A-Xii
Welcome A-Xii , where generational gaps collide and pop culture shines! Hosted by a Gen Xer and a Millennial, we dive into all things movies, sports, TV shows, and video games. Expect heated debates, hilarious nostalgia, and fresh takes as we bridge the divide between VHS tapes and TikTok trends. Whether you're reliving the classics or discovering the latest hits, this podcast is your go-to for witty banter and deep dives into everything that keeps us entertained. Tune in and join the conversation—because no matter your generation, we’ve got something for you! 🎙️✨
A-Xii
Episode #003: Behind Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 w/ Tobi Stolz-Zwilling
Join us for an in-depth conversation with Tobi Stolz-Zwilling from Warhorse Studios as we uncover the journey behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, the highly anticipated sequel that masterfully blends historical accuracy with immersive storytelling.
In this episode, Tobi shares insights into the creative process, the vital role of community feedback, and the evolution of gaming—from early consoles to today’s deeply interactive experiences. We explore his personal gaming history, how it shaped his career, and its influence on crafting engaging, authentic game worlds.
Delving into the challenges of balancing historical accuracy with compelling gameplay, Tobi highlights the studio’s commitment to realism, player-driven development, and refining mechanics like combat and narrative depth. Whether you're a longtime fan of Kingdom Come: Deliverance or new to the franchise, this episode offers a rare glimpse behind the scenes of one of the most anticipated RPGs in modern gaming.
Tune in and subscribe for more exclusive industry insights, behind-the-scenes stories, and the latest in video game development!
this is the axi podcast, episode three bailey. We are back at it bright and early today. Bright and early, um, what time is it in the czech republic right now? What? 5 pm or something like that, I'm not sure. Nine, nine hours ahead, we've got a pretty amazing guest today, you know, toby stole zwilling from warhorse studios.
Speaker 2:Talk a little bit about what's going on here, bay yeah so I have recently become obsessed with their video game studio, their new release, kingdom Come, deliverance 2. It seems to really be taking kind of a pop culture hold right now. So we're just excited to talk to Toby, who is the PR manager over at Warhorse. So yeah, he's over in the czech republic, like you said, nine hours ahead of us, and we're super excited to kind of chat about the game and what we'll do is to kind of get this rolling.
Speaker 1:Take a peek here real quick, um, and a trailer. Here we go. Oh my god, always a peasant, there it is. Is that Blaston, yours this time, bailey, is it okay? Nope, sounds way better. This time I'm going to let Toby in mid-roll, toby.
Speaker 2:Hey, how are you brother?
Speaker 1:We're watching the trailer right now, so bear with us for about a minute and a half With it looks like Chinese subtitles going on there. Yes, why not? Yeah, right toby it's a it's a global audience.
Speaker 3:Expand the audience I only hope I'll live long enough to avenge the ones I lost.
Speaker 1:I think Henry's on the old hero's journey. Now, bailey, I think the hero's journey has begun for Henry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:He's on an adventure. I think the learning to fight phase is over and now it's global domination for Henry, our boy here.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I mean, he was fighting bandits and low-level lords for most of the time in K31, or bandits or whatever, and now he's on a big stage, yep.
Speaker 2:Armies and kings and all.
Speaker 3:Nobles and kings. Yes, Big boy, Henry, I call him. I sometimes say that he was in K31, he was the champion of the Sunday League and now he's in the Major League.
Speaker 1:That's perfect.
Speaker 3:That's what it feels like.
Speaker 1:You stole one of my questions because doing the homework that was my favorite thing you said as far as the evolution of how this is built, the patience it takes to be the agonizing journey to the Premier League. It's a really good sort of comparison. I'm into it and so I'm going to stop this little screen share here. Get out of there, and now it's just us Guys.
Speaker 3:Toby, yeah, I didn't take headphones because we have this kind of soundproof box here, so this should be better than.
Speaker 1:You sound perfect Because you can always kind of tell immediately it sounds great, amazing to meet you. The dynamics of this I think I told you in the emails. I own a media company in santa cruz, california. We've got a really big magazine. We're venturing into the podcast space kind of support with our weekly newsletter, the magazine. We are in sort of the silicon valley. There's a hub here of people that nerd out on what you do. Bailey's my son. He's the gamer. I am an atari 2600 um nintendo my first console, atari 2600.
Speaker 3:I didn't own it myself, but my cousin did, so he was always like lecturing me about not not wrecking his his joysticks there.
Speaker 1:I think I used it right well 1977, yeah, 1977, the year it came out. We got it the day it came out in my life. I was only nine years old at that time, but it was the beginning of the fundamental change in my life, which was, you know, saturdays were eat breakfast, go out and play, and then mom would ring the bell and we'd come in, eat and go to sleep, and that Atari 2600 came out and we had to make a business decision. And the business decision was I feel like we should do this all day and my friends are like we still should play a little bit, but it did. It was the beginning of that occupation of our time. Going into another world. There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 1:Is kingdom come is amazing to me, because here's when we played Atari. If it was Indiana Jones, I saw the 8-bit, like your game, but I had to translate it in my head. So when we played Indiana Jones, I was playing Harrison Ford, I was playing the movie, but we had to do a lot of work in our brain. Smart guys like you, and War Horse and Deliverance we don't have to do that anymore. We can just play the game.
Speaker 3:I think I had a situation like that with the super nintendo. So I the first console or thing I ever owned was the was the og game boy. I had a green one, so special already, but but that was the first console that I personally owned. Yeah, let's call it console. But then when the super nintendo rolled out, for me it was like in the early 90s like when was it? Like 92 or something like that. When I got, when I got the super nintendo at 93 somewhere there, this was for me absolutely like a mind-blowing thing. It shaped my huge parts of my childhood. I was a um I I tried to uh go or follow a professional sports career which I started when I was like, not the professional one, but I started playing a very popular sport, especially in Germany, which is called handball, which is pretty much basketball, but instead of throwing into the basket you throw it on field goals.
Speaker 3:I started doing that with four and when the Super Nintendointendo came out I was four, five, somewhere there when I got it, I mean, and for me it was really like going to going to school, coming home from school playing super nintendo, then going to handball training, coming back from handball training, going playing super nintendo again and on the weekends it was like either going into the woods which we had huge forests outside the house, and it was either we played there cowboys and Indiana, whatever, yeah, or we played the Super Nintendo together and I have pictures from my childhood where, like children's birthday party was, there was cake and everyone was sitting around the Super Nintendo, were looking at the.
