Studio

Kingmakers developer and engine

Kingmakers is made by Redemption Road, a studio of about twenty people, and published by tinyBuild. It runs on the studio’s own customised version of Unreal Engine 4, not Unreal Engine 5, whatever older pages say. The game director is Paul Fisch, who also owns the studio and answers players on the Steam forum.

Muzzle flash as a soldier fires down into a dense crowd inside a wooden fort. — Firing down into a crowd inside a wooden fort. Frame at 7:26 in the Gameplay Deep Dive, tinyBuildGAMES.

At a glance

Developer: Redemption Road
Publisher: tinyBuild
Game director: Paul Fisch, also the studio's owner
Team size: About 20 full-time
Engine: A custom build of Unreal Engine 4
Previous game: Road Redemption

Redemption Road

“We are Redemption Road Games, a passionate 20-person dev team that has dedicated over four years to crafting this immersive experience.”
Redemption Road. From Steam announcement: Introducing Kingmakers

That was at the reveal. A later forum reply from the director kept the same figure: “Around 20 fulltime is accurate.” The delay letter describes the team as mostly engineers, and the director has written that the project is led by programmers.

Paul Fisch Game director and studio owner, replying on the Steam forum

“I am a game director and owner of Redemption Road. All the leads of this project are programmers.”

Thread: Paul Fisch on his role, Steam discussions

His brother Ian Fisch also works on the game and has presented it on stage. Critics sometimes blame the studio for other tinyBuild games; the director’s reply to that is on is Kingmakers real. The studio’s earlier game is Road Redemption, which the director has said went into Early Access in a rougher state than Kingmakers was in when he said it.

The engine: Unreal Engine 4, and why you may have read 5

The FAQ, posted at the reveal

Unreal Engine 5

“Kingmakers is being developed in UE5.”
Official FAQ. From the Kingmakers Official FAQ (Steam discussions)

Last edited a few days after it was posted, and never since changed on this point.

Every later statement

Unreal Engine 4

“For the past few years, we’ve been developing Kingmakers on our own custom version of Unreal Engine 4.”
Redemption Road. Said in the tinyBuildGAMES video: Kingmakers - Gameplay Deep Dive

When the FAQ line came up on the forum, the director explained what happened:

Paul Fisch Game director, replying on the Steam forum

“Engine switch? The core development branch of the game has always been on unreal 4.27.”
“There have been a few times we tried to port it to UE5, and we have always run into performance issues that stop us from porting. So we ended up not moving forward with UE5.”

Thread: Paul Fisch on the engine, Steam discussions

The same reply says the engine had nothing to do with the delay. The letter that announced the delay, which also names Unreal Engine 4, is on why Kingmakers was delayed. What that performance focus means for your hardware is on Kingmakers system requirements.

tinyBuild’s part

tinyBuild publishes the game: it runs the showcase where Kingmakers news is announced, issued the press release for the Deep Dive, and reported the delay to investors. Two of its executives are also producers on the planned film, covered on the Kingmakers movie page.

Where the developers talk

Between announcements, the director’s forum replies are the most direct source, and the official Discord is where the studio sends players. Both are listed on Kingmakers Discord and community, and the director’s replies, grouped by question, are in the Kingmakers Q&A.