Prior to the hotly anticipated release of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 today, Warhorse Studios dropped a fun CGI trailer showcasing the chaotic highs and lows of protagonist Henry's medieval life – a trailer aiming to be so realistic, it stars an actual horse.
That's right – Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's recent CGI trailer features a real horse. How did Warhorse pull that off? By bringing the horse into the motion capture studio just as the studio did with its human actors. A behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the new trailer highlights as much with a black horse covered in mocap gear trotting casually through the studio, a rider similarly geared up sitting atop the mount.
It's so quick, you might miss it – if it wasn't so wildly bizarre to see a horse in mocap gear – and it comes right after a scene featuring another actor "riding" a stationary mount dummy. This isn't the first time developers have used live animals to translate real-life movements to virtual ones more seamlessly, as proven by Rockstar Games' own past mocap work for Red Dead Redemption 2, but it's just as amusing to see now as ever.
Fans seem to love the idea of a horse in a mocap studio still, too, with comments showing as much. "Bringing an actual horse to mocap a 5-second scene is insane dedication," reads one such reply. Another response sees a fan simply exclaim, "That's an entire horse!" That it is, and as both a devoted horse girl as well as a lover of all things medieval myself, I'd be lying if I said the short clip hasn't impressed me as much as it has others.
If you're just as blown away by the thought of a massive horse fitted in mocap gear, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is available to purchase now on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X | S, and on PC via Steam so you can experience the ultra-realistic mount mechanics yourself.
