Kingdom Come: Deliverance
| Kingdom Come: Deliverance | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Warhorse Studios |
| Publisher(s) |
|
| Director(s) | Daniel Vávra |
| Producer(s) | Martin Klíma |
| Designer(s) |
|
| Programmer(s) | Tomáš Blaho |
| Composer(s) | Jan Valta |
| Engine | CryEngine 3 |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One |
| Release date(s) |
|
| Genre(s) | Role-playing |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an upcoming role-playing video game in development by Warhorse Studios and to be co-published by Deep Silver. It is set in the medieval Kingdom of Bohemia, an Imperial State of the Holy Roman Empire, with a focus on historically accurate and realistic content. The game is scheduled for release in 2017 for Microsoft Windows. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions have been confirmed as well.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance will be a single-player experience with branching quest lines and a highly interactive world encouraging emergent gameplay. Kingdom Come will feature period-accurate armor and clothing, combat techniques, and real-world castles recreated with the assistance of architects and historians. The game will also contain period music recorded by Czech masters, taken note for note from medieval song books.
Plot
Kingdom Come: Deliverance takes place in the Kingdom of Bohemia, part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and modern-day Czech Republic. Specifically, Act 1 is based on the real-world area between Sázava and Rataje nad Sázavou. The game begins in 1403.
The old king has died and his heir lacks the power to secure his throne. The new king's brother seizes this opportunity to kidnap the king and pillage his lands, seeking his own advancement. The mentioned kings being the historical figures Charles IV, Wenceslaus IV and Sigismund.
The game will follow the son of a blacksmith, whose family has been killed by the invading army. The protagonist seeks revenge and will ultimately strive to restore the rightful ruler to the throne and order to the land.
Gameplay
Kingdom Come: Deliverance is set in an open world environment and will utilize a classless role-playing game system, allowing players to customize their skills to take on roles such as a warrior, bard, thief or something in between. Abilities and stats will grow depending on what the player does and says through branched dialogue trees. During conversations the time a player takes to make a decision is limited and will have an effect on their relationships with others. Reputation will be based on player choices and therefore can bring consequences.
Character bodies and faces are created through the combination of multiple, individual pieces with finishing touches. The clothing system currently features 16 item slots and items on many areas of the body that can be layered. One example given is a heavily armored knight, who may on his upper body wear a gambeson, followed by mail and plate armour, with a tabard or surcoat over top, for a total of four clothing items in the chest slots. Each clothing type will provide different levels of protection against different types of weapons. Clothing will also get progressively more worn, dirty, or bloody through use, affecting the character's appearance. Players will be able to use a variety of weapons including swords, knives, axes, hammers or bows. Horses will feature heavily in the game, and are designed to act with their own AI while under the player's control, moving or jumping to avoid small obstacles or dangers. Players will be able to fight from horseback and use their steed to carry items if they need additional inventory space, but warhorses are also competent combatants with their own AI. Steeds level up on their own throughout the journey and come with five slots for armor and attachments.
The game will feature a needs system which will require the player to sleep or eat in order to stay healthy. Equipment and clothing will also degrade and require repair. Foodstuffs and other perishable items will spoil over time. The game will use skill/stat-based minigames for many of these tasks including weapon and armor repair, as well as the gathering new items by picking locks or pockets, distilling alcohol or creating medicines.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance will use a first-person view and feature both ranged and melee combat. Combat is based on a physics system using inverse kinematics to determine the reactions of both combatants based on the speed and weight of a blow. This system aims to add greater variety and realism to the combat, coupled with a variety of basic combat moves and combination moves, some of which will be unlocked by skill points. Different weapons will have different characteristics making them useful for different purposes. For example, a sword is a quick weapon for striking and parrying, but is not very effective against heavy armor.
Quests are intended to be open-ended, with multiple ways to complete objectives to allow multiple character types to be viable. The storyline will feature some large scale events such as castle sieges and large battles. Every non-player character (NPC) has their daily routine, and every routine can be affected by the player. Characters are able to react to all player actions and adjust their routines to them. NPCs will report crimes to authorities, who will punish the player accordingly, either with a fine, time in jail, or by subjecting them to the stocks or torture. Crime will affect economics and people will get suspicious or aggressive after unresolved crimes.
Development
The project that was to become Kingdom Come: Deliverance began with a pitch by Daniel Vávra, who had left 2K Czech in 2009. With a small team he began seeking investors for the project. Vávra's pitch brought on board Martin Klima, founder of Altar Games, but pitches to major investors in the Czech Republic were not successful. The team was preparing to abandon the project when a successful pitch to a private investor secured funding to develop a prototype of the game. Warhorse Studios was founded on 21 July 2011.
Warhorse Studios first announced that they were working on an "unannounced role-playing game" on 9 February 2012, having successfully licensed CryEngine 3 on this date. After seventeen months working on the prototype, Warhorse began a tour pitching the prototype to various international investors. The project did not generate the hype they had hoped for and with dwindling resources, little progress had been made towards an investment.
On 22 January 2014, Warhorse Studios launched a crowdfunding campaign via Kickstarter with the goal of generating GB£300,000, ten percent of the US$5,000,000 budget, in order to prove to an investor, Zdeněk Bakala, that there exists an audience and desire for their game. On 20 February 2014, the fund was completed, raising a total of GB£1,106,371. Even after the end of the Kickstarter campaign, the crowd funding was continued through the studios' website. On 1 October 2014, Daniel Vávra had announced through a YouTube video that the game had raised US$2,002,547 from a total of 38,784 backers. The date of the public alpha access launch was on 22 October 2014. The beta was released for backers on 3 March 2015. On 29 September 2016, it was announced that Warhorse Studios had signed a deal with Koch Media's game publishing division Deep Silver to publish the console versions, as well as the retail PC version.[1] The game is expected to be released in 2017.
References
- ↑ Makuch, Eddie (29 September 2016). "Medieval RPG "Kingdom Come" Signs Publishing Deal With Dead Island Studio". GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 30 September 2016.