- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Lead quest designer Paweł Sasko says his suggestion to kill a certain character shocked the team
- Sasko argued that the “weight” of the scene was exactly what the act needed.
- He says the team encountered many technical difficulties during the Battle of Kaer Morhen questline.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Lead quest designer Paweł Sasko revealed that he shocked the development team and silenced them when he initially suggested killing off a certain character.
Spoilers ahead for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt just celebrated its 11th anniversary, and to commemorate the occasion, Sasko, who is also the Cyberpunk 2077 associate director of the sequel game, took to X/Twitter to reminisce about the challenges of writing the 2015 Game of the Year winner.
After writing his first preview of the Bloody Baron quest Family Matters, which Sasko said he saw fall apart during the review session, and eventually came up with another idea after reading Slavic folktales, the developer discussed one of the game’s most pivotal moments.
This is when the Wild Hunt appears in Kaer Morhen near the end of the game. Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, and the rest of the dysfunctional gang have gathered to plan their next steps before the antagonists appear and a battle ensues. During the battle, Vesemir, the master of the Wolf School and father figure to Geralt, is killed by General Wild Hunt. Imlerith.
It’s a huge moment that pushes Ciri to her breaking point, and according to Sasko, it stunned the entire development team when he first suggested it. However, despite his concerns, he was able to make the case for how crucial it was to move the story forward.
“Next comes the Battle of Kaer Morhen. The story is only two paragraphs. In a meeting, I propose that Vesemir die. The first reaction is wide-eyed and silent,” Sasko said.
“The weight is exactly what the act needs. Ciri’s explosion, as she dismisses the Wild Hunt, demands that the ground falls beneath her first.”
The developer went on to explain the technical difficulties he encountered while designing the quest, but despite the challenges, he was having a great time.
“I prototype meteors, rifts open in the forest, Wild Hunt comes out, the ride back to the dungeon. Lots of things don’t work. Technical issues. The flow of the quest is unclear. The feedback I get is negative, so I rebuild. The pieces start to fit. I start to see why something works and why what’s next to it doesn’t. Through repetition, I really start to understand the craft,” he said.
“Most important of all, I’m having the time of my life. Designers show each other their ideas in the team room. Someone solves a problem, someone else builds on it, someone else innovates and iterates. We play. We put cool things into a game we love. We still don’t know if the open world will actually work. We try anyway. We strive to get to the finish line and deliver.”
As Sasko said, the game sold 60 million copies and is now considered one of the best RPGs of all time. The developer explained that the development period, including “skills, friendships, failures, taught me more than any success.”
Right now, CD Projekt Red’s main priority is The Witcher 4, which he says will be the first game in a new Witcher trilogy which he plans to release within six years and is unlikely to launch before 2027.
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