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

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

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! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 War Horse 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. They are ticked at you too. Every time I go to, everybody just wants to kill me.

Yeah. Yeah. They get really mad if you're sleeping in their bed. I mean, rightfully so. If you found somebody sleeping in your bed, you probably would have. Man, I was tired, bro. I'm just tired. Dude, Kingdom Come Deliverance.

too. 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 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 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 in 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 like,

what more can you say about this, dude? It was, it was awesome. You definitely want to stay tuned and listen to the whole thing. Not only did we get kind of that behind the curtain, this guy was just totally awesome, gave us some really kind of cool details about game development, what goes into it, what his opinions are, you know. So 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? Yep. You want to go do karate in the garage? Yep.

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 shoutouts. The first one we want to give is to a new epic supporter,

Norwegian greaser. Thank you so much. Also, we're extremely. expanding our like global presence, Ryan. This is like a good bit of people that are over the pond from us now. Dude, 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 them over there. Yeah. And you see it, it's like nine o'clock, 10 o'clock here, AZ time. And you just see morning, morning. You know, normally it was back in the day, it was Mo Box. say like 3 a.m.

You know, Mobot, we like to call them. And then now it's just, we got all these people. It's the Discord's 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. Yeah. Noggin has been playing rivals with us. one of the best Hulk players I have seen in rivals. It 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 guys. 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. Oh. 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, 9,8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2,1. Kaboom! No, the kaboom's not in there. Just the rest of the numbers. You got to read them verbatim, Ryan. That's the deal. All right, all right, fine. This one's, this one. 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? What? Ryan, you see? already. That's not what the review says. Oh, okay. All right.

You know why? You're off reviews, buddy. Oh, 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. I couldn't help it. But seriously, thank you, Butch. 9-877654-321. 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 in. Insanely excited to be chatting with Andre from Warhorst 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 to Andre,

thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us. with the release of a highly anticipated game like Kingdom Come Deliverance to, 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 it, is it exciting? Are the nerves through the roof? Like, try to give us a little bit of insight onto actually just putting your game out to the world.

Well, okay. So first of all, hi. you for having me here. It's a great pleasure. Um, so basically it's a bit different for me because, um, you know, 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, 1.2, 1.3, which, you know, we will definitely have patches.

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. So 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 says 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 cow. Oh, 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 now did you at at subway did you try to flex and get free food like do you know who i am not at the banner he meant the subway not at the restaurant right oh like the actual trace i would i've once got a discount for a pair of addidas shoes because i wore kingdom cam hoody and someone's like i left that game and i was like hmm i did that game i got a discount of about like

like 15 bucks and you know hey oh that's awesome everything counts three 15 bucks but you know apart from that i got no free food oh yeah that's it's where my brain's always at it's more so i'm hungry that's awesome so as a game designer you know you kind of brought up a good point that you you guys like 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? Well, 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 bucks. 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. Right. We have this limited political capital design money, and we have to spend them on the things we really, because otherwise we would be fixing everything all the time and we would completely break the game, which unfortunately didn't happen this time, because they were 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 to fix things otherwise. Otherwise take one day to fix before that. And now you have to spend the week sort of like, you know, getting the QA to test it whether it really, really, you know, fix the buck. Or if it didn't add it no new bucks, 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. Yeah. 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 is 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 questions about just the release of the game. Okay. 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

Johnson, they're praising the game. What is that like? Like, when you release a game and you start to see the reviews roll in, and you see, you know, the metacritic scores and the critics are, 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, like, oh, that. 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 KCD1, I just stopped 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. Oh, wow. Okay. That's cool. And she, you know, did some other stuff for us. She's very involved with the Warhorse. Warhorse is actually a very, you know, like a large family type of thing.

Like a lot of partners and people are like, we know with her, so it's cool. But cool wife, great point. I'll tell her later. Yes. So I was just non-stop watching streams. I tried to do this, you know, 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, yeah.

Yeah, 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, because I'm on a phone, there's notifications. 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. We try to respond. I sometimes respond to social media to like the same posts, like to get retail or something. Like I don't indulge in like all that stuff. But so I try to interact as much as I can. I read read it

I'm you know today I was kind of bummed out because I found out that a lot of people have a 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 you have the external QA and all the stuff, but as designers, we try to, like, what is the, because I can't do anything with your game crashing on Nvidia card, whatever, but I can be like, okay, in this mission or in this quest, there's this, like, really frustrating thing. And sometimes, you know, people from production, they're 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 no, don't take me seriously on this one. I'm not about the money. I'm totally not about the money. So we try to identify these and be like, hey, we need to fix this. So we definitely try to read everything.

