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Kingdom Come: Deliverance studio co-founder Martin Klima is “bored and tired” of RPGs that are just “power fantasy” trips “for teenagers.”
The Warhorse Studios developer shared his thoughts about his least favorite kind of RPG during an interview with PC Gamer. Kingdom Come: Deliverance has received praise for straying from the beaten path in the past, and Klima’s comments suggest that’s no accident.
He admitted that the role-playing genre is one he enjoys. What he doesn’t enjoy are the RPGs that set the player up to be “the chosen one” with a “grand task of saving the universe.” It’s a straightforward set-up that he’s “bored and tired” of seeing, calling these kinds of experiences “repetitive.”
“It’s really a distillation of what the common RPG is,” Klima said. “So, I found that there must be many, many people who are really tired of this formula and who want something new and different.”
He continued: “The games that were and sort of are being made are still the games for teenagers. If you are 16, 17, you love playing these power fantasy games because it’s something that you need. But the audience is much older today … everybody’s going to think that I am hating on Expedition 33 right now, but that’s definitely not the case.”
There is no doubt a section of RPG fans who would agree with Klima’s assessment. The question, though, remains: Why? He believes a reliance on strategies and designs that have worked in the past is to blame, saying major publishers are “best at recycling the same formula over and over.”
Ubisoft is one of the more specific examples that came to mind. He called the “craftsmanship” of the publisher’s games “excellent,” pointing out that its games are mostly free of bugs and feature standout animations and character models. He’d prefer if that same level of craftsmanship was used on more innovative ideas, even if he doesn’t have “any easy answers” for a company that could be taking financial risks when experimenting at that level.
“I played the original Assassin’s Creed, and the original Far Cry, and the original Watch Dogs, and most of these games in the first iterations, and it was fun,” he added. “But once you play the same game for the 10th time, it sort of becomes stale.”
Klima recently commented on how he hopes GTA 6 will be able to “blaze a trail” for increased game prices. IGN reviewed Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 when it came out last year and gave it a 9/10.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
