In 2011, when Czech studio Warhorse presented the idea of a realistic medieval RPG, even the developers of CryEngine were skeptical. Crytek believed that their engine was not suitable for a game of this scale.
The concept of mass battles caused the greatest controversy. Warhorse Design Director Viktor Bocan recalled that Crytek claimed it was possible to display "only six or seven fully animated characters at the same time." When the Czech team replied that they needed 200 to 500, the developers simply laughed. Nevertheless, their own improvements to the engine made it possible to implement mass battles with dozens of NPCs — one of the key features of the first part.
The sequel Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, released in 2025, even more clearly showed the fallacy of these estimates. The number of NPCs has grown to 3,000, with half of them in the city of Kuttenberg. This is especially significant considering that in 2011 the choice of CryEngine was explained by its advantage over the then still underdeveloped Unreal Engine 3.