Although Geralt of Rivia is illustrious among fans ofThe Witcher today, 2007 was a different beast.
Hard to believe now, eh?
He grew up playing pen-and-paper RPGs with friends in a small town 100km from the nearest Warhammer shop.
Years later, he started publishing Call of Cthulhu adventures in a Polish magazine called Magia i Miecz.
There were no game design departments in Polish game dev studios back then, Szczesnik tells me.
Programmers and artists were designing the games.
So Micha Madej had the task to create the first proper game design department in Poland.
To rectify this, CDPR split the studio into two distinct teams: gameplay and story.
Szczesnik helmed the former and Ganszyniec took charge of the latter.
We worked act by act and would usually start with a one-pager outlining the story.
While all of this was being written, recording and implementing it was a whole other ball game.
Our task was to develop a unique fighting style.
I was responsible for the combat mechanics, so I knew what moves were suitable.
Maciej Kwiatkowski was proposing the moves and Adam Badowski pushed him to the limits of human abilities.
I think he managed to cross this line slightly - it was pure fun.
We had to invent everything by ourselves.
To my knowledge, The Witcher was the first game in Poland that used motion capture.
Later, we were also recording in Germany.
I started to travel a lot.
Szczesnik also had a sizable number of duties outside of casting and supervising motion capture.
This workload was typical of a lead on the first Witcher game.
I remember that Micha Iwanicki implemented the third-person over the shoulder camera just weeks before release.
It was kind of kept secret from the board to the very last moment.
There were probably a ton more features we would have liked to add back then.
I’m pretty sure horse-riding and more freedom in exploration were a topic at some point.
We were all super ambitious, and we thought we were making the best game in the world.
We had to wait for that until the third Witcher, though.
If youre familiar with the series, youll probably be able to guess what it is.
I would also probably exclude the card-collecting mechanic, Szczesnik explains.
We removed it in the second Witcher.
I should add it was not my design, though.
We were following a dream and thought that what we were doing was important.
That would easily turn into a kind of unhealthy zeal.
There was a lot of crunching and, in hindsight, a fair share of toxic behaviour.
Finishing the game became a mission, and we would do almost anything to get it done.
I had no time for personal relationships and was secretly glad, because nothing distracted me from work.
After the release I had a depression episode and needed three months to recover.
So, when during the production of The Witcher 2 the crunch started, I quit.
The price became too high for my preferences.
Honestly, I didn’t mind.
I was in my 20s and I enjoyed working on The Witcher a lot.
We knew we were working on something great.
I quit my job at CDPR twice.
I quit once more a year before the release of The Witcher 3.
He said that he knows now that I shouldn’t manage a team - it burns me out.
I think I will always be grateful for this exit interview.
And it’s true, I love making games, but I wouldn’t say I like managing people.
I think I’m not assertive enough - I want everyone to be happy, which is not possible.
And you have to be a lead to have a say on the game in big companies.
Obviously Ganszyniec and Szczesnik both have their war stories from The Witcher.
I think the game stays strong today because we genuinely put our hearts into it, Szczesnik says.
I know how pompous it sounds, but I think it’s true.
We were always our most vicious critics.
I’m pleased that there are calls for a remaster - I would play one myself.
In a way, the first Witcher game is a miracle, Ganszyniec explains.
Remember I said we were not hesitant to add or change stuff at the very last moment?
We couldn’t find the reason, and we had to take this demo with us.
That was the Vizima Dike location - basically, a bridge surrounded by a lake.
When the game camera was to render this particular fish model, it would crash the game.
That adequately represents our mentality during the whole development.
Having said that, working on the Witcher franchise was sort of a dream job for me.
By the end most of the team became real masters of the Witcher lore.
And overall, I think we did a good job.
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