The Witcher (video game) — BrandWiki

The Witcher (video game)

title	The Witcher
developer	CD Projekt Red
publisher	CEE: CD Projekt NA/EU/AS/AU: Atari
director	Jacek Brzeziński
producer	Maciej Miąsik
designer	Michał Madej
programmer	Maciej Siniło
artist	Adam Badowski
writer	Artur Ganszyniec Sebastian Stępień Marcin Blacha
composer	Adam Skorupa Paweł Blaszczak
series	The Witcher
engine	Aurora Engine
platforms	Windows, OS X
released	EU: 26 October 2007 NA: 30 October 2007 AUS: 9 November 2007 Enhanced EditionWindows NA: 16 September 2008 EU: 19 September 2008 AUS: 30 September 2008 OS X 5 April 2012
genre	Action role-playing
modes	Single-player

The Witcher is a 2007 action role-playing game developed by CD Projekt Red for Windows and OS X. It was based on the fantasy novel series The Witcher by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The game's story takes place after the events of the main saga.[1]

It received positive reviews from critics. A console version, The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf, was scheduled for release in 2009 using an entirely new engine and combat system. This was suspended as a result of payment problems with console developers Widescreen Games. A sequel, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, was released in 2011.

A remake of The Witcher was announced in October 2022, which was formerly first teased under the codename "Canis Majoris". Entitled The Witcher Remake, it will be developed using Unreal Engine 5, the same engine in use for the planned second trilogy. Fool's Theory will mainly develop the remake with full creative supervision from The Witcher series staff and CD Projekt Red.

Gameplay

There are three camera styles available in The Witcher: two isometric perspectives, where the mouse is used to control most functions, and an over-the-shoulder view, which brings the player closer to the in-game combat while limiting vision.

Plot

Setting and characters

Set in the Continent of the Witcher franchise, the player assumes the role of Geralt of Rivia, a wandering genetically enhanced monster hunter for hire. The game takes place around five years after the events of The Lady of the Lake. Geralt is accompanied by his longtime allies and fellow witchers, Eskel, Lambert, and instructor Vesemir, as well as sorceress Triss Merigold of Maribor and the field medic Shani. In addition, characters in the game originally from the books include Geralt's companions Dandelion the poet, the dwarf Zoltan Chivay, King Foltest of Temeria, his daughter Princess Adda (who was previously cursed into the form of a striga, but was cured by Geralt), King Radovid of Redania, and the spectral King of the Wild Hunt, a conqueror from another world. Characters original to the game include the boy Alvin, the sorcerer Azar Javed, the mercenary Professor, and Jacques de Alderberg, the Grand Master of the religious faction Order of the Flaming Rose.

Plot

Geralt awakens at the School of the Wolf's mountain fortress Kaer Morhen, with no memory of who he is or how he arrived there. He is taken in by his witcher brothers as well as Triss Merigold, who seeks a remedy for his mysterious condition. Kaer Morhen is suddenly attacked by an unknown group of assailants, who escape with the School of the Wolf's key mutagens and formulae that detail how to create witchers. Pursuing this faction, Geralt travels to the Temerian capital Vizima. On the way, he saves Alvin, a magically gifted peasant child. Triss determines that Alvin is a Source, a genetic magic prodigy similar to Ciri, Geralt's foster daughter. The player has the choice of leaving Alvin in the care of either Triss or Shani, a Redanian medic and Geralt's friend. Alvin is given a magical amulet meant to keep his abilities in check while he learns magic.

Geralt pursues several leads on the group which attacked Kaer Morhen and learns that they are known as Salamandra, and ostensibly led by the foreign mage Azar Javed. To further complicate matters, tensions are high in the city due to the conflict between the religious fanatics the Order of the Flaming Rose, and the elven terrorist faction the Scoia'tael. With the help of various allies in Vizima, Geralt assaults a Salamandra base in Vizima and kills the Professor, a dangerous mercenary in the employ of the criminal syndicate, but is then betrayed by Princess Adda and is teleported to a village on the outskirts of the city by Triss. The previously peaceful hamlet becomes a battleground when armed conflict breaks out between the Order of the Flaming Rose and the Scoia'tael. Geralt is forced to choose to support either faction, or make enemies of them both. Alvin is frightened and, using his Source abilities, magically disappears.

When Geralt returns to Vizima, he finds that Temeria's regent King Foltest has also returned while Adda has relapsed in her curse and is in striga form once more. Under Foltest's direction, Geralt either assists the knights or the elves to restore order to the city as well as deals with Adda. Geralt then storms the Salamandra headquarters and kills Azar Javed, only to find that the gang's true leader is Jacques de Aldersberg, the Grand Master of the Order of the Flaming Rose. Foltest hires Geralt under a contract to slay Jacques to end the Salamandra threat. Geralt confronts Jacques, who explains that due to his Source abilities he has seen the eventual extinction of humanity because of the world-ending White Frost, and was attempting to engineer a genetically enhanced superior race of humans to survive this apocalypse. Geralt is also confronted by the King of the Wild Hunt, who warns him of an impending conflict.

