It is now official: the director of Kingdom Come 2 is leaving video games behind. The upside is that the reason for his departure is genuinely good news. A Czech Braveheart? The medieval RPG is preparing a move toward cinema or television, with Daniel Vávra supervising the process so the adaptation stays on track.

Daniel Vávra, the driving creative force behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance and its more polished follow-up, has chosen to step back from video game development. Starting today, he will no longer act as creative director at Warhorse Studios, nor will he remain involved in the day-to-day development work of the studio’s upcoming games. While that announcement will likely hit fans of the Czech developer’s acclaimed medieval RPGs hard, it also comes with a major upside tied to the franchise’s live-action adaptation.

“Daniel Vávra has a new role: building the Kingdom Come movie”

“Dan has a new role: creating the Kingdom Come movie”, studio director Martin Frývaldský told CzechCrunch directly, without softening the message. He also speaks about a significant budget and international ambitions. That level of scope is hardly surprising for a jump to the screen – whether it ultimately becomes a film or a TV project is still undecided – for one of 3DJuegos‘ best games of 2025: “We don’t want to simply sell the rights; we want the movie to look exactly the way we imagined it”, Frývaldský said, before adding: “Anyone who has played Kingdom Come or Mafia knows Dan and can expect a powerful story.”

Frývaldský also used these comments to make one point crystal clear: Vávra is not stepping away from his current responsibilities at Warhorse Studios because of any internal dispute, but because he wants to pursue new creative challenges. “He has worked on three games – and let’s remember he also played an important role on Mafia II at 2K Czech – and all of them were worldwide successes, and for a long time he has wanted to try something different. (…) Even if you won’t see him in the office every day now, in a broader sense he is still part of this”, the executive added.

Warhorse moves forward with new creative directors

My colleagues and I are not even trying to hide how curious we are to see what comes out of this project, which already has an initial story draft in place but still has many major decisions ahead of it. As for Warhorse Studios‘ future after Vávra’s departure, the company has announced a restructuring in which Viktor Bocan and Prokop Jirsa take over as creative directors, while the leadership group is reinforced by a new art director (Viktor Höschl) and a technology director (Martin Štýs).

In practical terms, Warhorse Studios will keep making video games without Vávra handling daily creative leadership, while he shifts toward a more transmedia-focused role intended to expand the Kingdom Come: Deliverance brand beyond gaming, where it has already proved highly successful. The franchise has, in fact, already produced comics and other related content. Hopefully, the studio continues delivering strong games while viewers get a screen adaptation worthy of the material.

Source: 3djuegos