Kingdom Come: Deliverance – Art Book

A collection of illustrations and concept art from the game Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which, like the game itself, are quite unusual. If in the case of fantasy or science fiction, the artist can give free rein to his imagination, limiting himself only by the possibilities of its embodiment in 3D graphics, then the approach in Kingdom Come was quite different.

The game is historical, which means that the goal was to make it as authentic as possible and show the Middle Ages as they really were, and not in stereotypical and often completely unreliable films. In addition, the plot of the game unfolds in a rather specific place and time, and historical figures act in it. The developers strove to create a world that can show life as it was in that era – how people lived and dressed; how familiar places looked in those times, when people used them completely differently than we do now. That is why the approach to creating illustrations for Kingdom Come was also different. There was still room for imagination, but it was based on historical research, consultation with medievalists and the study of archives.

So in addition to creating attractive images of the protagonist in various poses, the artists also had to study how maps and frescoes were drawn at the time; how altars in temples were decorated; and texts in books. They created detailed diagrams of medieval mining machinery, as well as landscapes where their newfound knowledge of medieval agriculture and life was combined with real places.

The illustrations that made it into the artbook are just a fraction of the thousands of sketches, drawings, maps, and concepts that had to be created for the game. All this material would be enough for several such collections. Almost all the ideas you see in the game were carefully studied before they were visualized.