It’s hard to imagine anyone not having faith in The Witcher 3, an RPG that has dominated the genre for the last decade. But that was the situation CD Projekt found itself in when it was trying to sell the idea to prospective partners during development.
Despite finding success with the original Witcher and its follow-up, The Witcher 3 was grander, more ambitious and certainly more expensive to put together. And not everyone was convinced a story-driven open world was going to work.
“That was the biggest challenge back then,” Adam Badowski, CD Projekt’s joint CEO, tells us. “Because you know, right now, it’s pretty obvious for us that we can combine storytelling and a cinematic experience with the open world, but back then, it was huge. I mean, for us, for the industry. And for some people, they really didn’t believe it was possible.”
The studio had already shown everyone it could craft an RPG with a strong story, but The Witcher 3 was aiming for something more. “Our offer was different,” says Badowski. “We will create something big, in the open world, but with solid and very cinematic storytelling. And some people were looking for other selling points.”
The executives Badowski was trying to convince wanted to know where The Witcher 3 differed from other games. “And they were referring to the gameplay, and our gameplay was pretty standard in The Witcher 3. It’s a combination of combat and character development, plus magic, which is kind of weak because it has to be in line with the tone of the witcher character. So in that area, it’s difficult to find something super fresh.”
Badowski found it tricky to sell people on it because it’s a tough thing to explain in a pitch, or even with a script. And it’s a big ask to get people to read a script and play both the previous games.
“I think that it’s better to inspire people than to explain it,” he says, “explain everything to the bone, because inspiration stays in your mind and triggers your personal excitement, personal attachment to the game.”
That’s also why Badowski is a big fan of demos. “It’s not that popular in companies, because devs usually think that demos simply steal daytime for the whole development of the game, or that in the demos sometimes there are scripted, fake solutions. But from my perspective, it inspires everyone because you can see the chart of the game, the real game, and you can feel it. So we had quite a few individual demos before the release.”
Of course, when The Witcher 3 launched, a lot of folk ended up having to eat crow, and not just from outside the company.
“The most significant moment for the company was the release, the moment when people who didn’t even believe in the concept of the game were overwhelmed with the great reviews. There were high fives all the time, always screaming, shouting, ‘That’s another 10! Another 9! Another 10!’ And that’s when we became the team.”
