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From playing Croco and Wolfenstein to reviewing the strangest games of today. Duklock is now one of the most famous Slovak gamers and streamers, but he still sees games mainly as entertainment. In the interview, he talks about what World of Warcraft taught him, how Death Stranding 2 impressed him, why he hates sloppy details, and what he thinks about Vivat Slovakia? Read on!

How are you?
I'm alive, haha. But no, I'm fine.

What are you most interested in now?
We're moving the studio and the apartment, so to speak, and at the same time we're fighting with the qvapka...like with my brand, so there's enough of that.

And in terms of production?
In terms of production, I'm currently editing a video about Death Stranding, and we also shot four videos of an alcoholic nature yesterday, so that's about it, haha.

Do you remember the very first game that got you?
The first one that left an impression on me that I was scared like crazy was Return to Castle Wolfenstein. It's just Wolfenstein from World War II, where you have to kill n*cks and it's all in a very bad atmosphere. I was like 4 years old and I had it on, haha. That definitely left an impression on me. But the first game I remember playing, finishing, and playing over and over again was Croc. It was a crocodile that collected diamonds...and then I went shooting n*cks. Just childhood.

Was Croc the game that got you into the world of gaming?
Definitely. It was definitely one of the first ones, and maybe even the very first.

Which game took the most hours of your life?
That would be World of Warcraft. It took so much of our lives. I've been playing the game for about 14 years, realistically. I don't even want to know how many pure game teams there are, it must be thousands of hours. I would say that it's definitely 4,000-5,000 hours, even more.

What is the biggest difference for you between playing by yourself and when people are watching you? Do you have a split?
I do. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, because it's a problem to balance it so that I don't bore the viewer. Because when someone plays by themselves, you sit and just enjoy the world, but most of the time when I play those games on stream, I try to make a show out of it. That's why I usually play stupid things that I wouldn't play myself, and conversely, what I play by myself, I would never play on stream. The difference is very difficult to describe, but it has to be there, because there has to be some added thing when it's for the audience, some kind of show, something funny, something entertaining or something atmospheric.

If you had to compile a ranking of the TOP 3 games you've played, what would they be?
Wow, I've been putting 28 years together in one ranking? If I were to take it as the TOP 3 games that everyone must play, then the top one is definitely Uncharted 4. That's a game that you'll enjoy as a little kid, as an old lady. It's just a classic Tomb Raider movie, only with a guy and it's really, really good. Next, I would put The Witcher 3. That's also a game that I think everyone can enjoy if they give it time.

And if I had to choose one more, then Minecraft, everyone must play it. In my opinion, there is really no person who hates Minecraft. But there are many niche games that would surprise a person that they are really good, but you wouldn't expect it, but I don't know if I will put them in the ranking. For example, the one that sticks in my mind now is the game Peak, where you just take your friends, you just have to climb to the top and help each other, and that is the most fun I have had in the last three months.

Do you see playing games more as work or more as fun?
Probably more as fun, because I still play even when I'm not streaming. I had a period when I didn't really play games at all and I just edited videos and did something, but now I find it relaxing. So more fun, for sure.

So you haven't burned out on gaming in that work mode, for example.
Definitely not from games.

Do you still encounter prejudices against gamers or against playing games?
I'm the type of person who tries to break down those prejudices, because the entire video game industry currently has the most money out of all entertainment areas. When you combine the finances that are in books, movies, and music, it's not nearly as much as gaming has. Thanks to gaming, so many new jobs and positions have been created. Now, even series are being created based on games. And I think that's something that's starting to break down those prejudices a little bit.

If you had to have one gaming skill in real life, what would it be?
I've thought about that a few times, what would be good. I would be a Mage from WoW, because that's a character who can create food out of thin air, can create a portal to wherever he needs, fire, electricity, water, and you can do all of this.

Is there anything that games have taught you?
In English, for sure. And a lot of those games are now cinematic, so definitely some kind of editing style in some things. For example, I know of a kind of cut that was in a cut scene in a game, and it's funnier on basic things - you say a sentence that's completely basic, but when you cut it well, it's funnier. Certainly some dramaturgy, maybe even music. I also started composing some music as part of my hobby, because even those video game soundtracks are really brutal, what those people can compose. And I think that my reflexes are somehow still there or my hand-eye coordination is okay.

