Kingdom Come: Diversity
After realising this studio started from the ground up, literally having nothing, gamers saw the potential and believed that Warhorse Studios could deliver on their promise. Even under tough conditions, it took time for the game to finally come around, but when it did, it hit harder than anything I could have imagined. I was completely stun locked from the first moment I tried it. No book, movie or tale has ever managed to place me so deeply inside a historical time period as this game did. It felt real, human, raw and authentic in a way that no other medium has achieved.
As I often say, Back to the Future was not a documentary, it was fiction. We will never be able to time travel, not even a few days back. There is no yesterday, no tomorrow, only the present moment. And that is exactly what Kingdom Come Deliverance captured so perfectly, the feeling of being there, right now, living and breathing history instead of just reading about it.
Unfortunately, history itself has been twisted and reshaped so many times that the fiction within it has become almost indistinguishable from what actually happened. And it is not getting any better when a handful of massive corporations are buying up everything in sight. Sadly, Warhorse Studios has now become part of that system, or at least through Daniel Vavras decision to sell and step away from full ownership.
It seems weak not to stand ground to ones goals, boundaries and continuations. On the other hand it is easy to say yes to a big sum of money, and I am sure that at some point Daniel Vavra will come to the fact that he will never become the legend he sees himself as. One day, maybe not now or in a couple of years, but one day on the deathbed, the thought of selling out will hit hard, like standing on a corner slinging it.
Man, it is hard not to see the future without Embracer Group and BlackRock owning every piece of it. If Vavra never hopped on all fours on the first offer he got for Warhorse Studios, if he kept going and gave these corpos the impression that he was not impressed by their offer, just imagine what kind of legend of steel balls he would be for rejecting it. That would make him beyond legendary, but of course he bent over for that glizzy glazing.
It feels like a repeat of the same story he once escaped after the making of Mafia 2. Back then he left because he wanted freedom to create something honest and real. And he did. That was Warhorse. That was Kingdom Come. But now seeing the studio go down the same corporate road again leaves a bittersweet taste.
Kingdom Come Deliverance remains a masterpiece, a once in a generation project that broke the mold and reminded gamers that truth, history and creative courage still matter. But compared to the first game, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 feels so inauthentic that it might as well be a fairytale based on Marvel Avengers. The raw realism, soul and historical weight just disappeared, replaced by something polished but hollow.
I only hope that whatever comes next under this new direction will stay true to that same fearless authenticity that made the original what it was, but its hard to imagine when the direction is overtaken by an approval process, specifically curated to be without any substance of authenticity, for that reason i celebrate what once was, cuz nothing seems to get better under the control conglomerate corpo's owning more than all countries gdp combined. gg
31 ottobre 2025
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