A third Kingdom Come RPG may be released sooner than you think
Swift Deliverance.
The next game in the Kingdom Come: Deliverance role-playing series is – as plans stand – going to be released surprisingly soon. Developer Warhorse Studios said its current target is the next financial year.
“If everything goes right, it comes next fiscal year,” said communications director Tobias Stolz-Zwilling during a community stream, “which means you don’t have to wait seven years for another Kingdom Come. That is good!”
What does next fiscal year mean? Well, Warhorse was a private company until it was acquired by THQ Nordic/Embracer Group in 2019, so the company’s fiscal/financial years presumably align with Embracer’s, which run – like many other companies – from 1st April to 31st March. Warhorse is currently in financial year 26/27, so the next financial year 27/28 – the release window mentioned here – runs 1st April 2027 to 31st March 2028.
That’s a relatively short period of focused development for a new Kingdom Come: Deliverance game – just over three years if we stretch the release window to maximum range. Considering there were seven years between KCD1 and KCD2, as Stolz-Zwilling said, that’s a significant difference, and it’s making some fans nervous to hear it.
“Another KCD game in just 2 years?” one person said on X. “That sounds great but I’m praying it doesn’t sacrifice quality just for the sake of releasing sooner. KCD1 and 2 were really big games with a lot of depth and detail in the world.”
Another person said: “Please don’t rush the development of KCD3. I and everyone who played the KCD series knows the reason that they are so good is because the detail and effort creating the depth of immersion [is] so real it’s almost indistinguishable from what reality would have been. Take your time.”
However, we don’t know when Warhorse started working on this project. Perhaps pre-production began long before KCD2 was released. It’s not uncommon for studios to move designers and writers and artists over to concepting a new project while another is being polished and iterated on for release. Perhaps full production began as soon as KCD2 came out.
We also don’t know whether this is going to be a full-scale Kingdom Come: Deliverance adventure – ie. KCD3. Warhorse referred to the game as “a new Kingdom Come adventure” when it was announced last week, which could be open to interpretation. However, Stolz-Zwilling did say in the community stream that it was a “Kingdom Come open-world RPG”, so it sounds like a full-scale operation – open-world RPGs are hardly side projects.
There is another complication, however, and that’s the open-world Middle-earth RPG Warhorse also announced last week. There’s no release date attached to this project, so presumably it’ll come after the next Kingdom Come game, but trying to develop two major projects simultaneously is notoriously difficult, especially if they’re open-world RPGs.
Nevertheless, it’s exciting. Warhorse is galloping after the success of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which has sold 5m copies and counting, and there is also a movie in the works.
The next game in the Kingdom Come: Deliverance role-playing series is – as plans stand – going to be released surprisingly soon. Developer Warhorse Studios said its current target is the next financial year.
“If everything goes right, it comes next fiscal year,” said communications director Tobias Stolz-Zwilling during a community stream, “which means you don’t have to wait seven years for another Kingdom Come. That is good!”
What does next fiscal year mean? Well, Warhorse was a private company until it was acquired by THQ Nordic/Embracer Group in 2019, so the company’s fiscal/financial years presumably align with Embracer’s, which run – like many other companies – from 1st April to 31st March. Warhorse is currently in financial year 26/27, so the next financial year 27/28 – the release window mentioned here – runs 1st April 2027 to 31st March 2028.
That’s a relatively short period of focused development for a new Kingdom Come: Deliverance game – just over three years if we stretch the release window to maximum range. Considering there were seven years between KCD1 and KCD2, as Stolz-Zwilling said, that’s a significant difference, and it’s making some fans nervous to hear it.
“Another KCD game in just 2 years?” one person said on X. “That sounds great but I’m praying it doesn’t sacrifice quality just for the sake of releasing sooner. KCD1 and 2 were really big games with a lot of depth and detail in the world.”
Another person said: “Please don’t rush the development of KCD3. I and everyone who played the KCD series knows the reason that they are so good is because the detail and effort creating the depth of immersion [is] so real it’s almost indistinguishable from what reality would have been. Take your time.”
However, we don’t know when Warhorse started working on this project. Perhaps pre-production began long before KCD2 was released. It’s not uncommon for studios to move designers and writers and artists over to concepting a new project while another is being polished and iterated on for release. Perhaps full production began as soon as KCD2 came out.
We also don’t know whether this is going to be a full-scale Kingdom Come: Deliverance adventure – ie. KCD3. Warhorse referred to the game as “a new Kingdom Come adventure” when it was announced last week, which could be open to interpretation. However, Stolz-Zwilling did say in the community stream that it was a “Kingdom Come open-world RPG”, so it sounds like a full-scale operation – open-world RPGs are hardly side projects.
There is another complication, however, and that’s the open-world Middle-earth RPG Warhorse also announced last week. There’s no release date attached to this project, so presumably it’ll come after the next Kingdom Come game, but trying to develop two major projects simultaneously is notoriously difficult, especially if they’re open-world RPGs.
Nevertheless, it’s exciting. Warhorse is galloping after the success of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which has sold 5m copies and counting, and there is also a movie in the works.
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