Perfect New Game Of Thrones Spin-Off Is Painfully Obvious

We're deep into Game of Thrones spin-off territory, with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' second season on the way and House of the Dragon's third season currently airing. Adaptations stemming from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels and their companion pieces have so far seen the most success in television, while video game outings have been comparatively lackluster or unambitious.

There are only a few notable Game of Thrones video games. One is the 2012 action RPG of the same name, which isn't very good, but deserves commendation for actually attempting to tell an interesting story in Westeros. Next is Telltale Games' Game of Thrones, which is exactly what you'd expect from a Telltale title, and does at least spotlight a minor house. And finally, we have this year's War for Westeros, a classic real-time strategy game with some real potential.

Every other attempted video game by the fantasy franchise is essentially the usual mobile game dreck – in other words, nothing impressive you can really sink your teeth into. What Game of Thrones really deserves, though, has been right in front of us for quite some time.

Game Of Thrones Needs A Video Game Like Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Czech development house Warhorse Studios has rapidly risen to prominence via its only two games thus far: 2018's excellent Kingdom Come: Deliverance and its even better 2025 sequel, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. The second game earned a much-deserved Game of the Year nomination at The Game Awards 2025, and has more broadly solidified Warhorse as a premiere RPG developer. Both titles are renowned for their historical accuracy, taking place in early 15th century Bohemia (modern day Czechia), and their extensive simulation elements.

Earlier this year, a third Kingdom Come adventure was announced alongside confirmation that Warhorse is working on a Lord of the Rings adaptation, which had been rumored for a while. A Warhorse RPG set in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth has already drummed up a lot of excitement, for obvious reasons, but Game of Thrones' setting is arguably better suited. Warhorse seems to have enough on its plate, but a KCD-style RPG is what Game of Thrones deserves.

Westeros Is Perfect For A KCD-Like RPG

Kingdom Come: Deliverance's real cleverness lies in how it takes traditional RPG progression and grafts it onto upward mobility in medieval Bohemia. Protagonist Henry is the son of a blacksmith who finds himself in the service of minor nobility after his hometown is burnt to the ground during a war for the Bohemian throne. Playing KCD, you don't get powerful weapons nor eventually earn the ability to cut down hordes of enemies. Henry slowly hones his skills and gradually accumulates better gear, but even in the endgame, fighting a group of bandits alone is an easy route to a brutal death.

The ease with which characters die is a defining trait in Game of Thrones, and Westeros is predominantly a medieval setting; fantasy elements are usually on the periphery, the prominence of dragons notwithstanding. GOT generally does a great job highlighting the drudgery of its setting. Life in Westeros is difficult and dirty. And that's where Kingdom Come: Deliverance's simulation elements come in.

Henry needs to eat regularly, and take care of himself and his possessions. Shoes break down if you go trudging through the mud. If you drink too much, you'll pass out and might wake up somewhere unexpected with some belongings missing. People don't like it when you talk to them while covered in mud and blood. If you want to make something, you really have to make it – forging a sword is a multistep, interactive process. Combat is difficult, requires practice, and is exhausting.

But Kingdom Come: Deliverance, like Game of Thrones, also excels at depicting the breadth of medieval society. Henry serves a lord who is a far cry from royalty, or even a person of note to most characters in the two games. Medieval Bohemia's complexity really comes through in KCD's writing, where quests usually have unexpected turns and multiple outcomes depending on how they're handled. Your choices inform Henry's reputation with various groups or towns or cities, and people treat Henry according to his station.

There's untapped potential to hone in on a certain region of Westeros and expand on some lesser-known houses with such an RPG. Most people who live and die in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire chronology will never meet a Targaryen or a Hightower or a Lannister or even a Stark. A peasant in the Riverlands will likely never be touched by magic, but that doesn't mean their interactions with local nobility are devoid of drama.

Game of Thrones already has a spin-off very much in the spirit of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The idea of someone who is lowborn trying to improve their lot in life is compelling because of how sympathetic such a character is. Ser Duncan is a hedge knight, effectively the Westerosi equivalent to a knight-errant, a character that wanders, seeking the means to prove how chivalrous they are. It's the kind of conceit that you can build an RPG around.

It's essentially what Warhorse has done with Kingdom Come: Deliverance. The most unrealistic thing about the duology is how Henry gets involved in every possible saga if you're thorough in playing through each game's side content. It's a suspension of disbelief necessary for a lot of RPGs, but Game of Thrones has canonical do-gooders. Westeros is so broad, with swathes of it so unexplored, that the possibilities for a systems-heavy RPG like KCD are endless.

Warhorse Studios' untitled RPG set in Middle-earth is already so anticipated because fans know the developer will go to great lengths in realizing its setting. Kingdom Come: Deliverance and its sequel each have lengthy, comprehensive codices about the history of Bohemia and its personages and locations, and its society, culture, customs, and day-to-day life. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire works are already incredibly detailed; let someone turn it into a properly deep video game.

Every week while House of the Dragon is premiering, I get shown ads for a Game of Thrones mobile game I have no interest in downloading. It's admittedly a very rough time for triple-A game development, and not every studio is equipped to make a game like Kingdom Come: Deliverance, but Game of Thrones is a franchise that truly deserves and can support such a spin-off, and has a good chance of succeeding with an ambitious RPG.