Interview with Viktor Bocan (lead technical designer and one of the creators of Operation Flashpoint, also a stand up comedian), mostly google translate with some quick fixes.
Q: Since the release of Kingdom Come: Deliverance it has been a while, you have done a lot of fixes and some DLC. When you look back at the game, what do you consider to be your greatest success and what, on the contrary, is the area where you have somehow failed?
I think the best thing is that the game is successful in the sense that we managed to give people a message. We knew we were doing a game that was not entirely for everyone and we hoped people would like it because we like it. This is the thing we often talk about. We are trying to create games, even though we made only one so far, and in the future there will be others that will come good and that we want to play. Which we think are interesting. It's not about trying to find a hole in the market, trying to sneak inside it, then count the incoming dollars. We made a game we were not sure would be liked by a lot of people but we knew we liked it and we were waiting for what people would say. The success excited us by the fact that people understood the game, liked it and wanted more.
If I'm to say something negative, so of course I'm not excited about a lot of bugs, but what bothered me most are things we were not able to implement. For me personally, it is the biggest disappointment that we have not been able to make those mass great battles. I was looking forward to making them, but it just could not be done. On the one hand, the engine is not quite suited for it, and a whole new technology would have to be developed, and we have failed. So we did the battles the way they could have been done. I think that if we worked on it longer, they may be a little better, but the huge and wonderful ones we had originally planned with hundreds of soldiers, they are not possible with this technology and hardware performance.
Q: You mentioned bugs and things you could not finish. So do not you think it would be better for you if you waited with the game?
I often say this. The French poet Paul Valéry once said that art his never completed but only abandoned. In games it is very significant. The game can always be improved, you can still work on it, you still see what's still there. We delayed several times because we knew it was not done yet, although the big part of the game was done. If one and a half years before the release we said it had to be released in half a year, we might have managed to release it, but we said we would give it more time and finish it as we can. One day you have to say enough, but I think there is still a lot of work and a lot of things that can be expanded or complement the missing stories, but one has to finish it someday, to say that the story of Henry ends, it goes into the setting sun and let's go for something else.
Q: So what are you up to now?
For now, we are creating updates, fixing bugs and prepare DLCs. We have some schedule that we are trying to accomplish more or less, but we're already thinking what's next. We still can not talk about what's going on, but that step is obvious. From the beginning of Kickstarter we say that it is a saga that just started. The end is obviously not the end. So it's probably clear that the plans are towards a sequel.
Q: So, do you still have a plan to move in the history of Hussite wars right now?
The plan is not so specific right now. We are definitely thinking about the story, but it's not like Henry left, and he has come from somewhere else (the Hussite wars are about 20 years after the events of the game, note.). rather it is going to go straight after the first game. Of course, we would like to do the Hussite wars, but we are not quite sure whether with our tempo, we'll get there before I will retire (laughs).
Q: So I suppose you still want to work on those big battles. But you mentioned that there were technological limits. Is it even possible to get around the current technology, or would you have to develop something new?
We will see. I think we're just at the border the existing engine's capabilities. New hardware can help us and, of course, if we start working on a new game, it will not be the next year, and probably not the one after, so better computers will exist and probably better consoles as well. So it will help us, but it will not help us dramatically. That means, if we are able to feature 80 soldiers on the scene now, with the better hardware and the same engine there will not be 800, but for example 150. So if it really were to be the massive battles we would have to develop something new. Either as an addition to this engine, but it's really a big endeavor, or switch to a newer engine. I think we do not want to do that because we've been developing our systems for a long time, and the Cryengine we use is greatly modified. We did a lot of things there, because it was not built for the RPG, so it makes no sense for us to drop it and start making a new game, for example, in Unreal. We have lot of extra systems and features done and if we want to have another game out faster we will continue with what we have.
If you are going to work on another game, are you planning to improve your own technology for it?
There are certainly a lot of things we are not completely satisfied with. We did some things to some extent, but not more, because we ran out of time, or because the hardware could not support it. So we're going to continue improving everything there in our existing technology.
So, what's next to us in Kingdom Come?
DLC and fixes. We definitely do not want to abandon the game in a way where we release the last DLC, upload it to steam, delete the game from our drives and just move on to something else. We want to leave the game in a state where we have a feeling that it is good, finished, with all broken stuff fixed and when someone sits and plays it 4 years later, it will work well and we will not have to be ashamed of it.