Speaker 3:I had a tiny CRT monitor when I was a kid. For me it was like a world that's sucking me in and Super Mario World and everything was there. But today the television is really as big as my chest. Yeah, that's right, it was smaller than that. It's really just a tiny cube TV and they're just playing it. I still have it, the same tv from from my childhood, and I still have that original super nintendo from my childhood and put them together it's like how could I play that well?
Speaker 1:bailey. Do you relate to that? Because you went through different like because bailey's my son. We were, we've had a lot of money, we've had no money and the screens dictate how we're doing in our life and so he's played on some he's definitely played on some screens that are small.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember for a long time. Do you remember that little like kitchen TV we had, that's tiny white one with the screen like that big? I remember playing on that, just with the old RGB connections. Video games for me are funny. I feel like I was playing video games before I had kind of real world consciousness, like earliest memories involves taylor's game boy, taylor's my sister. Or going to grandma's and playing her playstation 2, going driving backwards on a nascar track or something like that. Um, and it never stops for me. I and video games have and always will be I can't imagine that changing just being far, far and away my number one hobby.
Speaker 3:I can remember with my cousin. I can't remember what kind of console he had, but he had one of the original Contra games. But we didn't know neither of us spoke English by that time and we didn't know that the game was called Contra and we just called it Akce, and that's a word in Czech which means action, and it's something like action movie. So we called it. Hey, let's play action movie, Okay.
Speaker 2:And action movie was us playing Contra together.
Speaker 1:I love it. But, toby, let's stay here a little bit because I did do my homework and it seems like it always gets to deliverance. It always gets to kind of the point. But I think I'd like to linger for a couple minutes there on that little handball kid, the kid that like the handhelds and like, because you're not just kingdom come deliverance, you were a human on the planet before the kickstarter campaign and all that. But I think I think I'm always just interested in the human element of it. You know, like let's kind of linger there and then talk about like school and your kind of growth into it.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, um, so I was I'm. I'm born and raised in Germany. I have a German dad and a Czech mom, so I was always kind of sitting in between chairs when I was a kid my, my Czech family and everyone always asked me that's the question that follows me kind of like the entire life Are you Czech or are you German? I I don't know why, but everyone wanted to know this all the time how do I feel? More and like and I was like, I don't know whenever I was in germany I felt more like a czech, and now that I'm living in czech republic for 10 years or whatever, then I'm always like saying, yeah, I'm german, but living here in czech, so it's always like vice versa in a way. But in I always felt a huge like desire to, to to my mother's side, which is the Czech side. So I don't have any siblings, but my cousin was a Czech guy, so I saw in him something like a brother.
Speaker 3:Whenever there was a school holiday, we traveled over to the Czech Republic. But I was born in 89 and in the early 90s the Iron Curtain fall and everything in Czech Republic became like regular country like every other country. However, it was still a bit behind. It doesn't know what I mean. But the Super Nintendo or something never really came to the Czech Republic because it was in a time where they had different problems than that. So I was always bringing it from Germany and I was the kid from Germany who brought the Super Nintendo and then all the kids from the States came over and watching it together with us.
Speaker 3:I studied journalism in Germany. My plan was always to well, I was pursuing that sports career and my plan B was hey, if, if you do that, have something studied at least on a bachelor level, so that if something happens you have something in your pocket. So sport journalism, yeah. But yeah, I had to end my career and I managed to get into like in into the like all-star teams and so on, and it seemed like I could get somewhere and got a contract and whatnot. But with I got I never yeah, I never, I never grew out of the talent stage.
Speaker 3:So, uh I was, I got super injured my my left. I have four surgeries on my left knee so with 22 I had to stop my career.
Speaker 3:Uh, harsh wow yeah, but by the time I had my bachelor just I just finished my bachelor I was like okay, what now? I want to, I will be clever, I will do like studies studying in a foreign country, and foreign country for me was Czech Republic, because I had a place to go, I knew the language and I thought I will be super smart and I will go to the Czech Republic study, do my master's degree there, and then come back to Germany. However, I moved to Prague, which none of my family is even close, so 200 or 300 miles east was my grandma and 300 or 200 miles west was my mom. So there was no one, and for the first time, with 22 or so, I was living alone. I had no one to go to, I was introduced to Czech beer, czech food and czech women, and I never returned back to germany, so my plan kind of failed.
Speaker 3:I did finish that master degree. I did work as a journalist for quite a while. The problem, though, is, while I speak and read and talk fluently czech, I am absolutely not able to write czech, which is a real problem. So if you are speaking another language, like french or whatever, I'm trying I'm writing it the way I hear it, which is almost always wrong, right, always so when I'm right. And I'm right now the press speaker, pr manager here at warhorse studios, which is funny, because when I write check emails to someone, they're like who the heck are you like? Why am I talking?
Speaker 3:to like a five-year-old or something it's like. The good thing is, though, that a warhorse video games generally are international, so it really doesn't matter so much that I don't write czech, because you know, I don't have to write czech press releases, but and and also I'm living here in czech republic since 2 12, so 13 years, and I'm working at warhorse studios since 2 14, so 11 years, so the good thing is, at least in the czech gaming world, everyone knows me will be from warhorse.
Speaker 3:So they're like yeah, yeah, it's, it's this idiot, so that's fine he doesn't have to write, yeah so, so, as I said maybe, maybe writing Toby.
Speaker 1:Maybe that answers the age-old question are you German or are you Czech? Maybe we know the answer.
Speaker 3:Who knows, I still have German papers, because there's no reason to have a Czech one, because here in Europe it really doesn't matter which of the European country Interesting. Well, the German is currently a little bit better because I don't need a visa in China. But Well, the German is currently a little bit better because I don't need a visa in China. But there you go, there you go. But so I was working here for some media outlets and it worked quite a while because technically, I knew what I was supposed to do, but when I had to write down the article, it was crappy because someone had to change it or correct it for me. So that was not working very well.
Speaker 3:For a while, I was working for the German news, for the German television correspondent here in Prague. That was great, but they didn't want to give me a full-time job. So what happened is that I ran out of money and I was like okay, mom, seems like I'm coming back. And it was like, I don't know, in January 2014 or so right, it was like, okay, I need to find out what I'm going to do. Let's open up some, let's check some jobs or something, and by that time, maybe February 2014,. I was always a fan about video games. I always played video games. Since I can remember, I always played video games. I was seeing a German video game show that was talking about the hot new games and they were talking about this one medieval thing that right now just successfully ended the Kickstarter campaign.