If you had to create a game exactly according to your ideas, what would it look like?
Well, I have no idea. It seems to me that someone who creates a game that is successful globally must be a total lunatic. I can't even imagine how I would create a game that would be fun. I definitely have some concepts in my head that I like. I could probably imagine making a horror movie because I know what works for me and I think it would work for people, but I don't know what the perfect horror movie would be. But I would make a VR game and it would definitely be a story game, but with the fact that you wouldn't be able to sleep for a few days afterwards.

We can move on to questions about Death Stranding 2.
And now, they're going to explain the whole story to me and I'm like, no, haha.

How did this game impress you?
I love this game. It's a game from a weird guy who makes weird games, and this is his best weird game he's ever made. This is the easiest way to describe it for someone who doesn't know what it's about.

And how is this game different from others?
You feel like you're in a movie the whole time, but you're also playing a game. It's not like Detroit Become Human, where you just have cut scenes and tap. In fact, the characters are brutal too, just the weird atmosphere of this post-apocalyptic world, which isn't actually post-apocalyptic at all, is so incredibly weird that I can't even explain it. It's such a good weirdness. When you play it, everything is weird, but at the same time you understand everything. But until you play it, you're completely out of it and you're like, why are those people barefoot, why are they crying even when they're not, and what's going on? “, well that's just Kojima.

So when you play it, it makes sense to you, but that second one is complete nonsense. They introduce you to new characters and one of those characters is just a guy who was so motivated by his art that he became a puppet. He actually lives in that puppet, you just hang him up, you walk around the world with him and he tells you all sorts of things...and explain it to someone who has never played such games. Or the fact that on the cover you just have a guy who has an unborn child in a container. And that's explained why he has it, but that when you only see the picture and don't play the games, you have to say that it's a good diversion.

Were there any moments that got you emotionally?
Hm emotionally...I was more carried away by some of the cut scenes and how they look. There's Elle Fanning's character and she has a fight scene like from the Avengers. I don't understand why the guy would put it in such an off-beat work that suddenly you have a fight like from a Marvel movie...that really with the music, the sound effects, the way it's cut, the motion capture, the facial expressions, it's a brutal thing. It's one of the most beautiful looking games that exists in my opinion.

Which character did you enjoy the most?
Hmm, I'm thinking. I enjoyed Rainy quite a bit, she's a good character. There's a phenomenon called time rain, and that's that when it rains, everything that the rain touches ages - flowers grow and they rot right away, or when it falls on your skin, you age. And then there's Rainy, who's actually a character who can refute this, that she'll send the rain back and make everything younger.

So, she's a good character and she was played by the actress who played Yukio in Deadpool. I also enjoyed Neil Vana, who's basically a villain, but he's not exactly a villain. Well, if I tell you this out of context, that's the worst sentence - he's a guy who smuggled half-dead women from Mexico...brain dead pregnant women. And he had this watch!

Which scene was the most bizarre in your opinion?
Well, the most bizarre in my opinion is that you are in a post-apocalyptic world where everything is in danger of being destroyed, because basically - everyone who dies, within 48 minutes it explodes and it's basically an atomic bomb, so they always have to burn everyone who dies there, otherwise they'll make a crater like crazy - so you live in this world and you're given the task of taking a crate with which you'll create a hot spring on a rock, like a natural source of some thermal water, you sit there with a container with a half-dead child, you put the guy who's actually the doll there and you start singing together. And when you look at the constellation with the camera, it makes a portrait of the game creator. And that's maybe even the less weird scene.

The weirdest one is one that can be triggered by mistake. In this game, you can ride coffins, that you make a coffin that you can hide in and ride it...believe me, it makes sense when you play it. And in that game, you can rest at any time, let it gain strength. But if you fall asleep next to that coffin, a cut scene will start where the main villain comes out of the coffin, a tentacle comes out instead of a tongue and starts licking the main character and you wake up from the nightmare. So this is something that surprised me a little.

Do you think Death Stranding 2 has a message in it?
Definitely. So the first one was about putting America back together after the apocalypse, to put it that simple. And the second one is actually a counter argument to the first one, that "should we have done this at all? Is it really good to unite all of humanity? ", and that's kind of the philosophy of Death Stranding 2 in my opinion. It's definitely something to think about.

If you had to describe this game in one sentence, what would you say?
It's probably the strangest good game you can play. You have to go into the game with an open mind, that's all I would say about it. When a person goes into it with the prejudices that they've already played FIFA or Call of Duty, they absolutely can't expect this from the game.

