Game development is flourishing in the Czech Republic, and among the county's most notable dev houses are Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 developer Warhorse Studios and truck sim developer SCS Software. You might not think those studios have much in common, but even as Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 reaches massive heights, Warhorse is still looking to catch up with SCS.
"[SCS Software has] a ginormous, huge audience and extremely dedicated fans," Warhorse global PR manager Tobias Stolz-Zwilling tells 12DOVE. "And they have the nicest offices here from all the game studios. They've built up their own Silicon Valley kind of thing. We're not there yet. They have way more developers than we do. The Czech gaming industry is flourishing, and KCD maybe helps to spread some love and whatnot, and maybe motivate some new studios to come up."
As Warhorse figures, their similarities with SCS might actually go beyond their country of origin. "In Kingdom Come: Deliverance, we attracted quite a lot of people who never play games, which is sort of unique," senior game designer Ondřej Bittner says. "It's sort of like Euro Truck Simulator – a lot of people who play Euro Truck Simulator don't play other games. So we interact with a lot of people who love history, or fencing, or historical martial arts, or whatever, and they didn't have a problem with most of the mechanics."
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Bittner is alluding here to KCD's more divisive mechanics, like its limited save system - something players who are coming for the RPG's grounded historical focus don't seem to mind. Similarly, I doubt too many people are banging down SCS Software's door hoping to transform Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator into high-speed arcade racing games. It pays to understand your niche, and unlikely as it may seem that's something these two Czech studios have in common.
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