Speaker 3:And it's this medieval thing thing and we don't know. We don't know what it is. And there's this dude, daniel wavra, and he did mafia, the mafia series before and now he's working on this project. I was like, hmm, so a week later I was coming home from the gym or something and went into the elevator of my apartment building and there was this chubby bearded dude coming to the elevator, running in in there like wait, wait, wait. He stepped in and was like hey, my name is Dan, are you living here? He's like yeah, sure, I'm living on the top floor. And he's like okay, cool. I was looking at him like the heck, where did I see this dude Like? So I went up to my apartment and said Daniel Vavra, who the heck is that? I googled his name.
Speaker 3:It's like okay, that's the dude last week on the gaming show and the mafia dude and he's living one apartment below me. It's like, okay, let's check the home page. And they were looking like for programmers and all the technical stuff, which I'm absolutely I'm, I'm, I'm glad that I can turn on a on a computer, but that's about it, right? Yeah, gotcha, I'm good in talking and writing in english and german. Yeah, the talking, as you can see, it's like that's about it, right. Yeah, gotcha, I'm good in talking and writing in english and german. Yeah, the talking, as you can see, it's like that's my, that's where I'm at home, right. So I said, shoot, they are not looking for anything like me. So it's like, okay, okay, it it boiled down a little bit, but like half a month later or a month later, so it's just like you know what, screw it, just check it out of curiosity, right. And they were looking we're looking for a community manager. Uh, background in media.
Speaker 3:I was like, ah, there you go, that's my there it is it was like that's my, that's not exactly what I want to do, but that's my like, like let's, let's get the foot in the door, kind of. So I I was like thursday evening, maybe 9 pm, 10 pm, something, something like that and I was like, okay, that's it. I printed quickly my CV, put on some clothes, went down the stairs, knocked on his door and his wife came out. I was like, hey, what do you want? She's like, hey, sorry, is Daniel at home? I was like, yeah, sure, give me a second.
Speaker 3:And Daniel came I kid you not, here's my cv. And he looked at it like, oh, community manager, it's shitty paid. I said, no, worries, I'm a journalist, freelance journalist, I, I'm used to shitty being shit, yeah. And a month later I started in may 2014. Then I started at wall studios as the community manager, did that for exactly one week and then they said, hey, you know what PR and you can do bigger and better. And officially I was then promoted in one year later, 2015, to PR manager and I do that since then. So I'm in the team for 11 years and this is how I got in the gaming industry. That's an amazing story.
Speaker 1:I love those kinds of stories, I love the connectivity there because I think you know your platform in this game is narrative, it is world building and the reality is is we're all world building, we're all. You know. You replace the forge with handball and you replace some things, and Henry is you, henry is me, you know, just put, you can just put the different things in there. So I think that's always a nice basis because all the all the, the interviews and the printed articles I saw a lot of times I don't think we give enough space for the human side of it. Like how did this human get to this space? Um bailey, I know bailey, you're probably geeking out right now because he's the. You know his world is this, you know, not necessarily this game, but it is. Did you have some teed up for him?
Speaker 2:My world has been this game since. I've gotten it 100%, absolutely. I've been so stoked to talk to you ever since we put this together and I cannot put the game down. I wanted so badly to try to roll credits on it before we got to this conversation. I'm about 80 hours in and I've still got a long way to go. I can't stop doing tournaments in Kutenberg right now, so I've got more hard things to worry about.
Speaker 3:You know what's funny when we worked on, when we were thinking about, well, we always knew that we want to do a sequel, because the first game ended on a cliffhanger, so it made absolutely sense. We put our heads together and said you know what? We can't do the game. We shouldn't develop the game for too long. Kcd1 was announced in 2014 and released in 2018. Four years and we said, ah, too long, we should be quicker than that. Wow, well, wow didn't work out. So it took us six years, actually, from 2019 to 25, almost six years.
Speaker 3:But the idea was, uh, hey, we do, we. You know what we take. Take KCD1 and add 25% everywhere and this will be enough, and we will put more focus on the, on making sure that it because, you know, in KCD1, the people were like some love the story, some dislike the story, some love the combat, some dislike. So the feedback was like all over the place. We had 10 out of 10s, we had 10 out of 10s, we had five out of 10s like it was really hard to pinpoint what they liked and did not like, whatever the only thing that everyone agreed on was that it was a buggy mess on release.
Speaker 3:So we said, okay, this is something where we know what to do.
Speaker 3:We have to put much more effort into, or less effort into, like ridiculously a lot amount of stuff into the game and more effort on the making sure that it runs well. Now, the plus 25 didn't work out at all. So I think everywhere we because everyone was like it's a I I guess every studio will tell you that but this is like a super creative place here and and the people like really when we have a super flat structure so everyone can raise their voice and say I hate that feature and we should absolutely redo it because something there's no one who's like. Of course, there's owners of the quest and then they then have to defend their ideas or why they're doing stuff, but everyone can really give feedback, which then leads to the fact that or the problem that the processes are longer. However, the results are better, because then you know, everyone has an impact and everyone buys in and everyone says yes, agree, this is our game kind of thing. So instead of plus 25%, we ridiculously added everything everywhere, like plus 100%, unfortunately. So the game is longer.
Speaker 3:There's more characters, more quests, quests, more features, more everything. However, we still and that's the reason why we postponed the game from we planned to like october, november, uh, 24 that we really wanted hard to release it by that time. Or you said you know what we? We have to make sure that the game runs as smooth as possible. So we decided, hey, let's go for February, that's the next possible date.
Speaker 3:The good thing is, because of that us postponing the game, we had this eureka moment in the programming department that came extremely late, like in October-ish September. October came really late, like the possibility of having 60 frames per second on console, which is something that we absolutely did not count with. It just happened magically. No one knows how it happened black magic rituals, they burnt, I don't know, kcd1 and the demons flew out. And then we said there is a chance to make this run smooth on all platforms, including the Xbox Series S, and the optimization that goes into the weakest platform is automatically benefiting at least in our case, benefiting all the other platforms as well. So now we have the ridiculous situation where we have 60 frames on consoles situation where we have 60 frames on consoles and if you have a good medium, good gaming pc, 120 frames on pc, if you wish, right. So it's like it's crazy what, what happened, and it was these two, three months that made sure that we, we can, we can get to that situation that's incredible.
