“We’re not suddenly making up stuff just because we want to.”
The Witcher 4is real, and it’s actually called The Witcher 4.
There are all kinds of questions still hanging for fans.
Which ending was canon?
How do you drop such a powerful character like Ciri into the early steps of an RPG?
Below is a full transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity.
This is something that we want to reveal later.
Can you talk about how many years after The Witcher 3 we are here?
And yeah, I would keep it at that.
Weber:Yeah, a few years, basically.
Kalemba:A few years.
[laughs]
A few years, okay.
You mentioned Andrzej Sapkowski - what does his involvement look like with The Witcher 4?
Kalemba:Actually, he’s hands off.
So we meet with Andrzej Sapkowski from time to time, discuss things.
But generally, there is a great trust between us when it comes to dealing with this world.
And I believe we are perfectly calibrated when it comes to the framing.
I think for everyone.
Kalemba:Yeah, he simply enjoyed [seeing what CDPR was making].
Does he ‘approve’ of Ciri being a fully fledged witcher?
Has he explicitly said, say, ‘yes, that’s absolutely fine’?
So I think that basically says what Andrzej Sapkowski thinks about the topic.
What do you make of that response so far?
Do you feel like that was inevitable?
We really want to take these things seriously.
And I think - I hope - we can then convince them with the game itself.
Because I think actions speak louder than words.
Kalemba:Yeah, well said.
And, you know, we’ve started with the second protagonist already in The Wild Hunt.
And so there was already a tease.
So we really [are] all about making sure such calls are very educated calls.
The creatures were a bit different, right?
We talked very briefly about this idea of making your own character.
What was behind that decision to stick with a known character here that you’re playing as?
So as an example, Geralt was very, very experienced already.
He went through so many things.
And Ciri still has to make many of those experiences.
She has to go through so many of these things.
Obviously, we know he’s alive and in the game, in some form.
Will he be playable at any point, like Ciri was in The Witcher 3?
And, you know, playing with some wine, and dealing with vineyards.
This is where we left him last time.
But yeah, he will appear.
He’s going to be present in The Witcher 4.
Is that an intentional theme that you were channeling with the trailer?
I think it’s something that has always been really important.
We make games for adults, and it also means that we tackle some difficult topics.
We tackle them in interesting ways.
We tackle them without giving easy answers, but often opening difficult questions that players have to answer.
Like she’s one of the more powerful entities in the world at that time.
How are you trying to handle that?
Can we expect a low power Ciri at the start of this?
Kalemba:No, we cannot tell you exactly how.
And the answer we’ll provide for sure, as soon as we let you experience the game.
Have you felt a need to evolve your approach to open worlds with The Witcher?
Or are you sticking with: ‘this is what we believe it should be’.
Weber:I would say both.
So as an example, we want to stick with the things that we know we do well.
So we don’t want to break what really works.
But at the same time, we want to improve and evolve our games with every game.
And I think we take inspiration basically from everywhere.
And I think that’s what we want to do.
And currently we’re working on Unreal Engine 5 and our custom build.
And obviously we want to support all the platforms - meaning PC, Xbox and Sony, right?
- but I cannot, right now, tell you more specifics regarding that.
That’s my opinion: it’s a good benchmark.
