A 'vast medieval sandbox' with a former Cyberpunk 2077 designer working on it may be revealed at Summer Game Fest, but there's a twist: the studio is really into generative AI
While scanning the list of this year's Summer Game Fest partners, I noticed an unfamiliar logo—an 'R' with a lightning bolt—and traced it to a Danish studio I'd never heard of: Raw Power Games, which says it's making a "vast medieval sandbox."
We love a medieval sandbox at PC Gamer: Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 recently took home a 90% in our review, and we've been fans of the Mount & Blade games for ages. So, guessing that this unnamed game could be revealed during the Summer Game Fest livestream this Friday, I started looking into the company.
There's good news and bad news, depending on your feelings about generative AI.
With a bit of LinkedIn digging, I discovered some notable designers attached to this medieval RPG, including Andrzej Zawadzki, a lead designer on Cyberpunk 2077, Daniel Janitzek, senior combat designer for Lords of the Fallen 2, and Kristian Jespersen, who worked on the Hitman series at IO Interactive. The company's statement that it is "fully committed to delivering top-tier mod support" is promising, too.
My armchair investigation changed course when I noticed that one of Raw Power's founders is Rune Christensen, who co-founded crypto outfit MakerDAO and describes himself as "working in blockchain, AI and gaming."
I don't see any evidence that Raw Power's medieval RPG is a blockchain endeavor, but the studio is definitely a fan of that other controversial tech trend, generative AI.
In a 2022 profile of the studio, Raw Power CTO Caspar Strandbygaard told Danish paper Ingeniøren that the company was just "testing the waters" of AI-driven game development with its first game (the medieval sandbox RPG I expect to be announced at Summer Game Fest), but that it has much bigger plans for the technology.
At the time, Raw Power was using Midjourney AI to produce muddled concept images, but Strandbygaard predicted that within 10 years the studio's task would be "almost to make tools that will generate the game" rather than making the game itself.
"The gaming industry should be cutting-edge and a front-runner in [AI], but we haven't seen that in very many games," said Raw Power COO Jakob Rasmussen in the same 2022 profile. "We are not saying that we will necessarily use AI at the core of how we develop, but it is at the core of our vision. When the technology is ready—and perhaps a little sooner—we'll be willing to stick our necks out and put it into our game."
Today, the Raw Power website mentions AI in connection with Raw Power Tools, a "sister company" working to "bring the power of AI into the hands of game creators."
The studio also said in that 2022 interview that it planned to release its first game, which it described then as a singleplayer and multiplayer medieval RPG, in three years—which would be this year. Things may have changed, and I've asked the company if its comments back then reflect its current plans and focus and will update this article if I hear back.
Since the studio is a Summer Game Fest sponsor, it's pretty safe to assume we'll learn more this week. In a Facebook post in January, Raw Power said, "2025 is our year. We're building something big."