Speaker 2:Right at the finish line and I mean to be able to run smoothly like that makes all the difference, especially in kind of the uh, general, uninformed public acceptance of the game. So many people won't turn on a game if it doesn't have those specs for them, so what an incredible find right at the end.
Speaker 3:That's amazing yeah, and if we could have, we absolutely could have released in october, november. We were ready, which then also shows the fact that we were sending out the review code a month before release. We were sending it out in january 2nd. So all the media in the world that were kind of in this review phase had the chance to really play through the game and give us like a super educated feedback. The feedback from those, all of those journalists, were like what, what? Four weeks, like never happened before.
Speaker 3:I was like we are kind of finished and we are. We feel like I mean, of course there's patches and everything coming, but we are right now at a stage where we can give you the game and you can try it yourself. And the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. We were actually so, you know, on on one hand, there was, of course, the other games releasing in february, but the game, because it wasn't such a good stay, we said you know what, hey, we can postpone it, even like, move it forward to be like the first in february, because the game is ready and there's really nothing we wait for. It's just sitting on a finished product in a way. So it's like like, hey, let's do it, people will like it, people will be happy, we can be first in February and at the end everything was really luckily knocking on wood turned out really well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's been nothing but a polished experience from what I've played, which is 75 hours of the game so far.
Speaker 3:So I've been allowed what I've played which is 75 hours of the game so far. So I've seen a lot of that. We need to be. It's a. It's a huge ass. Open world rpg.
Speaker 3:So of course there's glitches and funny stuff happening here and there, but what we we really focused on a lot and tried really hard is that there's nothing that really annoys you, and if there's a game breaking stuff or something that is too funny, then there's usually always a way how we can still finish the game. But still, today I'm going to stream in about what two hours one and a half hours with a colleague of mine on our Warhorse Studios Twitch channel, if you want to watch. And we will introduce what's coming next.
Speaker 2:Very cool.
Speaker 3:We will show some free LCs that are for free, but we are talking about the next patch that is coming in in march and that contains, like what, four months of work or so for five months of work. So what I wanted to say with that is that there's still a lot of work on the game and we are trying really hard to make a good running game even better super impressive and it kind of leads into something I want to talk about of from your perspective.
Speaker 2:How is this even possible? You look at triple a game development across the whole industry and they have their budget is multiples more than what you guys spent to make this. They've got what do you have? Like 200 something employees. I think I saw is that still correct yeah, so they other triple a. Studios have massive teams compared to that, massive budget compared to that, and then they put out a product that doesn't work and isn't fun. How can you, from your perspective?
Speaker 3:how do you guys even make this happen? I would want to say great planning, but I would lie, because our planning is crap and we thought we will be much faster and released six years after it happens. Right, but I don't know. Being effective, effective, being open-minded we are trying to be. We, we generally try this community first approach. So we are working on the game that we, as a developer, like and we are identified with that's what I meant earlier where everyone can say, hey, I hate that feature, we should redo it.
Speaker 3:When we are doing this constant gameplay testing here in the studio, they are kind of like you don't have to do them, but you can, and that gives you feedback, and this is happening very often, honestly. So it's good to get that. We are trying to get community feedback. So we gather friends, we put friends and family together and gave them like a hundred of them, like moms and dads and brothers and sisters, who wants to like, test the game beforehand and invest like 50 hours or so. So we did that several times. I think I can't tell you why. What the other studios are doing different I don't want to say wrong, but different.
Speaker 3:I can tell you that we are trying to be just very effective with what we have and of course one needs to be also realistic here. Producing in Czech Republic is cheaper than producing in Germany or the United States. It's just the fact that, while still Czech Republic is the most Western of all Central or Eastern countries, here still prices are high, but compared to the United States or Germany it's a joke. So it's easier to do that here. I guess generally and we don't have any like unnecessary, we don't have a thousand agencies that are we are being that we are paying to tell us what's good or not. We're not ticking any boxes like, hey, we have to do this marketing thing. You agency x, y tell us what we should add or not add, or car parks or whatever.
Speaker 3:We just try to do. We just try to be humble developers working on their stuff, and the only people who are actually having a saying and what goes into the game or not goes not into the game is us plus the community. And we are trying. We were. We are, of course, not blind, so we were checking what the people were like saying about kcd1 and which mods were downloaded most and what they disliked and whatnot, and according to them. We tried to balance out what we should and should not do, but yeah, there's a number floating out in the internet about the cost of KCD2. I don't know it precisely, the cost, of course but I can tell you that the number is absolutely not far from probably not far from the real price.
Speaker 1:So, like a double digit million thing, media companies maybe the reality is creating the first game in the closet of a Kickstarter campaign created some fundamentals that are real. Maybe the reality of not having an unlimited budget. With an idea in a you know, you think of these larger companies an idea comes up and it's almost like a movie studio. It's like whatever you need, I'll give you the budget, we'll put everything behind it, and there's some that can be kind of a loose process of building a model, whereas with, I'm sure, every single pound, every single dollar in that first one was accounted for absolutely, um, and then maybe created some good business principles for your company that wouldn't have existed if this idea was launched with somewhere else. Possibly, is that a thought?
Speaker 3:I think you are on a good lead here. I think, of course, with Kickstarter, we had no marketing budget, almost no marketing. The marketing of KCD1 was me with a backpack and the laptop. So a plane ticket, a hotel room and a gaming laptop that had to be updated or upgraded once in a time, that was the marketing budget for KCD1. So when, for instance, I can remember an e3 in los angeles, which is in itself already super expensive, but because united states.
Speaker 3:But I was like hey, we had this dlc for kcd1 and our publisher back in the time said, yeah, well, we have no floor space, it's too expensive and we don't publish the, we don't do this with the dlcs and whatnot, and said, hmm, I hate notes and I don't accept notes usually. So I was talking to my ceo and say, listen, martin, what if you give me this penthouse apartment, right like, instead of a hotel room? You, we, we get this penthouse apartment which is right across e3, which is like super cool and everything. I will, I will sleep there, of course, but in the living room or whatever we will do the presentation. So we will not be on the show floor, where we will be across the street.
Speaker 3:And because, we will be already out there and you know, as you can see, I'm talking a lot and I'm really able to do quite a like would say that I'm able to do get some friends together. So I was like calling or writing the journals hey, listen, so we are not on E3 directly, but we are right across the street and I have imported chick beer and I have homemade cookies which Jude was making and everything, and this will be super cozy, feel good presentation and everything. And they came over, they there and they, I did my job and at the end we had an e3 presence in a way. So it's just we trying to, we try to be creative and effective and bend the rules sometimes here and there, and just not accepting a no. Sometimes I have to. But what if it's like always my, my answer and yeah, I don't know, it's just, it's just yeah and no. I think that's what I, what you said, brian, before I I'm.
