This May, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt turned 11 years old. In honor of this celebration, quest designer Paweł Sasko decided to share memories of working on the game and his first encounter with the project:
It's February 2012. A former factory in Warsaw. Red brick, wooden folding chairs, the smell of an old building. There are about 80 of us — the team that just released The Witcher 2. The lights go out. The game director and executive producer briefly talk about the new game we are going to make. A few phrases change the atmosphere in the room: the next game will be open-world. At the end, one image is shown on the screen — it's Geralt, but older, with a beard.
The script gradually grew, and at a certain point, it was time for the Battle of Kaer Morhen. According to Paweł, his plot plan at that time was “only two paragraphs.”
His idea of killing one of the game's key characters truly surprised his colleagues. According to the developer, they couldn't even answer him for some time:
At the meeting, I suggest killing Vesemir. The first reaction is wide eyes and silence. But this is exactly the “weight” this act needs. Ciri's surge, the moment she throws off the Wild Hunt, requires her to first have the ground knocked out from under her. I prototype meteors, rifts opening in the forest from which the Wild Hunt bursts out, a ride back to the fortress. A lot doesn't work. Technical problems arise. Feedback on the quest is negative, and I redo everything. Gradually, the pieces start to come together and I begin to understand why something works and something doesn't. Through repetition, I truly master my craft.
Currently, Paweł Sasko is working on Cyberpunk 2 — he has become the project's game director.
CD Projekt RED has not yet announced a DLC for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt about Ciri, but there is a fan-made mod-DLC. A major update with various improvements and full voice acting is currently being developed for it.