The developers of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 deliberately anticipated negative feedback during playtests, as they wanted to make the historical RPG as tough as possible from the start.
Lead designer of Warhorse, Prokop Jírsa, said in an interview:
We had playtests where some players\nstarted the game, made mistakes, were immediately arrested, and left negative\nreviews. We were confident enough to say: “Yes, that’s exactly what we want”.
According to him, the team initially decided that at the beginning the player should be weak:
We want the player to feel extremely weak at the beginning, because\nthen the feeling of progress and gaining strength is truly deserved.
Jírsa admitted that this approach seemed "scary" because it went against\nthe culture of instant gratification, which, according to the studio, has taken root\nin other games.
The experience of the first Kingdom Come: Deliverance helped\nremove some doubts. Jírsa noted that the audience is ready to accept complex\ngames, citing the Dark Souls and Elden Ring series as examples.
Original ideas have great potential if they are given a chance to be\nbrought to fruition.