Speaker 3:Kcd1 was really super effective price. It was really low. Double digit million price maybe? Yeah, so it was really. But we were when we started, when I started at warhorse in in 2014, we were like 35 people or so 40. The release of KCD1 was with 110 people. So of course, the costs grew. But in the end we had a number and we could say, hey, mr Publisher or owner, mother company, in that time this is the price of KCD1. And of course, when they are doing their calculations it's like, okay, this means if this is the price of KCD1, then this is the price of kcd1, then this is the price. Should be the price of kcd2.
Speaker 3:It's not like we didn't have a blanco check or something that was. It was not like a now unlimited funds, go crazy. No, no, we had to had to talk about all extra funds. We had to talk about we want to postpone the game. We had to tell them why we think it's a good thing, what it will cost extra and so on. So, yeah, we had to, of course, be very mindful of what we are doing. There was never the situation where we just could freely shoot and do whatever we want. So I think we pride ourselves here in the studio, especially our CEO here in the studio, especially our CEO that we are trying very hard to be cost-effective and just generally effective in what we are doing. We are doing pretty much everything by ourselves. We are not outsourcing anything, only really just tiny support stuff.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think that's a great example of what I see from the outside in of what kind of separates this game and and your studio from the rest of the industry, as video games are in such a weird place right now, where a lot of the big hitters are way more of a product than they are a passion project. Um oh yeah, I could just see it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly yeah, right away. Very often, unfortunately that's exactly.
Speaker 2:It's becoming the norm. It's way more people look at it more as a business than an art, and it started out as an art, obviously, and there's so much of that still exists today, but you've got to seek it out more than it falling in front of you like it used to, and that's just what I see from Go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, I said I've always looked at it that way. And no, I said I've always looked at it that way and it's probably my fault that you like it this way. But there's, there's two circumstances that happen when you're playing a game and a lot of times you'll pick up, you know, your stick and you'll start playing and you'll be like I always give a restaurant comparison that was a really good, perfectly executed steak. And sometimes you go to another restaurant and you're like this person loves cooking. And that's truly what goes on in the world of like, especially like nonlinear games like this, where there's so much room, so much room for your path.
Speaker 1:A conversation you have sets you on a different, you know, kind of it's that real world experience and sometimes that can be a little bit wonky, it can be a little bit campy and sort of contrived. Bailey just introduced me to this game. I got to be honest. Sort of contrived, does not? Bailey just introduced me to this game. I gotta be honest. My whole role in this thing is mostly the sports and the our podcast.
Speaker 1:we talk about sports, new movies, which I'm you know and I still play a big nhl right hey, there you go and I was gonna say and you could have been an olympic handball you know if you stuck with it you could have, but but I think that's the I'm vibing with what bailey's saying right now is that, um, you know, if you play games long enough, you sometimes can kind of sense it out a little bit in it, like there's a curation, and not that all designers don't love what they do, but it doesn't always come off that way. You know, when you get served, when you get served it.
Speaker 3:So, um, no, I think it's um, you know, you know but I would like to jump in there at just one point. I strongly believe that all the developers or most of them that are working on a video game that they usually love more than what they're working on, I think the problem is much higher than the ground level of the people. It's just. I think all the cooks here, or all the chefs here, are really proud of their work they're interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think, as I said, I think the problem is somewhere else, a little bit higher, where you have to, where you are. This you know, I'm a pr guy, so I'm I'm trying to come up with great ideas, with huge things, with events and whatnot. And when I get the answer, or the when, when I get a answer that contains return of investment, then then I start to hate that. I hate that these three words really like, and I think when and I don't blame those big companies, because they have the investors and there's stocks and everything and they can't just go crazy, they have to look back on numbers and she's like, hey, this worked, so we tried this again.
Speaker 3:But that's a safe space and I don't know what. But I would look, I would try to find the problem somewhere there above, because I really don't think that regular Joe that is working on this product says I want to do just the bare minimum and then go home and don't care about it.
Speaker 3:I think when just the bare minimum, and then you're right, go home and don't care about it. I think now, when you don't end up in games and those negative like talks about the studios and whatnot, I think those people on the ground level, they they are hit hardest there because they're like I wish I could do more, but they, they just don't want it and they I can't and I should, I should do this and they don't. Let me do more. And we try really hard here at the studio to be very transparent and show more faces, not just like the creative director saying hi, my name is Daniel and today I'm showing.
Speaker 3:No, we are trying really like hey, this is Daniel, this is Toby, this is Prokop, this is Martin, and then in all the interviews I always bring, or often try to bring someone else and there's, like you see, many people behind the studio in the streams, it's just now me and another developer. But because we vibe very well and people seem to like it, but generally like we're trying to be like, this is what we work on, this is what we're doing, this the patch is coming today. Well, I will say the patch is coming in march. This is going to be in there.
Speaker 3:We thank you for your feedback. We looked it up. This is like the highlights which you might be looking for and blah, blah, blah. So it's like a more the this community first thing has its roots or like thing in the kickstarter era, right without the people we would never be here. So we are trying to stick to that, while of course, also the people have to understand that the bigger the company gets and the more money and whatnot is involved, then you can't do, I sometimes say we are back in the days we were punks. Now we are still punks, but more organized punks than before. So yeah, it's a dangerous combination we want to stay true.
Speaker 1:Punks with a plan.
Speaker 1:Bailey, I've got a couple of deep weeds and then we'll kind of keep them on time here a little bit. But did you have anything else jumping right now? But I've got. The main question I've got and I'll kind of kick it out of the way is, like bailey introduced me to this. I've been playing and for me, 56 years old, like kind of the things I know, I kind of I'm finding, remember I'm still working my way through one is, uh, combat's hard. For me it's, it's a, and I even kind of like went on youtube and I realized, oh, combat's intentionally hard. As far as you know, the decision that you made, at least in the first one, was to basically like the world building, is you have to invest your time and patience in combat? It seems like yeah so um you know.
