Graudentum

📍 Grudziądz, Poland (PL)

🏷️ Video Games

The Story of Graudentum

Graudentum did not begin as “an idea for a game.”
It grew out of a passion and a need to show something that is still missing in games.

Some time ago, I decided to attempt something few projects try to do seriously:
to create a medieval world based on real geography, without magic, dragons, or shortcuts.

Not a fragment of a map.
Not locations “inspired by history.”
420 square kilometers of the real world, recreated at game scale.

Cities stand where they once stood.
Rivers flow where they still flow today.
Roads lead where they actually led.

Graudentum does not tell the story of the world —
it is the world.

Where the Name Comes From

Graudentum is not a fictional name.

It is a historical name of a real city that still exists today —
despite wars, shifting borders, political systems, and decades of communism.

Languages changed.
Administrations changed.
Names on maps changed.
The place itself endured.

The name comes from the era Graudentum aims to portray —
a time when cities were not decorations, but anchors of trade, power, labor, and daily life.

The game does not tell the story of one city.
But this city is its symbolic beginning.

The World Comes First

In Graudentum, the world is the priority.

It is not a backdrop for quests, nor a stage for scripted events.
It is a space meant for exploration, observation, and experience — at your own pace.

The protagonist’s storyline exists to guide the player through the world, not to dominate it.
This is not a tale of a chosen hero, but of a person living within the realities of the era.

The narrative reveals how the world functions:
daily life, social structures, work, travel, risk, and consequences.

Graudentum does not tell a legend.
It allows you to understand where you are and how that world works.

Story and Freedom

The entire main storyline is fully planned from beginning to end.
So are its continuations.

From the design stage, at least two story-driven DLCs are planned, organically connected to the world.

At the same time, Graudentum does not require full focus on the story to be meaningful.
You can follow it closely.
You can pause it.
You can treat it as a reference point rather than a goal.

The world exists whether or not you are currently advancing the narrative.

What Already Exists

Most importantly: this is not an idea on a napkin.

The world map is designed and prepared.
Key locations are planned.
Core systems are thought through and documented.
Environmental assets exist and are ready to be used.

This project is waiting for assembly, refinement, optimization, and polish —
not for its first step.

Platforms and Technical Approach

The first target platform for Graudentum will be PC.

This is a deliberate decision.
PC allows the world to be built first in its full scale and quality, without designing around hardware limitations from the start.

Many projects do the opposite —
they begin with a simplified version and try to improve it later.

Graudentum takes a different approach.

First, the world is created as it should be.
Only later — once the project proves itself — will work begin on optimization and adaptation for consoles.

Planned console platforms:

PlayStation

Xbox

These will not be cut-down versions, but carefully optimized adaptations, respecting console limitations without compromising the foundations of the world.

Why Kickstarter

This project did not stall because of a lack of vision.
It did not stall because of a lack of work.
It did not stall because of a lack of commitment.

The limitations are development hardware and time.

The current setup cannot efficiently handle the process of assembling and testing a world of this scale.
Each iteration becomes a fight with development performance instead of actual game development.

It is important to be clear:
this does not reflect the final system requirements for players.
Thanks to technical assumptions and optimization, player requirements will be significantly lower than those of the production environment.

I am not looking for a massive team.
I am not looking for a publisher to simplify the project to make it “safer.”

What I need is:

some funding to support the technical side,

a lot of time to do it properly,

even more time to avoid shortcuts.

What Graudentum Is Not

Graudentum is not fantasy.
There is no magic, no dragons, no supernatural systems.

It is also not a dry historical reconstruction.
It is a living world, where history exists through architecture, routes, labor, and daily rhythm.

And it is not a promise to be everything for everyone.
This is a project made either seriously, or not at all.

FAQ

Isn’t 420 km² too large for a single game?

It is large — intentionally.
This world is not filled with “activities every few meters.”
Its scale reflects real geography, real distances, and the pace of medieval life.

Do I have to follow the main story?

No.
The story guides you through the world and helps you understand it, but it is not mandatory.
Graudentum can be experienced through exploration and observation alone.

How historically accurate is the game?

It aims to be grounded in the realities of the period.
No magic, no fantasy systems, no artificial simplifications.

Is this a single-player game?

Yes.
Graudentum is designed as a single-player experience.

Are expansions planned?

Yes.
From the start, at least two story-focused DLCs are planned, expanding the world rather than completing it.

Will the game come to consoles?

Yes — after the PC release and proper optimization.
PlayStation and Xbox are planned, without compromising the PC version.

What will the system requirements be?

Final player requirements will be significantly lower than development requirements.
Optimization is a core part of the project.

Is this realistic for Kickstarter?

Yes — because Graudentum already exists as a designed world and project.
Kickstarter is meant to help finish it, not to start it.

Why Trust This Project

Graudentum already exists — just not yet in a form that can be reduced to a flashy trailer.

Kickstarter is not the beginning.
It is the moment when this world can finally be completed.

If you believe games can be slower, larger, and more deliberate,
if you want a world that is discovered, not consumed —

you are exactly where you should be.