Dan Vávra


Daniel Vávra is a Czech video game writer, director, designer and co-founder of Warhorse Studios. He is best known as one of the creators of action video games Mafia and Mafia II and the medieval role-playing game .

Biography

Daniel Vávra was born in Rychnov nad Kněžnou, before moving to Prague. He has partial Jewish ancestry. Since childhood, Vávra has enjoyed working with computers, drawing comics, and taking photos. He studied at the School of Applied Arts in Turnov and started his career as a graphic designer at advertising company TIPA. He has written numerous articles for the Czech gaming magazine Level and other gaming magazines, and is also a passionate player of paintball. He was also an active demoscener, under the pseudonym Hellboy, as part of the group Broncs.

Illusion Softworks/2K Czech

In 1998, Vávra joined Illusion Softworks as a 2D artist. His first project was Hidden and Dangerous, for which he created some textures. His next project was the highly acclaimed , for which he was the lead designer, screenwriter and director. He later became the leading figure of Illusion Softworks's Prague subsidiary, and also worked on Wings of War, released in 2004. Around 2005, he worked on another project, a third-person shooter game Hi-Tech, but it was cancelled. His last project for Illusion Softworks was Mafia II. He left the studio in 2009.

Warhorse Studios

In 2011, Vávra co-founded Warhorse Studios. He is currently working on , a role-playing video game that uses Cry Engine 3 set in a medieval-themed open world environment. The game was set to be delivered in 2015 through episodic iterations, and was successfully funded via Kickstarter. Repeatedly delayed, the game was eventually released in 2018, with more promised content released since then.

Political views

He has been a vocal critic of censorship and what he believes is a progressive bias in video games journalism, in which he claims that it falsely accuses the gaming community of sexism. Vavra associated his views on a progressive bias in video game journalism while using the protest hashtag #GamerGate.
In 2012, Vávra led a protest against the arrest of Ivan Buchta and Martin Pezlar, Bohemia Interactive Arma 3 developers arrested during their holiday on the Greek island Lemnos. The protest was held outside the Greek embassy in Prague.

Video games