We kind of have this like, oh, I'm watching this streamer, you're watching this streamer. So we can watch like different people and in different languages. So we kind of cover it. And we as 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 and 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, yeah. It's a, it's a big game. I think I'm 20 some odd hours in and I feel like

I've just scratched the surface so far. You know, so. And there's probably, lot more to do. I just think what a luxury you guys have now, though, as designers, too, have the ability to do those patches. Like, 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 swipes. 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 get on YouTube and you watch the, which kind of adds something, but also removes, like, you have way less like patience. Like, you just like, and then you feel like, oh, you know, you feel like you need to take a shower because you basically just want to stop. Yeah, 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 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 first thing it was. Also, I kind of don't understand people kind of, you know, some people are bugged about first day patches.

And I'm like, that's six more months of fixes, usually. Right. Especially if you got like console certification, that takes time. So, I mean, yeah, it's like 40 gigs again because or 60 gigs because, but, you know, it's just, you know, that that's what it is. Like that six months of work is in that 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 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 60 gigs, which usual gamers are whining me. You do it anyway. So I mean, yeah. One more question about the release here, Andre. And then, and then 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, like, I have to think, like, a studio probably has a good idea whether their game is really good or not. Like, 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? Was there a fear that it's like, oh, man, We don't know how people are going to like this. Like, I got to, I just guess that you guys were like, dude, this game's awesome. 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.

No, that's okay. 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 going to catch a lot of flag 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 the 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 can all agree that you can only pay as many,

well, I don't want to mention like I don't want to I mean you can't I just didn't want to put you on the spot we talk about games all the times 150 hour long SSN's Creed 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,

brood 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 a 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 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, no different.

They're very, like, similar. Although they're crafted, really, like, with the animations and voice, 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.

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 because this thing has been so strong that some people are like unable to escape the sort of clutches of mini maps and markers and fetch quests. And they sort of do it for all the instant gratification basically. all the mechanics that tell you, oh, you're so good because you click the button, are, like, they work. They work. That's why they do it.

It's dopamine-based science, basically. But there's a point where you kind of, you know, reveal the, like, tear down the veil, and you're like, oh, I really haven't, you know, done anything very substantial. So, but there's a, this is a hard, like, thing to, to take. people from that type of thinking to the type of thinking. Like in Kingdom Cam, we, you start, you all played, I guess, through the intro. And you start, you have nothing. You have nowhere asleep. You have nothing to eat.

You have some very, very raggedy beggar clothing. Yep. You don't really know what to do. We put the character there, the beggar, the girl. Oh, yeah, yeah. It wasn't there. We put it there when the telemetry, you know, data went back and people were like, oh, I kind of didn't know what to do.

So we 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. They're like, okay, so what now? So actually the level of how people stopped. you know, taking a 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,

you really have to think for yourself. So we didn't know, we didn't know where it's going to be receptive like this. Like we weren't sure at all. Yeah. Well, every time you try something different or new or unique, you know, is 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 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 3, 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, 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. 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 is 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 peak, you know, we all think you have a pretty awesome job. 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 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 really kind of bumped into it previously with the question about like what we feel before the release. Yeah. It takes time to build games. And so you spent, and it's really not a lot of, of like milestones where he could be like, oh, we did this or we did that, it 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 yeah it's like there's got be ELCs and we have all these fixes and then next year we're gonna be like oh yeah that's it for kingdom come to 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, whatever. In my previous job, I did, like, QA on, like, an email server.

No one really cared about that. Like, you could... Oh, sorry. Yeah, you could... You could... You could totally, you know, release a hot mess and people would be like, oh, yeah, okay. We don't really, we 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 to play all these, like, quirky

indie games because they offer some new mechanics. Like, the AAA big budget things, they salt excite you, because partly you see that, you don't want to remind it of that. Partly you see things, or you're, like, thinking how

did they do this? And, So it's really strange, you know. 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'd love to do. I mean, we've been gaming our whole lives, but we have to play this game. Now, luckily, for King and Come 2, it's a joy to play. But not every game is like that.

You know, and so it's like, oh, I got to 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. 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, right? 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, developers still put those in their games? I think that what you're described, like, especially fetch quests and escort quests are

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 of value in a gamer easily understanding what they should do.

Because that's not an easy task, you know, to tell people where they should go, how they should do it. Like, people joke about of the bird droppings on, you know, ledges or yellow, yellow doors. Paint, right, yeah. Yellow paint things.

