Daniel Vávra, co-founder of Warhorse Studios and the creative force behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, has publicly backed Nvidia's DLSS 5 technology, even as developers across the industry line up to criticize it. His comments landed on March 23 via a post on X, positioning him as one of the very few voices in games willing to defend the tech right now.
Why the industry is already turning on DLSS 5
The backlash against DLSS 5 has been swift and pointed. Game developers who spoke publicly about the tech described its AI-generated output in terms that are not exactly flattering. The core complaint is that DLSS 5's generative AI component doesn't just upscale existing frames, it redraws them, producing faces and surfaces that look like they've been passed through a social media beauty filter. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang claimed the tech could preserve artistic intent, but the company's own follow-up messaging seemed to contradict that framing, and the gaming community noticed.
Here's the thing: DLSS in its earlier forms was genuinely well-regarded. It let players run games at higher visual fidelity on mid-range hardware without meaningful quality loss. That goodwill makes the DLSS 5 situation feel like a bait-and-switch to a lot of people watching.
What Vávra actually said
Vávra's take is essentially a bet on the future rather than a defense of what DLSS 5 does right now. "I can imagine in the future devs will be able to train this tech for particular art style or specific people faces and it might replace expensive raytracing etc.," he wrote. "This is just a little uncanny beginning. No way haters will stop this. It's way more than a soap opera effect every tv has when you turn motion smoothing on."
The soap opera comparison is a fair reference point. Motion smoothing on consumer TVs has been widely disliked by filmmakers and cinephiles for years because it strips away the cinematic quality of footage shot at 24 frames per second. Vávra is arguing DLSS 5 isn't that bad. What most players miss in his argument, though, is that he's not really defending what DLSS 5 currently produces. He's defending the direction.
danger
Vávra's comments reflect a personal position and do not represent an official Warhorse Studios statement on DLSS 5 integration in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.
KCD2 title screen UI
The company he's keeping
Vávra isn't entirely alone in brushing off criticism of AI-assisted game tech. Former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra recently told Crimson Desert developers Pearl Abyss to "man up" after the studio apologized for using low-quality generative AI art in their game. The pattern here is notable: a small cluster of industry figures defending AI integration while the broader developer community pushes back hard.
The key here is that defending the potential of a technology is a much easier position to hold than defending its current output. Nobody can prove that DLSS 5 won't improve. But right now, players and developers are reacting to what's in front of them, not a theoretical future build.
For players following Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 closely, you can track official news from Deep Silver and Warhorse to see whether DLSS 5 becomes part of the game's tech stack going forward. The conversation around generative AI in graphics is accelerating fast, and Vávra's comments suggest Warhorse is at least watching it closely. Make sure to check out more:
