Andrzej Sapkowski, whose Witcher stories the games adapt, at Lucca Comics & Games 2015. Photo Niccolò Caranti, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
What it took directly
- statedThe Witcher games (CD Projekt Red) took from Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher stories, as what he calls a free adaptation"The game is a free adaptation containing elements of my work; an adaptation created by different authors," Andrzej Sapkowski, to Eurogamer (quoted by Emily Gera, Polygon, November 2012)
- statedThe Witcher games (CD Projekt Red) took from the architecture of medieval rural Poland"For the first time in an RPG, we have depicted medieval, rural Poland – the local architecture and structures." Marcin Iwiński, CD Projekt co-founder, to Chris Suellentrop, Glixel (March 2017)
- statedSkellige and Novigrad (regions of The Witcher 3) took from Scandinavia, and Amsterdam or Gdańsk on the Baltic"And then I get to Novigrad, and it's more like an Amsterdam or maybe a little bit of Gdansk, the city in the north of Poland on the Baltic seaside. And then I get to Skellige, and there's no doubt it's Scandinavia." Marcin Iwiński, to Glixel (2017)
- documentedThe Witcher 3's soundtrack took from Percival, a Polish band playing replica medieval instruments and old Slavic melodies"Percival is a Polish band that plays on reconstructions or replicas of medieval instruments. Not only do they perform their own compositions but also old Slavic melodies," Peter F. Ebbinghaus, BehindTheAudio (September 2015), from an interview with music director Marcin Przybyłowicz
- statedCD Projekt's decision to make its own game (The Witcher, its first) took from the success of its Polish localization of Baldur's Gate"At the same time, Baldur's Gate also sparked, "Hey, we really want to have our own game."" Marcin Iwiński, to Glixel (2017)
What it learned to do
- statedThe Witcher 3's combat learned from Dark Souls"I love it, ours is similar in fact. Responsive, fast. Big influence for sure." Damien Monnier, senior game designer, on Twitter (quoted by the Daily Express, March 2015)
- statedThe Witcher 3's open world learned from its quests: the quest content set the size of the world, and every level was placed by hand"For the most part, the quest content dictated the size of the world, not the other way around," Miles Tost, level designer, to Patrick Klepek, Kotaku (October 2015)
- statedCD Projekt (Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński) learned from Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk of BioWare, the makers of Baldur's Gate"We were fascinated with RPGs. That's how we met Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk from BioWare, who were our role models." Marcin Iwiński, to Glixel (2017)
- inferredThe Witcher 3's writing (scripted in Polish and English at once) learned from CD Projekt's years localizing other studios' role-playing games into Polish"The game was written, in parallel, in Polish and in English." inferred — Iwiński describes both the localization years and the parallel-language script, but does not draw the line between them himself
The tradition it sits in
- statedThe Witcher games' morally grey characters answered Baldur's Gate's clear-cut villain, Sarevok"We thought, hey, that's great, but let's add a new flavor to it: more ambiguous, more complex characters who are more real because they remind us of ourselves." Marcin Iwiński, to Glixel (2017)
- statedThe Witcher series comes from Eastern and Western European folk tales, as Sapkowski took them apart and rebuilt them"In The Witcher, I think it more comes from our history and folk tales, because that's what Andrzej Sapkowski was inspired by. He's taking a lot of Eastern European folk tales – and Western ones as well – and deconstructing them and then rebuilding them." Marcin Iwiński, to Glixel (2017)
- documentedThe Witcher 3 comes from Gothic (2001) and Gothic 2, whose villagers kept their own daily schedules"Both games featured non-player characters with their own schedules, and many other subtle features that were an inspiration to the team at CD Projekt Red." Charlie Hall, Polygon (February 2018), on a Polish documentary by the History of Khorinis channel
- statedThe Witcher 3's score comes from folk music, in place of The Witcher 2's blockbuster sound"we decided that we wanted to skip the blockbuster sound we had in The Witcher 2 and instead we wanted to explore the Folk area." Marcin Przybyłowicz, music director, to BehindTheAudio (2015)
Where the whole form comes from
- statedThe tragedy in The Witcher 3's side quests comes from Eastern European history as families carry it: Iwiński's grandmother escaped a Nazi transport in the Second World War"our history has taken its toll. And it's reflected in our literature, in our cinema, and in what you're taught as kids. My grandmother survived the Second World War. She escaped a Nazi transport and they hid in villages for a couple of months." Marcin Iwiński, to Glixel (2017)
- statedCD Projekt comes from the weekend computer market in Warsaw in the early 1990s, where fans bought hardware and swapped games"On the weekends, we started going to the computer market in Warsaw. Passionate fans of computers gathered to buy hardware and swap games." Marcin Iwiński, to Glixel (2017)
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