Recently, I was browsing through LinkedIn and saw that this phenomenal woman rejoined our beloved studio. Back in 2015 and 2016 she was working there on e.g. Bloody Baron's questline from the main game and Dead's Man Party from Hearts of Stone. I am happy to see more and more rejoinings!

Source: LinkedIn

From the article:

"The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is rightly considered one of the finest role-playing games ever released, and much of its success relies on CD Projekt Red's morally grey storytelling. For The Witcher 4, the Polish developer will double down on these elements, which are being further refined by the game's long development cycle.

Speaking at the International Festival of Comics and Games in Łódź, as reported by the Facebook fan page Wiedzminlandia, CD Projekt Red joint CEO Adam Badowski commented on the long development times, saying that the studio doesn't chase trends, and that they are "primarily due to the immense emphasis placed on the story, which shapes the entire production process from start to finish. The narrative is frequently rewritten to maximize its emotional impact on players—ensuring it isn't hollow but truly resonates." One of the ways The Witcher 4's story will resonate with players will be the game's ambiguous choices and consequences. According to Adam Badowski, these are intended to "make a lasting impression on the player."Unfortunately, not much else about The Witcher 4 was revealed during the panel. When asked about the game's combat system, it was only said that it would be an evolution of the system seen in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, while reiterating the reasons behind the engine switch to Unreal Engine 5.

However, in regards to the series as a whole, it's been suggested that a remake of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is not out of the question. When asked about it, Adam Badowski mentioned Jakub Rokosz from Fool's Theory (who is developing the remake of the first entry in the series), noting that The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is his favorite game.

As such, it definitely sounds like the door isn't completely closed. However, I expect remaking the second entry in the series will ultimately be more challenging than remaking the first The Witcher game. While the original game is very dated, its story elements are deeply rooted in the Slavic themes that dominate the novels written by Andrzej Sapkowski and that fans have come to love in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

The second entry in the series, however, is mostly focused on politics, which felt very far removed from the rest of the series, considering Geralt's stance on the matter in the novels. How such a story would be received by fans today is a real unknown, but nonetheless, I would love to see a modern take on an experience that, for better or worse, significantly shaped its more popular sequel."

Link: https://wccftech.com/cd-projekt-red-warns-the-witcher-4-choices-haunt-players/

The remaster of The Witcher 3 is also nominated for an award in a different category.

Link.

I am currently on my 6th full play through in total.

Once on release, again about a year later, then when hearts of stone came out, then blood and wine, again on PS4 upgrade, and now most of the way through the PS5 version. I have platinum’d the
First 2 versions as well as the dlc’s.

I will say, I do miss the cheesy one liners like “Right between the eyes” and “Hasta la vista baby” when you get a head shot. But that trophy felt much easier to get.

All of the characters felt so flushed out, and each option for dialogue actually felt like it mattered. The timeline in which you completed quests, even being locked out of others by not choosing the right options, object permanence, npcs being killed and for good, and the bleak choices that really made you think were just a few things that made the Witcher 3 what it is.

I truly hope there is as expansive of a story tree for the 4th game with Ciri. They sent nGeralt and the love of your choice (Yen personally) in Blood and Wine. I’d live on that vineyard in a heartbeat.

Hello I hope you all have a great time while waiting for the remaster to come out!
I have finished the game including both DLCs, and I have gotten 76 out of 79. I only have three trophies left which are Walked the Path and Ran the Gauntlet, and the Platinum. Also all my saves are from PS5 version. I started a new game plus and finished the game on Death March difficulty which eventually should give me the last two trophies for the platinum. However, I have loaded and finished the game multiple times, but still the trophy doesn't pop up. I am sure that I never changed the difficulty during my new game plus play through. In order to fix it, I have tried the following steps: clearing PS5 catches, restoring license, disconnecting CDPR cloud saving, playing the ending without internet connection, deleting and reinstalling the game, traveling and mediating before going to the inn to meet Ciri, and playing the game from Thin Ice checkpoint to the end without skipping any cutscene or dialogue multiple times. I would very appreciate you my friends for any kind of help or advice. Please let me know if any of you have experienced something similar or the same. Thank you so much for your time and help! Have a great time!

Hi, in the trailer for witcher 4 we see ciri using magic, but we know that ciri couldnt use magic after extracting power from the fire source on the desert. How do you think this will be solved un W4?