And that's there because of a reason. Like, because you can't really have an 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're 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 ruins 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 bad level design, basically. That's bad. The affordances are not met.

And so, and something similar goes to like quests, like the narratives. Like, bring me this or find me person X, Epsilon. It'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 go to do something else 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, 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. Get them yourself, you're a hunter for Christ's 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. Right. Spirit, uninspiring that it sort of comes on as like, yeah, it's a fetcher. As escort quests have a different, like, the MPC moving on their own.

I know that's the challenge with those. Three levels, I guess, are just for like a change of pace. In some games, you like the, you know, 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 Oh yeah Max But there's like a level where you just walk in the dark

And it's Yeah And it's like Everyone hated it But everyone remembers that That's such an iconic scene That everyone like Oh original Mexican Mexican Spain

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 to get the sword from the hermit. And it's like, I mean, theoretically, that's a 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 I know 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, you know, you know, when you read a book and then you have to like, wait, what was it? And you have to go back to the next page like the next day. This you don't. Like if you do it and design it right like you guys have, 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.

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. whole mass effect free to get a different colored ending.

Smart, right? It doesn't work like that, but it does work in 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. You can feel it. So often these games are way better now when you have like Redits and YouTube's because people can like pick up on, oh my God, it was really, I did, I had a completely different experience. So I now know

there was a true choice or there was like a true branching. It wasn't this thing that was made there to make me replay the game, which with single player games, I will probably never ever, like, I know how many people replay a hundred hour

single player. Like hardcore fans do, but most people just don't. Even if there are multiple endings, they just put them on YouTube and they're like, oh yeah, I could do this, I could do that. So something's great. And that's something thing we try to do as well is like the sort of rabbit hole of adventures

like you go on a simple fetch quest and then it 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 can like expand but that all

means more scripting because the fetch quest you mentioned are pretty simple like you go there the game you have five rabbit pelts ding Objective, go back. Everything's super simple. You can't really get lost.

But with our quests, it's kind of hard to sometimes even we struggle a lot. But how to tell the player what to do. Detective quests, that's like super complicated. Like how to tell them what to do without actually revealing the answer. And it gets messy. And so you have to be more, I guess, assumed to be like, I really don't need the journal or the objectives. I need to like finger for my own.

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, you know,

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. Like, 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, too, 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 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 teeny tiny decisions there and there, but the journey is different. And that's like, exactly. So you all see the same cutscene, but you get there a different, different way. So we put in the discovery, you know, we always say that if you have to, you know, if there's a marker, it doesn't really feel like you explore. Like, if I have a magical radar, it's, and also if something is always there, something is always around the corner, then I kind of get to this rhythm of like, oh, I

discovered that, da, da, da. 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 go and

everywhere something is over. How the map looks ridiculous. It doesn't have the feeling of like I'm there. You know you're playing a game. So this is a fine match 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're 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 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 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. Awesome. Well, we love hearing that too, man. So one other question.

question because 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 get to the point where it's the game is releasing to, it may be not you specifically, but just in general or you specifically, do you guys actually like go back and play the game after it's released to kind of see what it's like from start to finish? I would assume no. But. Andre's shaking his head, he's like, nope. I mean, well, I mean, it's, it's really different.

If I have made a multiplayer game, some cool mechanics. Okay, yeah. I'll probably do that, you know, because if I, I've done some board gaming stuff, I play those board games. But with a story game that's about exploration, that's really like, why would I do that? Like, I know, I only torture my stuff. because I see all the things that are wrong.

Like, right. 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 see bugs everywhere. And this line could be different and this voice is not really matching the hat. And then da-da-da-da-da.

And I get, Again, if I made a game with cool mechanics, I would play it probably, especially if it was a multiplayer, but to share it with people, but a single-peer-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 do. That makes a lot of sense. That was kind of my thinking, but then it's like, do they go back and play this?

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'm not, I don'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 good here. I mean, as gamers, like, to, I have to go to work right after this. And it's like, 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, and like, Kingdom Come Deliverance 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. There's always someone coming here around with shots and stuff. I see them 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. Thank you for having me Audentes Fortuna you about. 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 anytime 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 Kingdomcom game. And then so, like, it's just a big, like, group kind of of 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, 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 pace. 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.

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 tell 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 and 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, you know, thank you once again to our good buddy, Andre. Now, thank you to War War Studios for lending Andre to us for this interview. And, you know, it was just a blast. So that's it for this one. Until next time, happy gaming. See ya.