Kingdom Come 2’s translator says he was replaced by AI — and the timing says a lot

Warhorse Studios just sent a very loud message about what it values after Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s success – and it wasn’t to the players, it was to its own staff: if a machine is cheaper than you, don’t get comfortable.

Key takeaways

• A Czech-to-English translator who spent nearly four years on Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 says his role is being scrapped and replaced by generative AI from April 2026.
• His account, verified on the official subreddit and backed by his LinkedIn update, describes management calling his position “obsolete” in a cost-cutting meeting.
• Warhorse has stayed silent so far, even as backlash grows in the community and across the wider industry worried about AI-driven job cuts.
• This isn’t just one layoff – it’s an early sign of how studios might treat localization, even on story-heavy RPGs that live or die on good writing.

A four-year insider says he was made “obsolete” overnight

The story comes from Max Hejtmanek, a Czech-to-English translator and editor who’s been working at Warhorse Studios for almost four years. According to his own account, shared on March 27, 2026 on the official Kingdom Come: Deliverance subreddit (where moderators verified his identity), he was called into a meeting and told his role would be replaced by AI starting next month.

“Yesterday, March 27, 2026, without prior warning, I was invited to a meeting and immediately informed that, with the aim of ‘making the company more effective’ and ‘saving finances,’ as of next month my position at the company would become ‘obsolete’ in favor of using AI for all translations going forward,” he wrote, as translated from Spanish coverage by Areajugones and echoed in English reports.

Hejtmanek, posting under the handle ThousandDemons, says he’d been handling Czech-to-English work on Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, its DLC, and marketing materials. Some coverage also mentions additional responsibilities like voice-over direction, but all sources agree translation was his core role.

He updated his LinkedIn profile the same day to show his departure from Warhorse on March 27, lining up with the subreddit post – one of the reasons multiple outlets, including GamesRadar and Areajugones, are treating his account as credible despite the lack of a studio statement.

Hejtmanek doesn’t mince words about how it feels. He says he feels “incredibly betrayed by the management of the company I’ve come to care about,” pointing out that he worked through Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s development and launch — a game that, as Perplexity’s summary notes, went on to be a 2025 Game of the Year nominee.

To make it sting more, Areajugones reports that Hejtmanek had previously argued against using generative AI for localization during KCD2’s development. The tech he pushed back on is, according to his account, exactly what just cost him his job.

Replacing localization with AI is a bigger risk than it looks

On paper, the pitch management allegedly made is straightforward: AI is cheaper and “more effective,” so a single in-house translator is expendable. If you’re staring at spreadsheets, that logic is seductive. If you actually play Kingdom Come, it’s a lot dumber.

Warhorse doesn’t make loot shooters where story is wallpaper. Kingdom Come’s whole thing is dense, grounded historical role-playing with a lot of flavor text, archaic references, and period-specific tone. Even in 2026, generative translation models are decent at “gets the gist across” and absolutely awful at “this line sounds like something a real human in this place and time would say.”

Most studios dabbling in this space, at least publicly, are talking about AI as an assistive tool: machine translation as a first pass, then human editors and cultural experts to make it sound like real language again. What Hejtmanek describes is something harsher — his job isn’t changing, it’s “obsolete.” That implies Warhorse either:

• plans to lean heavily on AI output with minimal human intervention, or
• will outsource limited human editing to cheaper external vendors rather than maintain internal expertise.

Either way, it’s a downgrade in control and nuance for a studio whose reputation was built on immersion and authenticity. Fans on the subreddit seem to get that immediately — reactions have been mostly anger and disappointment, with many players thanking Hejtmanek for contributing to Kingdom Come’s distinctive voice and historical feel.

This is also the kind of cut players actually notice. Sloppy balance patch? Annoying, but fixable. Sloppy localization across hundreds of hours of dialogue and quest text? That’s how you turn a prestige single-player RPG into a meme for bad writing threads.