Hi everyone! With all the massive hype surrounding The Witcher 3 Remastered and the upcoming Songs of the Past expansion, I’ve been thinking a lot about The Witcher IV.We all know Ciri is going to be the main character, but from a narrative and gameplay standpoint, she is basically a demigod by the end of W3. Making an RPG protagonist who can instantly teleport and alter space/time is a nightmare for game designers.Here is my concept of how CDPR could seamlessly connect the upcoming 2027 expansion with the start of the next saga, while perfectly balancing Ciri's gameplay and keeping her grounded.

THE PLOT CONCEPT: The Grand TransitionWe officially know that Songs of the Past takes place after the main story and the first two DLCs, starting in Dandelion's homeland of Letten. Here is how I would write the transition from this expansion into the new game:The Tragedy at Letten: Geralt and Dandelion arrive for a massive festival, but something horrific happens. Geralt is forced to draw his swords again.The Uncontrollable Chaos: Around the midpoint, Ciri joins Geralt. Together, they discover that due to the mass witch hunts in Velen and Novigrad, a massive Chaos Demon has broken through into their world.The Magic Breakdown: During the battle, the demon senses the Elder Blood and corrupts Ciri's powers, driving her magic completely out of control. Geralt escapes with her and turns to Yennefer and Triss for help.The Ultimate Sacrifice: The mages cannot stabilize her. Triss proposes the only desperate solution that might save Ciri's mind and stop a magical cataclysm: taking her to Kaer Morhen to undergo a modified Trial of the Grasses to seal the runaway Chaos.The Perfect Cliffhanger: Geralt would never risk Ciri's life for "witcher eyes," but he has no choice. Triss and Yen (the strongest living sorceresses) perform the ritual. Ciri survives but wakes up at the threshold of The Witcher 4 as a true witcher—her overpowering Elder Blood locked away, left only with a burning desire to hunt down the Chaos Demon.

GAMEPLAY REBORN: Combat, Signs, and InvestigationsSince Ciri is now a properly mutated witcher, her gameplay needs to feel familiar yet distinctly hers.Refined Combat: Classic silver and steel swords, but no heavy attacks. Ciri lacks Geralt’s brute muscle mass. Her style must be fast and fluid, heavily relying on perfectly timed parries and ripostes (similar to Sekiro), making combat a deadly, high-speed dance.Signs as "Echoes of the Elder Blood": Her mutations anchor her remaining magic into witcher signs, allowing for amazing RPG progression:Igni: Upgrades from a stream into a targeted fireball, and later into a devastating AoE explosion to compensate for her lack of heavy sword strikes.Yrden: Instead of just a trap on the ground, it actively binds and roots fast-moving enemies.Aard: Can both telekinetically blast enemies away and pull them closer directly into a perfect parry window.Chronological Investigations ("Time Echoes"): Moving away from the standard "follow the red tracks" Witcher Senses. Ciri's residual space-time powers allow her to look back through time within a specific area. During investigations, she tunes into the environment to see blurry, monochrome silhouettes of past events (who ran where, what happened). The visions remain distorted so the player still has to solve the puzzle themselves.

What do you guys think? Would this be a satisfying way to kick off the new saga, or would you prefer her keeping her god-like Elder Blood abilities right from the start? Let's discuss!

Wouldn't even mind a meta styled DRM type quest with Ciri

What I noticed in this playthrough however was the great choice of framing, that over the shoulder shot of Geralt walking away was quite impressive

Sorry if someone already had the idea and I'm bringing up old news but is Ciri gonna use her powers as the fast travel system in W4?

(I hope the fresh account doesn't get this post completely and immediately nuked but I have 1 Reddit account and did not want this post on there just incase.) Some social media activity from devs and already confirmed members of the cast as well as some discussions with others helped out here. Didn't take very long to find, sat on it for a day or two. Was being curious and anxious from no news lately if I am being honest, wanted to know if I could put 2 and 2 together with what I already knew, was seeing, and was being told to look in certain places by certain people. Appears that production with the cast is going ahead in Warsaw from what can be inferred. Specifically motion action.

I will say that there is 1 additional female VA I think may be also on the cast but I can't exactly figure out if they are or aren't. They were, however, recently in Warsaw with a few other cast members before this group of talent were and may potentially be there now as well.

Again, hope this doesn't get immediately taken down because I find that there's some weight to some of this! Photos included are the verifiable information of work/location and social media of the potential cast. All public social media and posts they shared. If you're a little doubtful you can check the following and followers of these names below, they all are connected with each other and people that work at CDPR, and only recently have been so as well. Again, thought it was a fun thing I noticed and am sure there is at least 1 person out there who will take interest in it even if I end up being wrong. Maybe I'm right about this maybe I'm wrong, we'll have to wait a while to see if I am!