Speaker 3:So you said you are playing still KCD 1, right, start playing KCD 2.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what I told him the point why I'm saying that is nothing bad about the first game, but we had to do a lot of trial and error. In the first game we came up with a plan this is what we want to do, and then everything looked fine on paper. And then when we put it into the game and the people actually into the game and the people actually got the game, we saw you know what. Maybe it was cooler on paper, maybe it didn't click so well. The combat could be is probably the single biggest feature in the game that was overworked most. While we still are very true to its core, which, with the directional attacks and everything based on historical martial arts, we fine-tuned it in a way that there's first of all, way more animations, which you might maybe not realize in the first place, but when, since there's much more movements and animations, everything, everything feels more fluent. You can't tell why, but you will.
Speaker 2:You will realize that everything, just it's like a cut scene in a lot of fights.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we changed a lot the directional fighting, depending on what weapon you wear or use. So if you're using a club, a maze, an axe or whatnot, then you have really a more straightforward movement. Set you bonk the enemy on the head or whack him from the side. That's what you do with an axe.
Speaker 3:You wouldn't poke him in the eye with it, of course not right right, right but for those who really like, want to have the like the king of the medieval weapons or like the deepest, then go for a double-handed bastard sword or whatever, and there you have all the movement sets and everything, but still even those combos that were in there, because there were combos in the first game but they were so hard to execute that barely no one used them. Okay, everything just so should go, flow easier, be better and be more ready for you to, to experience and and take on. We have this, yeah I was.
Speaker 1:I was saying I was just giving it, the star wars empire strikes back, sort of yeah, like you know, I felt, like you know I didn't want to jump ahead to uh too, but it but it's fascinating to hear you talk about that. And also it kind of goes back to the first 15, 20 minutes where this is an ever-evolving game. Absolutely, this game, even up to two hours from now as we speak, it's evolving as we speak right now.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:And the second game does this as well. The beginning of the first one is much slower than the second one. The second one is more like action and there you go, and then we slow it down a little bit and tell you where you are and why you are there. We tried really hard to make sure that you do not have to know the first game at all in order to enjoy the second game. So there's the flashbacks and everything.
Speaker 3:But in the first game, again to talk about the combat, so, um, we even there, so we try to have like real medieval fighting styles, because they had these in the middle ages, they had these books called fecht book and in these books they had like um, um, like paintings of how the combat is supposed to look like. But even that, yeah, was already considered not sports fencing but in a way sporty fencing, because those pictures were like, okay, if someone does this, you do this, and it was like in an organized fight situation then you can do all those tricky, cool moves, because then you kind of know what you, what the opponent, is doing. But in, in real combat, of course, there's no rules and nothing. You just know the opponent is doing. But in real combat, of course, there's no rules and nothing. You just hit the enemy as fast as you can, and just no theatrical back and forth and clinch and then throw. Well, if you get into the situation, you're out of energy in seconds and then the next idiot with a stick will kill you.
Speaker 2:So yeah.
Speaker 3:But it's a video game. What we're working on, that's the most important part that we had to realize. Hey, you know what? We are just working on a video game. We try to be very authentic. We bring in those moves from this manuscript, but they must be broad and so that you as a player can see what's going on and you have the time to react. And. But it was slow and clunky in the first game and a bit faster and smoother in the second game. So if you struggle with the first game, just don't give up on the second, because I think the second game is just better in everything.
Speaker 1:But your statement also made me think about it and it makes me think about the entire game and sort of the narrative and everything it's like. So that's combat. Does that sort of the general rule for all that you're doing in kingdom come, which is like, if you have a historical storyline or if you have a building or even a landscape, like, eventually do you defer to the user experience over being historically, say, accurate? Like, is that a question? Is that a?
Speaker 3:thing. It's a very good question because this is the everyday struggle pretty much we have. The game is based on real historical events. All the locations are existing. You can visit them even today.
Speaker 3:We are trying really hard to whatever we craft and tell that it is at least plausible and as authentic as possible. We even have a full-time historian in the team and she is venturing out. Uh, so she's there when we are writing the quest and building the world and whatnot, and she's then also venturing out if we need extra information about, I don't know, nobles or how we have this monastery. So how did they? How did the daily cycles work? Can we do something in there? And so on and so on. And she's working with all the other historians and museums and universities and whatnot. And then she comes back with the information hey, this is how it was or could have been.
Speaker 3:And then we say often, unfortunately, like, ah, that wouldn't be fun, yeah, and then we have to come up with a good compromise and that is usually the point.
Speaker 3:So combat, for instance, there you want to be unpredictable and as fast as possible, you poke the enemy, that, that's it. And we say but it's a video game we need to have like this broad moves and it must be a little bit like over. So we of course have to do shortcuts here and there, we have to oversimplify here and there, we have to gamify stuff here and there. Yet still, I strongly believe that, to the best of our knowledge, we tried very hard to base everything on authentic medieval stuff and I strongly believe that even in movies maybe, maybe it's in the entertainment world it's the closest, one of the closest things you can, you can experience to see how it could have looked like in the middle ages. Yeah, again, it's just the video game, with video game logic there's you drink a potion and you heal, of course, but I like that because I think I'm thinking about it in in the terms of like combat.
Speaker 1:It's medieval and eventually down the road. What it would be amazing is my brother's uh has a doctorate in middle medieval teaches at CU Boulder, and so it's an interesting conversation to have. But I think from a video game standpoint, you could be in combat, you can disembowel somebody, but we don't have to have them shit their pants, jamie, you don't have to go all historical, but it feels that way in the game. You guys have accomplished that from my experience so far.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was something I even wrote down of what I pulled away. The most impressive thing I've seen in this game is how well you guys walk the line between what you're talking about realism.
Speaker 2:And so many games, I think, get lost. I see conversation online that will kind of label this game as a simulator and I think that's just kind of not giving it enough credit for what it's doing because, yes, there's so much realism. You've got to manage your hunger and your sleep and you got to stay clean and you got to be polite but that's all.
Speaker 3:It's all game, by the way, that that's important, that's exactly it, right?
Speaker 2:well, you get a reward for doing it, basically like you're gonna have higher stamina you're gonna exactly like you said. Yeah, it all exists with a purpose, not just to get in your way, and that's what I find so impressive. There's so many games that have a hard time walking that line and finding that true balance, but this game is the realism. Realism just serves nothing more for the most immersive game I've ever played. Thank you all. The same time I'm just having.