Do you still have prejudices against games?
I've played so many strange games that were great that I don't have any prejudices against games anymore. But I played one game now, Clair Obscur Expedition 33, which came out this year, and I had prejudices that I wouldn't enjoy it and I was pissed off about it. So I really don't have any prejudices anymore.

And if you had to tell someone who has never played the game, is it worth it?
100%. It's a good idea to play the first game first, because it's quite difficult to understand. But it's definitely worth it.

Is there anything that you, as a player and streamer, really appreciate about games?
I appreciate when games take into account everything that can be done in the game. Usually, when a game comes out, players try everything they can and basically try to fake-destruct it. For example, by making you fall under the texture or suddenly seeing that your character is stuck. I love when games take into account that you do these things and the game gives you something or rewards you for it.

For example, Nintendo does it in games, Kojima also did it in Death Stranding, GTA 5 did it in such a way that when you really explored completely outside somewhere on the map, you suddenly had a statue there that told you Good Job. I hate it when those games are so sloppy.

In the Metal Gear Solid series, Kojima touches on the topics of war, propaganda, disinformation and artificial intelligence. Are you also interested in how games are made and what message they carry?
Definitely. Kojima loved movies and was interested in the Cold War, so the entire Metal Gear series is actually an elaborate Cold War. When you just feel from that game that the artist wanted to say something specific, I really enjoy watching that, and how he came to it, how he created it. Those are brutal stories. When you're going to make a game like Death Stranding or Metal Gear, you're actually going to dedicate 5 to 7 years to something that you don't know if it's actually going to work. Those are brutal things. I can't imagine coordinating 1,000 people who will work on something for 5 years and not know if it's going to be cool.

I really appreciate the details in games. For example, with The Last of Us, when they released both the first and second installments, they released the documentary Grounded and it contains the entire process of how they made it. Everything is there, even what didn't work out. For example, the guy said, "I needed the sounds of zombies eating bloody meat, so I took it, put cheese on it to make that sizzling sound and recorded it in the office.", so I really like that.

Speaking of Last of Us, do you enjoy these series that are based on games?
Speaking of Last of Us, the second season seems terrible to me. Not so much because of Bella Ramsey, of course, it plays terribly in my opinion, but overall there is a feeling that the head director has left. When you played the game and loved the game, and I was one of them, it's terrible.

Do you do it by watching what it's about before each game?
No, I try to avoid trailers too. Most of the time, everyone puts more emphasis on marketing than the games themselves, so the trailer will tell you a lot. But for example, with Kojima, I didn't care at all, because it was clear to me that what I was seeing was completely irrelevant.

You don't even know if three-quarters of the people are alive the entire game, because Kojima does that sometimes. Metal Gear Solid 2 is actually just a VR mission and you only find out at the end. At the same time, he's a movie guy, so he did, for example, that we finished Solid 4 and the last hour and a half was actually a cut scene. That means you finish the game and watch a movie for an hour and a half to actually get the context of the entire game. He's a complete nutcase.

What do you think of the gaming industry in Slovakia?
When I compare it to the world or maybe even just to the Czechs, it's like...hm. Now Vivat Slovakia is a good example, because in my opinion it was too ambitious for such a small studio to handle. I played the beta, and when it came out, I played that too, and it's a very ambitious project, but it's so terribly broken that I'm sorry. And then you see the Czechs, who of course have bigger studios, so it can't be completely compared, but still.

For example, Kingdom Come 2 is an incredible game and it did a big promotion for the Czech Republic all over the world. I also went to look at the ruins of the castle that's in that game and there were tourists like crazy there, just because of that game. The same thing happens with the game Gray Zone Warfare, which is actually a tactical game, has military elements, looks beautiful graphically, and then you see Vivat Slovakia, which is broken and you have a promo for some brand there.

What do you think the guys did wrong? Did they set high standards for themselves?
For example, a person builds a computer for 2000€ and it fails. They also set high standards, but I think it was mainly time... that they didn't cook longer. Maybe they couldn't because they had sponsors who wanted the game out so they could get something back. It didn't bother me, but I was more sad.

Have you thought about making a game yourself?
I thought about it, but then I found out what it all entails. I opened Unity to try and there was that square in the middle and I said, bye. It was done quickly.

What are your next plans?
Well, we're going to make a new studio, so I have plans for that now. There are still a lot of games to come out this year and next year. I have to get everything done before GTA 6 comes out. So you can all look forward to the new studio. 🔥