video games

Success of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is mainly thanks to one thing, says game's director. He sees this series as „Red Dead Redemption with swords”

The director of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Daniel Vavra, explained the huge success of Warhorse Studios' new RPG. The developer also relies on AI to significantly help in game development.

Maciej Gaffke

April 23, 2025 05:35

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Success of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is mainly thanks to one thing, says game's director. He sees this series as „Red Dead Redemption with swords” Source: Warhorse Studios.

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Daniel Vavra, the director of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, explained the reason for the success of his game in simple and decisive words. In an interview given to The Game Business, the developer also revealed why he bets on the "AI revolution."

Story is the most important

The continuation of the adventures of Henry of Skalitz quickly sold over two million copies. The result probably didn't surprise the loyal fans of Warhorse Studio's game, and definitely didn't surprise Vavra himself, who was completely confident that the title would dominate the market. What, according to the director, contributed to the sequel's popularity? The answer is simple: story.

Since the beginning, I was absolutely sure that it's a recipe for success if we do it right. [...] It's a strong story, and that's where a lot of games today fail, in my opinion. The story has to be good, by which I mean cool characters that you can relate to. Many games today, when they have a story, it's just like some fill in, some random bullshit or they try to tell the player some message or something. And every time a game [like this one] is published, it becomes very successful. It's weird that very few people make them.

As we can see, the creator really called out other studios. Some companies got criticized for writing bland stories that don't engage players, but instead try to impose something on them from the start. Such accusations were directed, for instance, at the developers of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

When discussing the issue of good storytelling in games, Vavra mentioned, for example,Kingdom Come: Deliverance to publishers as "a medieval Red Dead Redemption with swords."

AI is supposed to help in game dev

Vavra isn't just focused on his flagship RPG - he has several other projects in the pipeline that he would like to work on. However, before this happens, many years may . Therefore, the director hopes that new AI technologies will help developers and speed up the game development process.

It really annoys me that the games take so much time, because I have more ideas than I have time. There are a couple of projects that I would love to do. And I would love to prepare them properly, so it's not as chaotic. I hope that the AI revolution will help with this, where in the future we will not be replaced by AI, but we will be helped by AI. So a lot of the things could get easier and faster.

By the end of this year, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 will receive three story expansions. The first one - Brushes with Death - will be released in the summer.