Kingdom Come Deliverance II interview: “When I started we had 35 people, now we have 250!”

It is a balmy 33 degrees in beautiful, rural Czechia and we have just hopped off a coach in front of an impressive, arcane-looking church in the ancient town of Kuttenberg. Standing in front of this structure are two heavily armoured guards that could have been plucked straight out of a 1500s Bohemian army battalion. And bellowing from the balcony high up in the imposing architecture of the church is the man who is undoubtedly the public face, not to mention the heart and soul, of Warhorse Studios. That man is none other than Tobi Stolz-Zwilling – an affable, wondrously bearded German who has been with the studio now for over a decade, after a chance coincidence led to him moving next door to Creative Director Daniel Vavra whilst working as a journalist. The rest, as they say, is history. And at the sumptuous press event to unveil Kingdom Come Deliverance II, Tobi was kind enough to give me some of his precious time for a few questions about the game. Of course, me being me, it also went down a slightly different route with a bit of retro goodness thrown in.

My first question for Tobi was to ask how he was doing, given the humidity and knackering schedule.

“I am really exhausted!! And we are not even half way through. But I am also really excited that we can show the game to you!”.

Given our environs I was keen to find out about how the concept of Kingdom Come first came about, and indeed the influence of Czechia and its history on the process.

“The idea of the game existed before the studio existed! Daniel Vavra, the Creative Director, he is Czech – and he loves knights and castles and these types of things, and he wanted to tell a story that really happened – about castles and history, but leave out fantasy and all of the fictional stuff to keep it as authentic as possible”.

This essentially pre-empted my next question, as I was going to point out the unique nature of KCD and how it eschews the more fantastical elements common in RPG titles. It harks back to the first times I played role-players on 8-bit home micros.

During his pre-preview spiel, Tobi explained what a huge undertaking Kingdom Come Deliverance II was compared to the original title. I was keen to hear just how much of a shift in scale was it for the studio.

“So, when I started we had 35 people or so, a tiny studio. Now we have 250! The studio expanded, with a lot more people, but that also means a lot more opinions! Now that is good for the quality of the game, but it means that I don’t know most of the names of the staff any more – it’s a very bug crowd! The plus side is however that we can take on much bigger challenges. For example, for KCD1, we couldn’t even think about a city – the biggest thing in the game was a village – but now we are introducing a huge medieval city. The expansion is possible because of the success of KCD1, we now have a bigger studio, we could grow, better technology and a bigger and better game.”

I asked Tobi about his own gaming inspirations and background in the game industry, and he was quick to profess his love of retro.

“I started in videogames ten years ago with KCD1, and have done a few other games with Plaion. Me personally, the older I get, the less I play. But, my gaming origins were on the Atari 2600.”

I pointed out that Tobi doesn’t look old enough to have been clutching the single-buttoned joystick of the ancient wood-faced Atari.

“Ah, I am. My cousin had one, then there were the fake Vietnamese consoles which had 9999 games on one cartridge! But me personally, I think the one that shaped my youth was the Super Nintendo, and even today I am a huge fan of the SNES. My favourite console. And in the Czech Republic, the Super Nintendo was not even released. The country, do not forget, had communist times, so the Iron Curtain blocked a lot of stuff, but in the early 1990s the curtain fell, and there was an influx of consoles to the area.”

Favourite Super NES game?

“That is a super hard question! But the one game I am able to return to over and over and over again is The Legend of Zelda A Link To The Past. It is a masterpiece. The music, oh my God. 16 bit music, dude, when I hear the Hyrule overworld theme, dude, I get the chills. I heard the London Symphony Orchestra playing a medley of these tunes. Donkey Kong Country is another one. It looks like it was made for another console; it looks so much better than the other games at the time, the rain effects, the monkeys jumping around, a graphical next step.”

I pointed out how refreshing it is to see countries like Czechia producing big hitters like this, and asked about what is next for the studio during the runup to release of Kingdom Come Deliverance II.

“Well, KCDII is making bigger waves that the first game, and when we announced it there was a lot of hype. Next up is Gamescom. We will try to promote the game at the Tokyo Game Show, then in Seattle. Try to speak to gamers, media, shake hands, show them what the game is about. When I told the studio the plans for this promotional tour, I said “Guys. This is the start of a marathon. We have produced the game, now we have to sprint towards the release!”

Finally, as a Brit who is naturally amused by swearing, particularly good old-fashioned English-style swearing, I had to ask about the voice acting in Kingdom Come Deliverance II.

“Most of the people are magically talented actors, British or American people living in Prague – there is quite a big community of actors and theatre people here in the City, so we found a nice bunch of people to work with us. Oh, and Brian Blessed is involved and I cannot spoil that, but it is something to look forward to!”