After Geralt defeats and slays Jacques, he notices the Grand Master was wearing the same amulet as Alvin, revealing that de Aldersberg was actually the village boy he saved earlier, who traveled back in time by accident. After Geralt returns to Foltest with news of his success, the king is attacked by an assassin. Geralt defeats the assassin, who is revealed to be another Witcher.

Development

Before CD Projekt's involvement, Metropolis Software (which CD Projekt bought in 2009 and closed in 2010) had obtained a license from Andrzej Sapkowski for his novels in The Witcher series, around 1997.[2] However, due to several other projects that the studio was involved in at the time, and concerns from their publisher TopWare about the materials' international appeal, the project never got further than some initial media and a playable level.[3]

CD Projekt later approached Sapkowski for rights for the series. They were able to secure the rights for about 35,000 zloty (approximately US$9500) from Sapkowski, who wanted all the payment upfront, rather than through royalties, even though these were offered to him. In a 2017 interview, Sapkowski said that at the time he had no interest in video games, and was only looking at the deal from a financial benefit standpoint.[4]

The developers cited the Gothic series of role-playing games as a primary influence. CD Project had localized and published Gothic (released in Poland in 2002) and Gothic II (in 2003) in Poland. Both games as well as Gothic 3 (released in 2006) became very popular in Poland and therefore a success for CD Project as a regional publisher of said games. CD Project received Business Gazelle awards in 2003 and 2004.[5][6]

Game engine

The Witcher is powered by a modified version of the Aurora Engine by BioWare, but using its own rendering engine.[7] optimized heavily for the game's singleplayer requirements. Many changes have been introduced to the original engine; some of them are described below.

One of the most important changes to the Aurora Engine involved developing the in-game environments in 3ds Max and then exporting them into the game engine, rather than using a tile-based system. This allowed the developers to make every environment unique from the others, rather than recycling the same tiled objects over and over again in different environments. CD Projekt's version of the engine also supports lightmaps generated in 3ds Max. Shadows created this way are reported to look more realistic, and provide better game performance.

The modified engine also includes texture paint, a special tool that allows the developer to paint the environment using custom textures. New realistic skyboxes and water effects designed specifically for The Witcher were added to the engine. Natural light during various phases of the day is realistically altered, and the day and night transitions serve to enrich the game's ambiance. The weather can dynamically change between various states, such as clear skies, light rainfall or thunderstorms.

Other significant changes include motion-captured animation, improved physics modeling, new mechanics, and a new combat system. Additional modifications include the introduction of portals and the inclusion of other graphical effects, such as glows, advanced dynamic shadows, blurs and others.

Enhanced Edition

At Game Developers Conference 2008, CD Projekt Red announced an enhanced version of the game, which was released on 16 September 2008. The significant changes featured in the enhanced version are over 200 new animations, additional NPC models, and recoloring of generic NPC models as well as monsters, vastly expanded and corrected dialogues in translated versions, improved stability, redesigned inventory system and load times reduced by roughly 80%. In addition, all bugs are said to be fixed, and the game manual completely overhauled. There are also two new adventures available to play through: Side Effects and The Price of Neutrality. A new option is to set the language of the voice acting and text separately. For instance, players can now choose to play the game with Polish voices and English subtitles. Other featured languages are Russian, Italian, French, Spanish, German, Czech, Hungarian, and Chinese.

Aside from the game enhancements, The Witcher Enhanced Edition includes a "making of" DVD, a CD with 29 in-game soundtracks, another CD with "Inspired by" music, the short story The Witcher from the book The Last Wish, a map of Temeria printed on high-quality paper, and the official strategy guide. In addition, a new and enhanced version of the D'jinni Adventure Editor is on the DVD with the two new Adventures. The game updates, as well as the box's extras, are available as a free download for owners of the original version who registered their game on the official forum. Furthermore, old savegames are compatible with the Enhanced Edition.

According to CD Projekt co-founder Michal Kicinski, the Enhanced Edition required a $1 million investment, and the company had shipped 300,000 copies of the retail version worldwide as of December 2008.[10]

CD Projekt released a Director's Cut version of the game in North America on 31 July 2009. It is equal to the Enhanced Edition available to the rest of the world, but without the censorship applied to the North American version. The company has since released an official uncensoring patch that makes the North American version the same as the international for those who have purchased a boxed version of the game.