Warhorse says that the new Middle-earth RPG 'will be a living world' with a 'strong narrative focus' and says new Kingdom Come game could arrive 'next fiscal year'
https://www.techradar.com/gaming/warhorse-promises-that-middle-earth-rpg-is-a-passion-project-that-will-be-a-living-world-with-a-strong-narrative-focus
190 points · 41 comments · view on lemmy.world
41 Comments
Tattorack@lemmy.world · 61 pts · 91d
I mean, if any studio can make a living RPG world it would be Warhorse. All I can say is "don't fuck it up!"
Originally Bethesda Game Studio was the one, but their last decent game was Skyrim. They seem to know that themselves too, as they keep finding reasons to re-release Skyrim.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 91d
Yeah.
Can you imagine a “Starfield: Special Edition” re-release in a few years?
I’d say the notion is satire… but their leadership’s ego is so titanic it might not be.
FenrirIII@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 91d
Starfield was ambitious and failed. I give them credit for trying. But, that said, I'm not buying the game.
TachyonTele@piefed.social · 10 pts · 91d
Ambitious for Bethesda maybe
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 91d
I don’t think it was a sales failure, was it? Not a short term one.
Cethin@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 91d
Ambitious, but in all the wrong ways. They made a pretty vast world, but it was lifeless and stale. Everything was static and there was no reason to engage with it. The scale didn't add anything, so the ambition was misplaced.
If the ambition were to add a more simulation based living universe, rather than a wide lifeless one, there could have been something to it, even if it fell short. I honestly don't see what they wanted to accomplish though. It's like they haven't learned anything from other space games of the past several decades, or even their own games. Hell, their original space sim they were working on decades ago sounds more alive than Starfield was.
reksas@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 91d
There are many kinds of 'ambitious'. Starfield was wear slightly more colorful(But not too colorful) tie than standard style ambitious.
brem@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 91d
Sounds like Polymarket is back on the menu, boys
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 91d
I would not bet against it, that’s for sure.
My bet is on j before Starfield 2. BGS will really, actually think “hey, let’s remind everyone how great Starfield 1 was!”
brem@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 91d
I played Starfield on launch. I Cyberpunked & glitched into walls. I GTA III'd through pavement and fell into another dimension where Morrowind was the height of gaming.
I woke up, and an angry rotund child with a bowl-cut was glaring at me.
I asked "is this 1995"?
"No" , he replied "I'm allowed to eat as much Mt. Dew as I want".
No indeed, he began going into detail about "grinding", and I had flashbacks to Diablo II.
So I lifted my left buttock and let out a loud toot.
The spectre left in a hurry, yelling something about "souls like"
brem@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 91d
Todd: We are excited to announce 'Skyrim: Buy This Instead of Kingdom Come Edition'
Everyone but Todd: This is horse armor
brem@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 91d
Warhorse: buys, restores & preserves castle because it was featured in a game
Bethesda: asks customers to pre-order the 7th remake of Skyrim
DarkMetatron@feddit.org · 2 pts · 90d
Buying a castle is "cheap", but maintaining and preserving can eat up money very fast. So let's hope that they didn't bite more then they can chew!
brem@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 89d
I wasn't sure if I remembered correctly, so I looked it up. They were donating $1 USD from each purchase of the game, towards the castle. It appears to have ended April, 26, 2026. Nevertheless, a noble deed.
DarkMetatron@feddit.org · 2 pts · 89d
Thank you for looking it up!
brem@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 89d
You are most very welcome, web-traveler!
YeOldGrim@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 91d
Even considering they stopped development of KCD II shortly after it got released, that's quite a short development cycle. What I am wondering is how much of that is those cunts in deep silver pushing and not Warhorse.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 91d
I dunno. I saw a dev video where the project leads, Henry’s VA, and other team members all seemed excited about the development expansion.
…Maybe they’ve just done the hard part already?