Speaker 3:This is what we are trying it this is really really really was to have this immersive game, that everything it is, you play it, that the people are living, that they have real life problems, that the conversations are not like super superficial idiot, like hey, I am the super action fighter, let's go and fight, no, no. That they are talking about their stories and why they do stuff, and that you as a player understand why you are doing these quests, not like bring me 50 apples. Hey, exactly. Huntsman tells you hey, bring me five wolf pills. But you say but you are a huntsman, why don't you bring yourself? Yeah, that's your job.
Speaker 3:So it's like we are trying really hard that all those people in the world a seem that they care for themselves, that they do not care for you because you are not the dragonborn, whatever. You come there and totally annoy everyone and you kind of have to say, hey, hey, I would like chill, I would like to help or something. It's like okay, so this is, this is exactly what we tried hardest to have one of the most immersive rpgs there is. And luckily, again, knocking on wood, people say exactly that and while everyone was, in case anyone, agreeing on the fact that it was a buggy mess on release, right now everyone's unitedly agreeing that this is like a super immersive RPG, and this is exactly what we wanted to achieve, first and foremost.
Speaker 2:No, it truly is. There's all these big set pieces, but then still, one of my favorite moments in the whole game is when I meet the group of humans at the tavern, go back to their camp and get drunk and spend an hour and a half there having conversations and they are saying like, hey, listen, hey listen.
Speaker 3:Okay, we've been there where your hometown was attacked. But this is really sorry, bro, this is, we are mercenaries, this is like we don't know anyone and it's like not a personal thing, and you as a player can then say screw you and pay back, or you say let's have a drink and or have a yep, and that was one of my favorite moments of the game because I was just so sucked into that conversation and those people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a great example of how immersive it can get.
Speaker 1:And Toby, after three weeks, what has been the industry kind of take outside of the player response, which sounds fantastic. It's long enough now to start getting some reviews in and things like that. How's that been Overwhelmingly?
Speaker 3:positive. We are, I think you know, for the longest time. You as a developer, you have a smoking pile of crap in front of you when you're working on a video game and you don't believe that this will ever be working and that this will ever, ever, ever someone will have fun, and you need the outside voice to tell you hey, listen, the thing is actually pretty cool, right, and we had this moment in on I can pinpoint it on the day generally 10th, because that was this year, because that was when the feedback came in from the reviews. We said, hey, you get the preview code, and on january 10th you can have your early preview thing. And when the feedback came in and the people were like the heck, is this game in a positive way? It's like wait a moment. So you know, I was working with press that's all entire time so I had kind of a feeling, hey, they might like it and whatnot.
Speaker 3:We did the mock reviews before. In the mock review, someone uh gave us uh, it was someone in the us, someone in france, someone in germany and someone in asia, somewhere, I think and uh, there was the best we got. There was an eight out of ten. And if you, if you, if you repair it, you might get a nine. And the worst was a six out of ten, if you repair it, you might get a seven. I was like, oh, shoot. And then we said, okay, we need to. Oh god, okay, okay, we have to work. Oh God, okay, okay, okay, we have to work on this.
Speaker 3:And then the early feedback came and it's like, okay, so the people, the press and content creators, they might like it. And the reviews came in a day before release and it was like all of a sudden we had the 10 out of 10, the 9 out of 10, the IGNs, the PC games, the biggest of the biggest. We're like saying this is a great game. And I was like, oh, wait a moment, this is like, this is like, this is real.
Speaker 3:However, yep, however, these are all professional press and I mean they are, of course, they are important, but the the real important people are the players, because you have very often this um, this um, um, different um, understanding of the video game between the press and the gamers, where you have like nine out of 10, but the player score is like five out of 10 or whatever. It's like. That is not a good situation. So the day of the release, again the people were shitting kittens and we are right now. I think on Steam we have like 92% or something in the user score, which is something we never expected.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's incredible.
Speaker 3:We knew from the press that they might like it. We might have a really good game on hand here, right, but I kid you not, not even our publisher, not even us. We're like that. It will be that good. We hit the 1 million copies in less than 24 hours. We hit the 1 million copies in in in less than 24 hours we hit the 2 million copies in less than 14 days.
Speaker 3:I uh, posit, I'm, I'm carefully want to guess that we hit the three millions by the end of march, and this is just like mind-blowing. We had two millions in one year and with kcd1, and that was already mind-blowing but, this like having what it's like in in one month three million or so, that's like or two months, three months saying what you're saying here, probably pretty, um kind of breaking news is that kdc3 next november.
Speaker 1:Is that what?
Speaker 3:you're saying here the game was great that we are now working on patches and dlcs, and the last dlc is coming in december, so there can't be a new game by that time. Of course not, Because we are right now only one trick pony. Unfortunately, the entire studio is working on one product at a time, and in the near future and long future, but also in the near future we want to grow further. Our plan is to get to 300 devs. Right now we are 250. And we would like to start to eventually work on several products at once. So in the near future or next year 2026, things might change a little bit here in the structure in the studio. But, as I said, since we are right now still doing all together the DLCs and everything, don't expect another game anytime soon.
Speaker 1:Plus we might not even do.
Speaker 3:KCD, we can do something else, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe you can do a video game called even do KCD. We can do something else, right? Yeah, maybe you can do a video game called Shitting Kittens, because I've never heard One. I want that to be a video game. Now two, I will be using that this afternoon there you go, I've never heard of it before there's.
Speaker 3:Shitting Exploding Kittens already as a card game.
Speaker 1:I know it is. Hey, I had one fun question. I'll let Bailey finish it up too, but the one question I had just looking at your, you know some of your videos, some of your interviews. Clearly you're not on the back end of it programming, but you live this game. And the question I had is like I have this in my business world Do you dream in the world of KDC, kcd?
Speaker 3:sorry, A meme thing I say, but whenever someone is asking me how I'm doing or what's up or something, I'm always saying, hey, living the dream. So it is. Of course, video game industry is like super hard and the glory times are around, the release and everything goes well and so on and it will go down again and there will be other games coming and Warhorse will be more quiet, of course, and we are trying to get a piece of the attention cake. But I personally identify extremely hard with Warhorse Studios. I feel like this is my studio. I feel like KCD is my game.
Speaker 3:Whenever someone likes it, I'm happy. When someone hates about it or there's some controversy or whatever going on, then I take this personally like okay, I need to deal with this, which is a bit bad because my, my girlfriend is like not the happiest about the fact that I'm like bringing work home and it's like that. I am like I am war, I am kingdom or feel. Actually, I feel like that, but but yeah, I, but I don't think I'm alone here in the studio.