Warhorse is gearing up for its “next era” — and already cutting corners

Context matters here. As German outlet GameStar recently broke down in a separate feature, Warhorse is already quietly shifting into its post-Kingdom Come 2 phase. Officially, the studio says it has nothing to announce about its next project. Unofficially, there are clear signs of major change.

GameStar notes that Kingdom Come creator Daniel Vávra is no longer game director — he’s off making a KCD film — and that two longtime developers, Prokop Jirsa and Viktor Bocan, are now listed as game directors. That strongly suggests at least two substantial projects in the pipeline. Job ads point to Unreal Engine 5 and a continued focus on immersive single-player RPGs, whether that means a Kingdom Come 3, a different historical setting, or even a licensed IP.

Why does that matter for one translator getting cut? Because this looks less like a one-off personnel decision and more like an early glimpse of how Warhorse intends to scale. Multiple games in development, new tech stack, bigger ambitions — and the first big post-launch structural move anyone hears about is “we’re swapping a human for an AI to save money.”

That’s the uncomfortable tell. When a studio is flush from a hit and gearing up for its next phase, you usually see them fight to retain core talent, not expose them to the nearest automation experiment. Localization isn’t a peripheral service for this kind of RPG; it’s how your work even reaches the global audience that gave you that hit.

Instead, what we’re seeing — if Hejtmanek’s account is accurate — is a studio signaling that internal language specialists are a luxury, not a pillar. That has a chilling effect on everyone still inside the building, not just the person pushed out the door.

The question Warhorse doesn’t seem eager to answer

As of March 29, 2026, no outlet — GamesRadar, Areajugones, or others — has received a public comment from Warhorse about Hejtmanek’s claims. That silence is its own kind of answer, but there are two specific questions the studio needs to address if it wants any trust back:

• Is generative AI now the primary tool for all future translation on Kingdom Come and other projects? Or is there a robust human editing and review process in place?
• Is this part of a wider shift in how Warhorse treats in-house specialists? If localization is fair game for AI “efficiency,” what about narrative design, QA, or other roles that don’t show up neatly on a sales slide?

From a PR perspective, the safe move would be to frame this as a painful but limited restructuring: “we’re experimenting with tools, but human quality control remains vital,” etc. The problem is Hejtmanek’s wording: “my position would become obsolete” and “AI for all translations from now on” doesn’t sound like an assistive-tool narrative. It sounds like exactly what players are afraid of: replacement, not augmentation.

This isn’t happening in a vacuum, either. Across the industry, workers have already watched studios lean on AI to justify layoffs in art, writing, and support roles — usually framed with the same “efficiency and cost-saving” language Hejtmanek describes hearing in his meeting. Against that backdrop, Warhorse’s silence reads less like caution and more like hoping the story dies down without them having to defend their choices.

If I had ten minutes with a Warhorse PR rep, the question would be simple: Would Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 be as well-regarded as it is today if you’d localized it primarily with generative AI? If the honest answer is “no,” then they already know exactly what they’re risking for a lower translation bill.

What to watch next

• Warhorse’s first official statement. Any response — denial, clarification, or a full-throated AI defense — will set the tone. If they dodge the “AI for all translations” line, that’s telling on its own.
• Future job postings. If new listings quietly add “experience with AI localization tools” or shift translation to external vendors, that will confirm this wasn’t a one-off.
• How the next Warhorse release actually reads. The first DLC or major update that relies on this new pipeline will be the real test. Players are already primed to spot wooden or off-tone dialogue.
• Whether other studios follow. Localization is a soft target for cost-cutting. If Warhorse rides this out without meaningful backlash, expect more mid-sized studios to try the same thing.

TL;DR

A longtime Czech-to-English translator on Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 says Warhorse told him his job is “obsolete” and will be replaced by generative AI from April 2026. His verified Reddit post, LinkedIn update, and multi-outlet coverage paint a credible picture of a studio trading in-house expertise for cost savings just as it moves into a bigger, multi-project future. The next meaningful data point will be Warhorse’s official stance — and whether players can feel the difference in whatever they ship next.