Why Kingdom Come: Deliverance Stayed in Bohemia

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is widely known as one of the most grounded historical role-playing games of the last decade. Its detailed depiction of early 15th-century Bohemia, tight focus on local politics, and commitment to plausibility distinguish it sharply from fantasy-heavy peers. Yet the game’s final form was not inevitable. Early in development, the team at Warhorse Studios reportedly considered relocating the story to medieval Germany or even an England inspired by Robin Hood folklore before ultimately returning to their home turf.

This article explores why those alternative settings were considered, how the studio’s priorities shaped the final choice, and what the decision reveals about the challenges of building historically-minded RPGs.

The Appeal of Alternative Settings: Germany and Robin Hood’s England

Before committing fully to Bohemia, Warhorse Studios weighed two other classic medieval backdrops: the Holy Roman Empire’s German lands and a version of England flavored by Robin Hood-style legend. Both options carried clear advantages from a marketing and narrative standpoint.

Why Germany Looked Like a Natural Fit

Germany offered several attractive qualities for a realistic action RPG:

• Rich medieval urban life: Late medieval German cities were major economic and cultural hubs, filled with guilds, merchants, and political intrigue.
• Recognizable historical conflicts: Ongoing power struggles within the Holy Roman Empire could provide a ready-made backdrop for conspiracies and shifting alliances.
• Strong visual identity: Timber-framed towns, imposing castles, and fortified trade routes are immediately evocative to players.

From a purely conceptual perspective, Germany checked many boxes. A grounded adventure involving mercenaries, nobles, and commoners could easily slot into such a setting without stretching plausibility, especially given the Empire’s complex feudal structure and frequent local disputes.

Why Robin Hood’s England Was Tempting

The idea of an England reminiscent of the Robin Hood tales represented a very different opportunity. While the legendary outlaw is usually placed earlier than the early 1400s, a Robin Hood-inflected England could have delivered:

• Instant cultural recognition: Sherwood-style forests, corrupt sheriffs, and noble outlaws are deeply ingrained in popular imagination.
• Action-friendly themes: Banditry, resistance against injustice, and clashes with authority align well with action RPG systems.
• Market familiarity: For many English-speaking players, medieval England is more accessible and legible than Central European history.

The developers reportedly even considered a character inspired by Robin Hood, presenting a more overtly heroic and legendary tone than the ultimately grounded, farmboy-turned-squire story in Bohemia.

The Core Design Pillar: Historical Realism Above All

Despite these enticing possibilities, Warhorse Studios built Kingdom Come: Deliverance on a central pillar: historical credibility. While the game is not a perfect simulation, the intention was to depict the period as plausibly as possible for a mainstream RPG.

From Fantasy Tropes to a Plausible Past

In interviews and promotional materials, Warhorse repeatedly emphasized that Kingdom Come: Deliverance would not rely on magic, dragons, or mythical creatures. Instead, the studio aimed for:

• Authentic social structures: A feudal hierarchy with clear distinctions between peasants, burghers, knights, and nobles.
• Plausible combat: Melee systems built around historical European martial arts and armor behavior.
• Historically grounded scenarios: Quests and conflicts drawn from how people actually lived, worked, and fought in the period.

This approach demanded more than a convincing visual layer; it required deep engagement with the laws, customs, and daily realities of the era.

Why Research Depth Matters for Games

Creating even a loosely realistic historical game requires extensive study. Academic histories and primary sources help designers understand:

• How people earned a living and interacted socially.
• What legal systems and punishments looked like.
• How wars, rebellions, and dynastic conflicts unfolded.
• What weapons, clothing, and architecture were common.

Historians point out that reconstructing aspects of everyday medieval life often demands combing through charters, tax rolls, court documents, and archaeological reports, not just chronicles or later romanticized narratives.¹ For a game promising grounded realism, superficial knowledge is not enough; the team must be able to answer thousands of small questions while building quests, environments, and systems.

When Inspiration Collides With Ignorance

The roadblock Warhorse reportedly ran into with Germany and Robin Hood’s England was simple but decisive: they did not know those eras and regions in sufficient depth. This was not about basic historical literacy, but about the fine-grained familiarity needed to build a believable, reactive world.

The Cost of Starting From Scratch

Choosing Germany or England would have meant initiating a broad research campaign from the ground up. To sustain Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s level of detail, the team would likely have needed to:

• Engage subject-matter experts or in-house historians with regional specialization.
• Travel for field research, scanning landscapes, architecture, and museum collections.
• Cross-check game content against modern scholarship and primary sources.

Game development already faces budget and time constraints, and expanding the research scope late in planning can be risky. Even large studios sometimes scale back historical promises when confronted with the sheer volume of verification required for accuracy.

Authenticity vs. Romantic Myth

Robin Hood’s England presented a different challenge: the risk of leaning on myth over documented history. While medieval outlawry and forest communities did exist, the popular Robin Hood narrative has been heavily romanticized and repeatedly reshaped since the medieval ballads, especially in Victorian and modern retellings.² A game leaning too heavily on these later embellishments might have undermined the studio’s vision of grounded realism.

Had Warhorse gone down this route, they would have faced a balancing act:

• Include enough legendary flavor to satisfy expectations of a Robin Hood-esque world.
• Maintain a believable medieval society rooted in archival evidence.
• Avoid anachronistic elements drawn from centuries-later interpretations.

Given the team’s stated priority of realism, the friction between popular legend and historical rigor would likely have grown more severe as development progressed.

