If you need evidence that the team behind The Witcher 3’s upcoming expansion, Songs of the Past, is composed of Bonafide Witcher Sickos, try this: the expansion’s lead writer wrote her bachelor’s thesis on Hearts of Stone almost a decade ago.
Fool’s Theory’s Paula Mejsner took a comparative literature scalpel to The Witcher 3’s first expansion in her 2017 thesis—long before she got to work on the game itself—titled (in English) “Videogames as a way of experiencing literature: Analysis of the ‘Hearts of Stone’, a DLC to ‘The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt'”.
When I sat down to chat with her about her work on Songs of the Past, I had to do something that I’d never forgive someone else for doing to me: I asked her about it.
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“That was at the time when I played Hearts of Stone, and The Witcher, and I was studying comparative literature. That’s when I fell in love with The Witcher… [the thesis] touches upon what I said when it comes to how rich The Witcher is, when it comes to literary references.”
Specifically, Mejsner wrote about how The Witcher channeled the spirits of classic Polish literature, “like The Wedding from Wyspiański and the whole character of Gaunter O’Dimm, as this devilish character that is also based on many, many other pieces of culture.
“I wanted to analyse it, and I did this to probably prove to some of my professors that games are worthy, and they are also texts of culture.”
As for how the Mejsner of 2017 would feel about actually getting to write an expansion? She’d be pretty thrilled. “To be honest, I’m pretty proud with myself, that I did manage [to work on The Witcher]. But, you know, as always, there’s been a lot of luck in the process. But yeah, it truly is a dream come true, because this is what I dreamt of when I wrote my thesis. It’s pretty awesome to write Geralt.”
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