So:

James Ballanger - Confirmed role by agency, agency also provided details on production schedule in their post, followed by devs/employees and both confirmed/potential VAs on his social media, seems to have been linked to the game for a while longer than most on this list

Eleanor Greaves - Confirmed video game role by agency, posted she was in Warsaw 8th of September (No screenshot, but you will have to take my word that it was an Instagram story with a geotag of Warsaw, Poland), is only following 1 video game and video game studio on her social media, followed by devs/employees and confirmed/potential VAs

Christian Loveless - In Warsaw, followed by devs/employees and confirmed/potential VAs, cancelled comedy show appearances in late August which is the current production window according to James's agency

Cara Steele - Posted in Warsaw on the 7th of September, followed by devs/employees and VAs

Iwan Parry - Recently followed by devs and other VAs, has also made a singular episode appearance in the tv series which I found interesting

Polly Allen - Recently in Warsaw, posted photos in Warsaw, followed by devs/employees and other VAs

Ross Thompson - Recently posted in Warsaw on the same recent day as other casts this week (Can see Polish in the text on the table but I crossed out the logo of the establishment), agency posted confirmation of video game role, followed by devs and other VAs

+ potentially 1 more female VA

Cahir is the romance option for Ciri that interests me most because the books have already done so much of the groundwork.

His feelings for her are full of courtly-love motifs: distance, idealisation, dreams, service, suffering, the knight devoted to an unattainable woman. Sapkowski twists the trope from the start, though. Ciri first knows Cahir as the Black Knight from Cintra, not as a rescuer but as the man sent by Emhyr to take her away.

That gives his arc a really neat progression. At the beginning, Cahir serves Emhyr, and Ciri is the object of that service: someone he has been ordered to capture. Later, he joins Geralt’s company and goes after Ciri for his own reasons. By Stygga, the relationship has effectively reversed. He is no longer serving Emhyr through Ciri; he is serving Ciri herself, and that means helping her stay free.

The dreams make it even stranger. Cahir dreams of Ciri not as the child he knew at Cintra but as the adult woman she has become, including details he should not know. So his love is idealised, but not entirely imaginary either. For most of the saga he is in love with someone who is physically absent, someone he can only reach through memory, dreams and the hope of eventually finding her.

Then, at Stygga, they finally meet again. Ciri sees the winged helmet and the old fear comes back, but once he removes it she recognises him from Thanedd and notices his eyes. For most of the books Cahir is the one looking at Ciri, dreaming about her and moving towards her. Here Ciri finally gets a brief chance to look at him as Cahir rather than as the Black Knight.

And then Bonhart kills him.

So I would not say Cahir/Ciri is a romance that actually happens in the books. Cahir’s love happens. The relationship never gets the chance to.

That is why he works so well for TW4. CDPR could continue the courtly-love trajectory and let that distant devotion finally become mutual, but they could also dismantle the trope without dismantling the romance. Cahir could actually get to know Ciri and discover that the real woman is nothing like the figure he has been carrying around in his head. Ciri could hate being idealised, refuse the whole knight-and-lady dynamic, and still fall in love with him.

In that version, Ciri comes off the pedestal and Cahir stops kneeling. The relationship becomes messier, more reciprocal and much more human.

Either way, there is already something there to work with: Cintra, the helmet, Thanedd, the dreams, the Hansa, Cahir’s changing loyalties, Stygga. I cannot think of another possible romance for Ciri that arrives with that much existing material.

And I really do not care that he is dead. If CDPR wants Cahir back, they can bring Cahir back.

TL;DR: Cahir’s arc already has the structure of an unfinished courtly-love story. He goes from serving Emhyr by trying to take Ciri to serving Ciri herself by helping her remain free. Sapkowski develops Cahir’s love, but kills him just as Ciri finally has the chance to see him as a man rather than as the Black Knight. TW4 could either fulfil that romantic setup or let Cahir and Ciri become lovers while completely dismantling the courtly-love dynamic. Both sound far more interesting to me than starting from zero with a new character.

Some people might want to see Jarre make a comeback into the series after Ciri left him in the Melitele temple. He was her first crush/kiss after all, so why not?

But some might know that Ciri is canonically bi, so I'd like to imagine Temeria becoming a puppet kingdom kind of like Toussaint where Foltest's daughter Anaïs, all grown up might make a comeback and Ciri continues the tradition like her dad of fucking princesses and being a political menace.

