“That was a very satisfying half of the year,” begin Artur Ganszyniec’s closing comments as the credits roll on CD Projekt’s original Witcher game from 2007. Five months prior, he took to YouTube to share a full let’s play of the cult classic RPG in a series appropriately called “The Witcher with a designer’s commentary.” The last episode just went up yesterday.
If you’re a fan of the original Witcher RPG or the blockbusters that followed it, it’s a treasure trove of insights into the series’ humble beginnings. Ganszyniec was lead story designer on the original game and also wrote some dialogue here and there, and his video descriptions note, are all about “adding context to some design choices, sharing anecdotes, and providing behind-the-scenes.”
The whole thing is 26 episodes, each around an hour or two long, so it’s easy enough to treat like a podcast you can throw up on a second monitor. As the first video in the series notes, it’s Ganszyniec’s first time playing the game in “almost 20 years.”
The game has certainly aged—it was admittedly rough the day it dropped—but it was an ambitious game that’s easier than ever to play now with the overhauled Enhanced Edition. It’s overshadowed these days by the other two fantastic Witcher games, as well as the multiple TV shows and spinoffs the fantasy novel series has inspired, but it still stands as a big milestone in CD Projekt’s history and stands tall as a worthwhile RPG. It may not be the best, but it’ll always be the first.
I suppose that’s why it’s got a full remake on the way, which Ganszyniec says he hopes will be good toward the end of his let’s play series. We’ve come a long way since 2007 in more ways than one, and maybe it’s good enough to not even warrant remaking, but either way, the original is still there and worth remembering. If 19 years of fermented jank is too much to bear, this let’s play might be a good way to get a sense for what you missed all those years ago.
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