KCDI had issues, but they knocked KCDII out of the park. CryEngine is utterly fabulous for that niche; they don’t need to change a thing, mechanically or visually, nor worry about maintaining a whole game engine; that’s offloaded to Crytek.
Maybe they’ve really got all the tooling and workflow perfected for their “Very medieval RPG” template, and hence can make another banger without so much R&D and fuss.
Keeponstalin@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 91d
It can definitely use an improvement, that improvement being a fishing mini-game
garretble@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 91d
That mini game would have to manually tie each hook and lure onto the line.
Texas_Hangover@lemmy.radio · 3 pts · 91d
Only until you get the required perk points to automatically make ten of them while you sleep.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 91d
At risk of going Fallout 4…
How about medieval homebuilding?
Build a little hut? Store stuff. Have chickens. Fish in a pond out back, kiddo running around.
If it’s done even half as meticulously as KCDII, I personally know people that would play the hell out of content like that. That’s the premise of a whole lot of Skyrim modding.
teft@piefed.social · 5 pts · 91d
The forge DLC is kind of that. You can improve and modify your personal forge in kuttenberg.
Slab_Bulkhead@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 91d
brem@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 91d
Henry: takes off armor & clothes to swim in lake
Todd Howard: covers Henry's mouth as he uses a rebreather to drown him
reksas@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 91d
but where does henry put the armor & clothes, hmm? Where does henry put them??
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 91d
In your ass? 🤷🏻
sophie_talks@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 91d
Warhorse buying and restoring the actual castle from KCD is the most on-brand thing a studio has ever done. That's a team that genuinely gives a shit about what they're making. The Middle-earth RPG being described as a "living world" is doing a lot of heavy lifting though ... every studio says that. But if anyone can actually deliver it after KCD2, it's probably them. And yeah, Bethesda announcing Skyrim again in 3, 2, 1...
brem@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 91d
*begins grinding random herbs into paste, rolls fake dice to win the last bits of a hooker's money. Buys more herbs. Repeat.
sbbq@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 91d
Isn't next fiscal year in July?
malle_yeno@pawb.social · 6 pts · 91d
Companies can define what their fiscal year is to be whatever basically (unless the country they're based in is super particular about accounting practices), just as long as it's four quarters. I've worked in places where the calendar year lines up with their fiscal, a March fiscal year, and an October fiscal year.
Drbreen@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 91d
Next fiscal year after the next fiscal year coming.
False@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 91d
Companies often arbitrarily pick. In the US retailers often start the year in like April so they can get all their holiday season earnings in the same fiscal year
dellish@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 91d
Yes. What they're basically saying is it is due for release between now and the end of June 2027.
brem@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 91d
So it's like a Chinese new year thing? By that I mean not January.
emmanuel_car@k.fe.derate.me · 5 pts · 91d
Countries have different fiscal years! In New Zealand for example, the new fiscal year begins in April, and in Australia it begins in July.
Mikelius@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 91d
Isn't this the company that replaced staff with AI, or am I misremembering that? I love me some LOTR, but not sure I can support such actions. If I'm wrong, someone chime in so I can change my mind lol
Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone · 9 pts · 91d
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/kingdom-come-2-dev-uses-ai-but-not-for-final-game-assets/1100-6539741/
Long story short they fired a guy and at the time were replacing him with a different translator.
They've said they use ai in initial development as their artists etc like it.
They went on to say it would be unprofessional to comment on internal hr issues.
Seems more like a disgruntled employee from my read.
Mikelius@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 90d
Thanks for clarifying! I was hoping it was being overblown at the time, but my news feeds just went silent on it and I hadn't had the thought to go look at what happen.
Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 90d
Yeah i was following it because I haven't bought kcdc2 yet because I'm still trying to beat the first one in preparation for it.
I didn't want to support ai bullshit but their stance on it seemed fair to me
DarkMetatron@feddit.org · 2 pts · 90d
The next Kingdom come? I had not have time yet to play the first two...