Kingdom Come Deliverance Tech Interview: PS4/Xbox One Optimization, Gameworks And More

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an ambitious role playing game under development at Warhorse Studios. The game takes place in the medieval Kingdom of Bohemia and promises to have a vast world waiting to be explored, an in-depth quest system along with a weaponry/inventory system that is said to be time accurate.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance will launch on the PC, PS4 and Xbox One and although there is no release date yet, the game is deep in development.  GamingBolt recently caught up with Jiří Rýdl from Warhorse Studios to talk about the challenges they faced while working on the consoles, PC specific features and more.

Rashid Sayed: How far away we are before the game launches on the consoles and PC? Are you guys targeting simultaneous launch on consoles and PC?

Jiří Rýdl: During our Kickstarter we planned that Kingdom Come: Deliverance development will be finished on December 2015 on both PC and consoles. After eight months of development we have working builds on consoles, but we definitely need to spend much more time on the optimization. We can’t confirm that the game will be on every platform from day one, but we are working on it.

Rashid Sayed: How are you handling the reputation system in the game? How will NPC’s react depending on the character’s reputation?

Jiří Rýdl: Reputation system in Kingdom Come: Deliverance is pretty huge and complex. It is important what you do, but also where and to whom. For instance, if you steal something from a wanderer in the woods, probably nothing happens. If you steal from a shop owner in the city, you won’t be able to buy from him anymore and you may lose some quests.

And that is not all – because if the shop owner is well known in other villages too, you will face some restrictions there too. On the other hand if you save a life of a peasant from a village, you are warmly welcome there, even if you have never been there before.

"Support for Nvidia Gameworks is in the pipeline. We work closely with the team from Crytek, so we what CryEngine is capable of. As soon the Gameworks are implemented, we will have them too."

Rashid Sayed: What kind of graphical options are you going to provide to the PC player?

Jiří Rýdl: We plan to offer similar option as a recently released title Ryse on PC. Ryse is looks very good, hopefully we can make Kingdom Come Deliverance even better.

Rashid Sayed: Are there plans to support Nvidia Gameworks?

Jiří Rýdl: Support for Nvidia Gameworks is in the pipeline. We work closely with the team from Crytek, so we what CryEngine is capable of. As soon the Gameworks are implemented, we will have them too. Our programmers have already taken a look at it and we are looking forward to use that.

Rashid Sayed: Given that you have a lot of time to work on the next-gen version of the game, how are you planning to tackle the eSRAM of the Xbox One. Can you please describe your approach towards it?

Jiří Rýdl: Development for Xbox One is much easier then for Xbox 360 in general and it is even easier if you use CryEngine, because this is exactly one of hundreds obstacles that is handled by the engine. We can forgot about it and focus on the game development instead.

Rashid Sayed: There is a concern that if you are developing for the Xbox One, the PC and PS4 might lose out on more ambitious visuals. What is your view on this?

Jiří Rýdl: Not at all. We are always targeting the most advanced graphical enhancements using the CryEngine. We want Kingdom Come: Deliverance to be visually attractive no matter the platform you use to play. Of course there are differences between consoles and PCs in terms of graphical features and computing power. On the other hand when we were testing the Xbox version on the same monitor as a PC version, no one was able to say, what version we are just looking at.

"We need some smaller targets first (smiles). Let's create working build with at least 900p/30fps, then we can tweak it to 1080/30fps and maybe even more."

Rashid Sayed: The power difference between the PS4 and Xbox One is pretty apparent at the moment and Kingdom Come Deliverance seems to be a pretty resource demanding game. Do you think you will have better chances of hitting 1080p/60fps on the PS4 than the Xbox One?

Jiří Rýdl: We need some smaller targets first (smiles). Let’s create working build with at least 900p/30fps, then we can tweak it to 1080/30fps and maybe even more.

Rashid Sayed: How are you approaching development on PS4 and Xbox One slower CPUs?

Jiří Rýdl: Thanks to direct hardware access we can find our ways how to compensate slower CPU, thus it is not a big deal for now.

Rashid Sayed: A lot of open world games are suffering from pop in issues on PS4 and Xbox One. So how are you managing occlusion for Kingdom on these two consoles?

Jiří Rýdl: This is another issue that will be handled by CryEngine, which is taking care of LOD for objects. We want to make it smooth as possible, but to say the truth, we still have some pop in issues in alpha now.

Rashid Sayed: It seems that Kingdom will be using virtual texturing system. Was there a specific reason behind this decision or the 5GB memory limit was the reason behind the same?

Jiří Rýdl: We are not planning to use virtual texturing system, we are streaming the whole textures. At least for now.

"Thanks to Crytek's support we will use the best possible AA solution for both consoles. In case of PC we plan to offer several options including MSAA."

Rashid Sayed: Do you plan to use post processing AA solution for the console versions? Any chance of using MSAA?

Jiří Rýdl: Thanks to Crytek’s support we will use the best possible AA solution for both consoles. In case of PC we plan to offer several options including MSAA.

Rashid Sayed: Roughly speaking how many unique animations in the game?

Jiří Rýdl: Well, currently it’s already thousands, it is very complex. We have got our in-house motion capture so we can react to any demands from the designers.

Rashid Sayed: Are you using the latest SDK update for the Xbox One version? If yes, how has that benefited development?

Jiří Rýdl: Not yet, but we will update soon and we are always looking forward for any more power we can use.

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