Warhorse Studios laid off Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's localization editor and handed the work to AI

Warhorse Studios removed the English localization editor for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 from its team and handed over his tasks to generative AI. For the gaming industry, this is not just another experiment with neural networks, but a rare case where the replacement of a person is stated almost directly in plain language.

What exactly happened

Max Geitmaniek, who oversaw English localization for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, revealed that on March 27, 2026, he was notified without warning of an imminent layoff. According to him, as of April, his position was to become unnecessary because the studio decided to use AI "for all translations" to increase efficiency and reduce costs. The wording matters: this was not about a supplementary tool, but about the complete handover of translation tasks to a machine.

Geitmaniek worked at Warhorse Studios for almost four years. His responsibilities covered translation of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and game additions from Czech to English—one of the most sensitive areas of localization: not the interface or technical strings, but text that directly affects the style, tone, and perception of the world. For a narrative RPG, this is a particularly painful area, because mistakes or awkward phrasing immediately damage the atmosphere, dialogue, and the reputation of the release.

How the editor responded

Geitmaniek himself says that conversations about incorporating AI within the team had been ongoing for some time. He made no secret of his cautious stance toward the idea and feared exactly this outcome, yet still counted on his work at the studio being protected by his experience and quality of results. Therefore, the decision turned out to be not a planned staffing change, but a sharp rupture with the team to which he was bound both professionally and personally.

"I feel bitterly deceived by the company's leadership,"

Geitmaniek wrote.

At the same time, he specifically asked fans not to lash out at Warhorse Studios employees and not to use the situation as grounds for harassment or downgrading the studio's games. This is an important detail: publicly he disputes the management's decision but does not call for a campaign against the developers. This response shows how much the conflict surrounding generative AI in games remains not only technological but human: studios face cost pressure, while specialists face the direct risk of losing their jobs in a familiar industry.

Why the case matters

The Warhorse story stands out against typical discussions about AI in games in that the connection between automation and layoff is formulated here in the starkest terms. Usually companies talk about "accelerating pipelines," "supporting teams," or "experimenting with tools," without linking this to the replacement of specific people. Here, this connection was barely masked: translation and editing were to be handed over to a system, and the human role removed.

The context is also telling. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 director Daniel Vavra has long publicly supported the use of AI in game development. Against this backdrop, the layoff of a localization employee looks not like an isolated incident, but a continuation of the studio's broader push toward wider automation. Meanwhile, the game itself has already become a major commercial project: since its release in February 2025, it has received three story expansions and sold approximately 5 million copies.

This story raises several practical questions for the industry right away:

• localization is becoming one of the first areas where companies are trying to quickly cut costs through AI;
• even for successful and large projects, human editing no longer looks like a protected role;
• for players, the risk is not just job loss, but degradation of text quality, humor, context, and cultural nuances;
• for studios, saving on translation could result in reputation damage if the audience notices declining localization quality.

It remains unknown how deeply Warhorse actually automates the entire process and whether the team will retain human review of final texts. But the very fact of such a decision already sets an unpleasant precedent: if a AAA game's localization can officially be handed over to generative AI, then a similar scenario will quickly appear in other studios, especially where translation is viewed as an expense rather than part of an authored product.

What this means

The Warhorse case shows that generative AI in the gaming industry has moved from the status of a supplementary tool to the direct replacement of individual specialists. For the market, this is a signal: the next big discussion will not be about whether AI can be used in game development, but about where the line lies between automation and loss of quality.