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Kingdom Come: Deliverance creator says his RPG series only exists because he was “p***ed” at the lack of historical games

Daniel Vavra, creator of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, discusses his frustration with the lack of historical video games, leading him to create a game set in 15th Century Bohemia, which has since sold over six million copies and inspired a sequel.

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Creator of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Daniel Vavra, has stated that the reason the game came to be was because he was “pissed” that there were no historical video games. 

It’s not exactly uncommon for games to take inspiration from history. Settings for fantasy games are often based on medieval Europe, while games like Elden Ring and Dark Souls see you exploring castles to fight knights and soldiers who wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Middle Ages. 2018’s Kingdom Come: Deliverance was different, however, in that it foregoes the fantasy setting entirely in place of the very real 15th Century Bohemia, and there’s a reason for that.

In PC Gamer issue 402, Vavra spoke openly about the frustrations that ultimately led to KCD. “Generally, I was pissed a lot by the fact that there was no historical videogame at all.” he began. “And there’s no reason for that, because in movies and books and everything, they’re very popular. And [there was] this kind of conservatism in the game industry - when you proposed it, everybody would say, ‘it’s weird, there are no monsters’. I was like ‘there are no monsters in Call of Duty as well’.”

For Vavra, this was a clear gap in the market, and one he was all too willing to fill. “My idea, that there’s a hole in the market, was true [though]. And when people saw it, a lot of them immediately knew that this was something that works.”, he explained. 

Of course, we now know that Vavra could not have been more spot on with his assessment. Following its release in 2018, KCD raked in awards and nominations from across the industry, and its developer, Warhorse Studios, announced in February of this year that it had sold more than six million copies. 

With the richly deserved follow-up, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, scheduled for release early next year, Vavra and Warhorse intend to build upon the historical gameplay pioneered by the first game, noting that “the sequel is just a continuation of this idea, and we are making it better, and more complex, and more polished”.

Historical or not, check out our list of the best RPG games.