The Witcher - August 2007 Interview

Editorials

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Reviewer:

Article Publish Date:

8/24/2007

One of my main reasons for attending Gen Con in Indianapolis last week was a chance to take a look at The Witcher, an upcoming RPG from CDProjekt. The game, which uses a heavily modified version of the BioWare’s Aurora engine, will hit shelves in late October. Last year we posted an interview with Michal Madej, a chief designer of the game, and, since we knew that he was going to be at the show, I was determined to talk to him in between playing sessions.

It was difficult to focus on anything but the game, and I could be seen loitering by The Witcher booth for the entire duration of the show. At one point, I did remember that I had a duty to our readers, and grabbed Michal, asking him to answer a few questions for me. We ended up talking for a considerable chunk of time, and I learned a lot of good stuff that I can’t wait to share with you.

A lot has happened since the last time Michal spoke with us. For example, CDProjekt had found a publisher (Atari), announced a release date, and even had their own delay, which no good game should go without. For my first question I asked about how the development team feels now that the game is so close to completion.

Michal told me that they feel “great relief” because during the development cycle there were many things that they were really afraid of. One such fear was localization and translation into many different languages. Another, and probably the biggest, was the fear of being unable to make a game that will remain interesting for its entire duration of 60+ hours. Fortunately these are no longer a concern: the translation to English, according to Michal, is excellent. When The Witcher was shown in Britain, everyone appeared to be greatly impressed with the language of the game. Same goes for gameplay. Those who played it from start to finish had generally used words such as “captivating” to describe it. At this point the team is exhausted, and there is much work yet to be done, but they are no longer afraid.

Michal Madej

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