Returning to Bohemia: Home Field Advantage

Ultimately, Warhorse’s solution was to embrace what they knew best: their own region’s past. Bohemia around 1403 provided a setting that was both historically rich and locally familiar to the Czech-based team.

Why Bohemia Made Sense

Bohemia offered several strategic advantages for a realism-focused RPG:

• Deep local knowledge: Developers grew up surrounded by local castles, villages, and historical narratives, shortening the research curve.
• Specific political context: The crisis following the kidnapping of King Wenceslas IV and the involvement of Sigismund of Luxembourg created a grounded conflict with clear stakes.³
• Underused setting: Central European medieval history is less saturated in mainstream games than, say, England or France, making the world feel fresh.

This choice let the team invest in meticulous environmental detail, from the layout of villages to the placement of roads and mills, with a level of confidence that would have been harder to achieve elsewhere.

Design Synergy: Systems Backed by Local History

Focusing on Bohemia also aligned with the game’s core systems:

• Social reputation: In tightly knit communities, your actions quickly spread through rumor and local networks, a dynamic supported by historical studies of village life.⁴
• Economy and crime: Stealing from a local merchant or poaching game realistically affects supply, trust, and sometimes legal outcomes.
• Religious and cultural life: Churches, monasteries, and festivals mirror period-appropriate practices rooted in local Catholic traditions.

Because the team could draw on regional scholarship and first-hand familiarity, these systems feel less like generic medieval tropes and more like expressions of a particular place and time.

Comparing the Roads Not Taken

It is instructive to contrast what we received with what a German or Robin Hood-inspired version might have looked like. The table below outlines some likely differences.

What This Choice Teaches About Historical RPG Design

The path Kingdom Come: Deliverance followed offers useful lessons for other studios interested in historically grounded games.

1. Authenticity Starts With Admitting What You Don’t Know

A key takeaway is that honesty about internal knowledge gaps can shape better design decisions. Rather than attempting to fake expertise in foreign settings, Warhorse leaned into an environment where they could confidently verify details. This approach aligns with best practices in historical research, which stress the importance of recognizing limits and relying on specialized scholarship when necessary.⁵

2. Local Expertise Can Be a Competitive Advantage

Many of the most memorable historical games draw on the creators’ cultural or geographic familiarity:

• Studios in Japan crafting period dramas in Sengoku or Edo settings.
• Teams in France or the UK recreating local cities with nuanced architectural detail.
• Developers in Eastern Europe exploring regional conflicts less common in global media.

Warhorse’s choice of Bohemia fits this pattern. Instead of chasing the most internationally recognizable setting, the studio embraced a less-known but deeply understood history, resulting in a world that feels distinctive.

3. Marketing Familiarity Isn’t Everything

On paper, Robin Hood’s England might have been a safer marketing bet, offering instant brand recognition. Yet the game’s eventual success suggests that players are willing to embrace unfamiliar settings when the experience feels cohesive and thoughtfully constructed.

In some ways, the lack of pre-existing expectations around Bohemia gave Warhorse more freedom. Without decades of Hollywood Robin Hood imagery to compete with, they could frame the narrative on their own terms.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did the developers ever officially announce a Germany or England version?

No. Concepts involving medieval Germany or a Robin Hood-flavored England were part of internal ideation and early discussions. By the time Kingdom Come: Deliverance was publicly shown in detail, Bohemia had already been chosen as the definitive setting.

Would a Robin Hood-style Kingdom Come have included fantasy elements?

Not necessarily. The notion of a Robin Hood-like character does not require magic or mythical creatures; it could still be grounded in realistic medieval law and resistance. However, the legend’s long history of romantic embellishment might have pushed the game closer to swashbuckling adventure than the sober tone Warhorse ultimately pursued.

How historically accurate is Kingdom Come: Deliverance overall?

The game aims for high plausibility in its depiction of 1403 Bohemia, including geography, major political players, and many aspects of daily life. Nonetheless, it remains a work of entertainment. Certain systems, timelines, and character arcs are streamlined or altered to serve gameplay and narrative pacing. Historians generally caution that any historical game should be seen as a starting point for curiosity rather than a textbook.⁵

Could Warhorse set a future game in Germany or England?

In principle, yes. By now, the studio has more experience with historical research pipelines and collaboration. With sufficient time, budget, and expert support, a future title could explore a different region. The core lesson from Kingdom Come: Deliverance is not that such settings are impossible, but that they require serious investment to meet the same standard of realism.

Why does historical research matter so much if most players are not experts?

Detailed research serves two purposes. First, it creates internal coherence; even if players cannot cite specific sources, they sense when a world has consistent rules and grounded logic. Second, it encourages informed curiosity. A well-researched game can motivate players to learn more about the period, whether through documentaries, museum visits, or reading historians’ work.^1,5

Conclusion: Choosing Depth Over Breadth

Kingdom Come: Deliverance could have been an entirely different game. A German-set drama or a Robin Hood-inspired English adventure might have offered familiar imagery and straightforward marketing hooks. Instead, Warhorse Studios chose the path of depth, building on their local expertise and backing their vision of realism with a setting they understood intimately.

That decision underscores a broader principle in game development: when aiming for authenticity, the most compelling worlds are often those where creators know both the grand political narratives and the smallest details of everyday life. By staying in Bohemia, Warhorse turned a potential limitation—their lack of deep knowledge about other regions—into a creative strength, giving players a vivid window into a corner of medieval Europe rarely seen in the spotlight.