was in the first Kingdom Come game.

And then so like, it's just a big like group kind of, of, of awesome people that, man, I want to support. This is like, honestly, you awesome people that man I want to support. This is like honestly you touched on that dude. This is the kind of developer that we should support. Like yes, listen, number one, you know, we're going to do a deep dive, but spoiler, this game's awesome. Like I get that maybe it's not for everybody. It is a little bit slower paced.

It is very like almost lifelike in a way, which normally I'm not into like SIM type games, but this one is just resonating with me big time. Um, and I mean, we talk about this, right? Support the devs that are doing right by gamers, support the devs that have the passion and the care support these guys, pick this game up. I mean, you know, put your money where your mouth is. We've been talking about this for a while, but for them to give their time to just come on the show and chat with us, but then to do it with so much passion and love of the game and gamers and they know how to approach things. I mean, you heard it in the interview. We cannot just tout this enough. You know, if you want an incredible video game to play, this game is worth the

money, but at the same time, support awesome studios at the same time. Yes, absolutely. Everything that Josh said, this is one that you definitely should check out. Yeah, so we will be back with our deep dive in probably another week or two. Like I said, we want to make sure we have enough time on it.

It's a big one. Yeah, we hope you enjoyed this episode. We know we did. So thank you once again to our good buddy, Andre. Thank you to Warhorse Studios for lending Andre to us for this interview. And it was just a blast. So that's it for this one.

Until next time, happy gaming. See you. Until next time, happy gaming! See ya!