Some of you may recall that I’ve mentioned Warhorse Studios in various Wednesday round-up posts. This Czech studio — headed up by some big names in gaming, none of them particularly known for RPGs — has been working on a CryEngine-based, open-world, historical medieval RPG for a while now, and were recently shopping it around to various publishers in order to secure the funds necessary to complete it.

Evidently, they found a publisher, as the project now has a shiny new website…and a name: Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Details on it are sketchy at present, of course. Kotaku has a snippet of a press release:

“As players traverse expansive, strikingly detailed locales, they’ll grapple with a range of period- accurate fighting techniques, horseback combat, open-field sieges, and large-scale battles, all while developing relationships and a reputation that will inform the greater story. Kingdom Come: Deliverance promises no magic, high fantasy or mythical overtones – it draws its inspiration instead from historically authentic characters, themes, and warfare.”

PC Gamer has what are, apparently, screenshots from the game. And there’s also this trailer:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdPyK1fI6Dw?feature=player_embedded&w=640&h=360]

And Rock, Paper, Shotgun! has reacted to the news with predictable restraint and decorum.

According to RPS, the game is set around the time of the fall of the Holy Roman Empire. Certainly, you can see the Holy Roman Empire’s imperial insignia on banners in the video above…but I for one would have to question the claim that the game takes place in said empire’s dying days. That is because the Empire itself was dissolved on August 6th, 1806, as a result of the Treaty of Pressburg, which was signed in the wake of Emperor Francis II’s abdication following a significant defeat of the Empire’s military by Napoleon.

1806 is not, by any stretch of the imagination, within any historical period that could be termed “medieval”.

Maybe it’s set toward the end of the Thirty Years’ War?