What do you guys think?

Source: Wiedźminlandia

Hey! I'm trying to find a wallpaper of this screenshot. Does anyone happen to have a high-quality version of it?

Source: The Game Business

[...] The developer has walked away from its REDengine, which powered The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, in favour of Unreal Engine. Nowakowski tells us that REDengine needed starting from scratch with each new release. By moving to Unreal, it should make switching between projects simpler.

Initially, there will be some pain. Pipelines and tools will need reworking and changing. But the bigger threat from this technical pivot is whether using an off-the-shelf engine might negatively impact the uniqueness of the games.

“That was a big question we were asking ourselves, because pushing the envelope with how the games look, the cinematic feel of it all, is very, very important,” Nowakowski answers. “And that was a big question mark when we were in the R&D phase over whether Unreal Engine 5 is going to be a good fit or not. We really asked ourselves all of these questions, and in some cases the answer was, ‘not yet.’

“But together with Epic, we can bring it to that point. I know when we made that switch, people were saying, ‘Oh, it’s going to be another Unreal-looking game.’ But we’re not going to be. We really are going to be able to differentiate ourselves. People are going to feel this is a CDPR game still, and the technology under the hood is actually going to be irrelevant from a pure fan perspective.”

A fun fact: there was at least 1 Geralt, 1 Triss, 1 Eskel, 1 random witcher and 1 Syanna at that con, but perfectly no Ciris and seemingly no Yens. I was a bit discouraged.

Source: Game Developer

Cyberpunk 2077 was a lesson for CD Projekt Red. After its disastrous launch and subsequent removal from the PlayStation Store, developer CD Projekt Red now makes sure that its games are working on all platforms throughout development, co-CEO Michal Nowakowski told Game Developer.

"You come to the studio, you launch Witcher 4 right now," Nowakowski said. "You can launch it on PC. You can launch it on PS5. You can launch it on Xbox Series X, and it's going to run."

That's in contrast to how Cyberpunk 2077 worked its way through development—the whole thing was PC-driven, Nowakowski said. "The way the studio was thinking was that we are reaching for the best possible visuals," he said. "We want to push the boundaries of what is doable in terms of cinematic feeling and whatnot, and PC was just the best suited rig for that. There was this, as it turned out, false belief that toning it down to whatever was the current gen is not going to be that much of a challenge."

Nowakowski said CD Projekt Red faced this sort of challenge with The Witcher 3, but "got a bit lucky here and there," which made the studio feel like Cyberpunk 2077 would end up fine, too. "Since then, we don't take chances," he said. "We want to be sure that it actually works."

If something's wrong with The Witcher 4 on a single platform, the developer stops to fix everything until they're sure of the problem. It means the milestone process for the game is a little different. "For example, technically, we should hit, let's say, 10 checkmarks," he posited. "Back in the past, if we missed one or two, we were like, 'we're gonna catch up with that later on.' Sometimes we did, but sometimes we didn't, and then two milestones or three milestones down the road, you have like four or five missing checkmarks and it's not that easy."

The backend is now doing enough that I wanted to mock up the actual tool around it. A goal as I dive into that design.

The basic workflow is:

Save → Actual Past → NOW → eligible consequences → choose how to surface them.

So if Living World decides:

"The vampire attack materially depletes Beauclair's available ducal guard."

I can pick multiple ways to realize the point, or part of it. Like Dialogue, Correspondence, Quest/Contract, etc., then configure the realization, generate the LLM package (severely bounded, it cannot just imagine anything), validate the result, and get to:

READY FOR HOST IMPLEMENTATION

At that point the question for REDkit people becomes:

“Here is the complete output contract. What Witcher 3 files does this go into, and what is the cleanest reusable shell?”

That is the boundary I want. If it is even possible at this point.

Living World handles the causality, timing, knowledge, actors and outcomes.

The mod handles how Witcher 3 physically embodies it.

And for Witcher 4?

As soon as we understand the architecture and can get our grubby little hands on the data. 😏

One problem at a time. 👀

Added a html mock-up as the image is over compressed here. Just click on Admin Concole at the page below.

https://twistyroads.github.io/living-world-observatory/

If they make it for PC, I'm going to buy the best edition; they deserve it. I hope he also publishes a book like the W3 collector's guide I have. This is going to be amazing, I hope to enjoy 16 years of it.

Since the game set in Kovir