Speaker 3:I think that we have the great advantage since the again the structure is so flat and I know this sounds super weird and again, I guess every studio will say that, but the the friendship level here in our studio is extremely high. We have family members working here like husband, wives, and the wives are helping with being face models or whatever, and then and my brother is coming in to do this or that and so so we are trying. It's almost like if our our uh composer, main composer jan walter, his um cousin is doing the additional music. So then, family business kind of. And while kcd1 sometimes felt a bit like a student project that is led by veterans, it's again now more of a like again passion project run by I don't know, not not experts, but more experienced devs. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Bailey last question your way before we let him get out of here. We said 30 minutes and it's been 58, but sorry.
Speaker 2:It's been a great conversation.
Speaker 3:I'm guilty of talking too much.
Speaker 2:No, this was amazing.
Speaker 1:Bailey, you get the honor.
Speaker 2:Super quick. What's your favorite video game ever?
Speaker 3:wow. So currently my it's really everything on the super nintendo, but on my top three of uh of all time at the moment, probably, or the ones that I like to play over and over again, is x-com 2 it's uh. Crusader kings 3 I was for the longest time. I was. You know, I'm German, so I like the strategy games. Of course I do yeah, yeah yeah, like planning and like thinking of being like super productive and shit so.
Speaker 3:XCOM 2, crusader Kings 3 and Anno 1800. If you know that's like the building. It's a Ubisoft game like about building islands, production chains, and there you grow this and you have to bring it there and then you produce something new. Your people like it and get to the next stage, and so on. Great game. They're releasing a new game this year. Everyone should check that out. Something from the antiques from the Roman Empire time. So that would be cool. Check that out.
Speaker 2:The only thing that's pulled me away from uh kingdom come so far has been the new civilization game that's been civ, something I do enjoy quite well.
Speaker 3:However, you know, with the sifts, me personally, I like the beginning of civ. I don't like the end game, so I like, I totally agree. I've started a thousand plus. Honestly, I don't understand so much the winning con. I I know that you can have the science victory and the war victory and the culture, and I don't understand it so much. So, no matter what culture I play, I always go for science victory because that's for me the most straightforward.
Speaker 2:I do science because I like to go to space, or religion because I can not have to worry about it.
Speaker 3:The religion thing is for micromanaging your profit. Yeah, again at the beginning. Cool Late game, not that easy. You've got 500 pieces.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Hey, so Toby, the last PR point, warhorse Studios. Where can they find you? What's the plug? Part of it.
Speaker 3:We try to be again very open and talkative on the social media. So slash warhorse studios, or kingdom, come rpg. That is the true that where you can find us um and today, uh, on our twitch channel, twitchtv slash warhorse studios, where in 55 minutes, I will be streaming I know, oh yeah, we, we, we captured, we.
Speaker 1:You thought you had two hours or an hour and a half we kind of caught you hey, the other thing we'll let you bail out of here.
Speaker 1:This was amazing and I think down the road, um, possibly even maybe a uh, another podcast, a part two of this with, you know, programs, so we can get a little bit all the way in the highways, we did the human side of it, we did this, which was amazing, uh, but maybe we, you know, in a few months we we jump on and kind of uh, nerd out even higher, I'll know how to fight by then.
Speaker 3:I'll yeah, by that time you have like casey too though yeah, that's exactly right, I am and bailey can can back me.
Speaker 3:Uh, up here, I think, even from a like a cinematic perspective, like the story once the, the wedding in the beginning is over and then you're attacking that castle but you find out that things are completely different and it's such a and I'm nerding here and I might be super biased, but the thing is, while the devs are working on the game, day in, day out, and they will never play it. I know the game inside out as well, but I never worked on it, so I know the game inside out as well but I never worked on it, so I know the things only theoretically.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. I'm personally probably not playing it, but my girlfriend is playing it right now and I'm not allowed to touch the controller and not allowed to backseat as well. But I don't have to, I can't even because I don't know the details that good.
Speaker 1:But I'm watching there and I know that there's a huge cinematic moment coming up, so I'm getting ready and then I see the cut scenes and everything happens like god damn, that's good, I like it, it's so it's so gripping yeah, I can get amazed by my own game, so that's good and so, hey, one favor, when you log off, um, you can do it just leave the riverside open for a few moments because it'll continue to upload back into that audio, and then we'll send you all the fun cuts and things like that this afternoon once we post edit it. Hey, toby, this was amazing yeah, we should have gone, but it was hard to end.
Speaker 1:It's always hard to end a good conversation. Just imagine we're in a pub in the game right now. All right.
Speaker 3:If you ever come to the czech republic, be our guests. We we do drink a lot of beer, so get ready for that when have the OG beer, so not the thing that you have over there, but for the next time. If you want to have a call about something more specific music or quest design or whatever then I can, of course, either bring someone in or exchange myself for someone who's into it.
Speaker 1:I love it and that might help because this is going to format into our summer magazine. We promote the podcast and this just becomes a small little summary of this podcast and maybe if we get one more in, that gives a little more depth to that print article. But this was amazing. We'll let you. We'll let you boogie out of here so you can go keep talking, yeah.
Speaker 3:I will get a drink and then ready for the stream. That's a good night. Thanks, toby.
Speaker 1:Have a good night. Thanks, Toby. We'll talk to you soon. Have a good one, man. It was a pleasure See you, brother. See you, Yep Bailey. What do you think?
Speaker 2:Oh, that was so fun. What a good guy. That was incredible. Yeah, he's so great.
Speaker 1:What a good dude. And just again, we're an hour and three minutes in.
Speaker 2:I could have talked to him for another hour easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think we will. Like I said, that's that intro conversation and then you know we'll go from there. So, post-edit, the exit music will be playing right now. This was incredible. Episode three was. I don't want to downplay Connor, but this is, I think, a really good evolution of the podcast. I think we can have more of these guys on. Man so exciting. And now I know I got to get a ps5 because I can't play two on my switch giving you crap for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you'll like it. No, it's like you said that was the uh.
Speaker 1:Part of the intention was make it more the intention of this whole podcast is like that's not me, like I'm I'm into it, I do those ones, but I think that's the part I love about it is here's the here's the reality of it. We do this podcast and I'm playing it on my switch and now I'm compelled to. I'm so compelled by that narrative that I'm willing to invest in a platform to get that game.
Speaker 1:Yep and and that's the whole point exactly what they wanted exactly exactly what they want all right, we'll roll out of here bailey I'll see you next time. All right, sounds good. All right, buddy, see ya bye.
