The Witcher series could look very different today: CD Projekt Red reveals that we almost played a character of our own instead of Geralt of Riva in the first installment
The story of the Witcher Geralt of Riva was told to an end in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (for now). Accordingly, the next Witcher game will probably focus on a new playable character – we’d like to see Ciri, after all. But even the first The Witcher from 2007 almost did without Geralt as a character, as CD Projekt Red revealed at the first WitcherCon.
The Witcher … but without Geralt as hero?
Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine The Witcher without Geralt in the spotlight: the “White Wolf” has been a household name even for those who have never touched a Witcher game, at least since Henry Cavill’s casting for the Netflix series. But even before that, the popularity of Wild Hunt, Geralt’s guest appearances in other games, and of course the novels by Andrzej Sapkowski ensured that many had at least heard of the Witcher.
Yet Geralt almost didn’t even become the hero of his first game. At WitcherCon 2021, quest designers Phillipp Weber and Blazej Augustynek from CD Projekt Red chatted and revealed that The Witcher from 2007 almost looked completely different – that would have definitely influenced The Witcher success story.
According to them, instead of Geralt, we would have played a freely-creatable character – at least that was the plan during an early stage of development. While Weber and Augustynek talked about this during the presentation, a short clip shows how the first Witcher could have looked like under these circumstances:
The Witcher is still about “the” Witcher
Why we played Geralt after all: It’s obvious that things turned out quite differently after all: in The Witcher, we slip into the wizard armor of Geralt von Riva for the first time, experience his adventures and get to know his friends and enemies from Sapkowski’s novels. According to Phillipp Weber, this is simply thanks to the role-playing game’s title:
“In the first few years [of development], we tried our hand at letting players create their own “Witcher” to explore new realms. But then the question kept coming up: The game is called The Witcher. And I think at some point each of us realized that we wanted to be Geralt of Rivia – that is, “the” Witcher.”
How the sequels to The Witcher Assassins of Kings or Wild Hunt would look if we never played Geralt in the first part thus remains an exciting question. Without a doubt, the White Wolf has not only conquered the hearts of video game fans to this day, but it is impossible to imagine modern pop culture without him.
Thus, he appears not only in books and comics, but also in comic books, TV series, fan films and elaborate cosplay photos, while Geralt figures adorn the shelves or clothes of fans who enjoy the raspy voices of Doug Cockle and Henry Cavill.
This is what’s next for the Witcher gamesThe next-gen upgrade for The Witcher 3 is still scheduled for release in 2021. And that will not only bring upgraded graphics, but also several free DLCs.
It is already known that a new game from the Witcher universe will be released after The Witcher 3. However, it will not be a “Witcher 4” in the classic sense – instead of Geralt, we will probably get a new playable character. There are no details about this yet, at the moment CD Projekt Red is probably still busy with Cyberpunk 2077 anyway.
