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Newsweek
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
The Witcher 3 Dev Reveals the Game Originally Had a Bank Heist
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors The Witcher 3 is celebrating its tenth anniversary, and with it comes a host of interviews across a number of outlets with the game's development team at CD Projekt Red. Earlier in the week we learned some juicy details about how the game's most memorable sidequest was almost very different, and it turns out that wasn't the only one. According to CD Projekt Red quest designer Danisz Markiewicz, one fan favorite quest from the Hearts of Stone DLC, Open Sesame, originally started off as a bank heist, before the team decided it wanted to go even bigger. The result was the quest that we got in the final game, which had Geralt pulling together a team of roguish misfits to run a heist on an auction house. "We wanted to have something more interactive," Markiewicz told DBLTAP in an interview. "The whole section of Geralt taking part in an auction, getting to meet people from high society, actually buying stuff – that felt very compelling. A bank heist could have certain opportunities, but this was on a completely different level." A screenshot from the Open Sesame quest in The Witcher 3, showing Geralt and others planning a heist. A screenshot from the Open Sesame quest in The Witcher 3, showing Geralt and others planning a heist. CD Projekt CD Projekt put great care into making sure its characters were a good fit for the bombastic nature of the quest, which takes inspiration from films such as Point Break and Ocean's Eleven. But, because CD Projekt never makes anything easy for itself, designers decided to have multiple options for each role in the heist, which required a lot of careful planning and clever execution to make the whole thing work. "We didn't want to redo the entire scene," Markiewicz said. "So we developed some new tech to implement a scene so that those characters are technically there, but if they're not present, another character takes their place. You see that in several scenes – for example, when they're talking over the whole plan. If someone were to play this scene just as it is, you would get two characters talking over each other. Almost like Schrödinger's cat." The quest also originally had plans for a magical security system, with a magic portal whisking Geralt away and into a cave with a Golem. Instead, Markiewicz said, the team decided to keep the quest a little more grounded, eschewing magic altogether and having Geralt dropped through a trapdoor into a pit of spiders. All of this comes with the context that CD Projekt Red is currently hard at work developing The Witcher 4, which will be the first in a trilogy of games focused on Geralt's apprentice Ciri. The game is currently in development using Unreal Engine, a departure from the studio's usual in-house engine, but one that should allow developers to spend less time tinkering with its engine and more time crafting memorable quests.
Newsweek
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Bloober Team Says Its New Game Won't Have an Easy Mode
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors Bloober Team, most well-known for producing the critically acclaimed Silent Hill 2 remake as well as other great horror games like the Layers of Fear series, has a new survival horror game in the works that hopes to capitalize on their recent success called Cronos: The New Dawn that looks to full embrace in the genre in a way the studios hasn't done before. Part of that is making the game a challenging experience, which is why in an interview with DBLTAP, co-directors Wojciech Piejko and Jacek Zieba confirmed that the game won't have an easy mode. They explain that the game will have just one difficulty mode, with an even harder one being unlocked the first time you complete the game. A person in an outfit that looks like a space suit, but with an opaque helmet with a tower being shattered in the background. A person in an outfit that looks like a space suit, but with an opaque helmet with a tower being shattered in the background. Bloober Team As Jacek Zieba puts it in the interview, "it's survival horror, to make it work it needs to be a bit challenging," citing FromSoftware's lack of difficulty options. They do note that they don't mind how people play the game on repeat playthroughs, but they want everyone's first playthrough to be as close to the intended experience as possible. "The first experience is the first experience," Zeiba says, "So if you do easy mode, okay, somebody will play it and maybe have less scares or something, but to play as intended, this is why we decided to go with our difficulty at the beginning." Cronos: The New Dawn is set to be released on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam in 2025.
Newsweek
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
The Witcher 3's Most Memorable Sidequest Was Almost Very Different
Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors Today marks 10 years since the release of The Witcher 3 — the game that really put CD Projekt and the Witcher series on the map. The success of the game brought massive attention to the franchise, which has gone on to be developed into a TV series for Netflix and is beloved by millions of gamers and viewers alike. An interview with one of the game's developers has revealed that one of the game's most memorable and pivotal sidequests almost had a very different premise. The quest in question is The Last Wish, which has protagonist Geralt and potential love interest Yennefer tracking down a genie to break a magical binding that ties the two together, in the hopes that Yennefer can discover whether or not her love for Geralt is real or just a result of the magic. According to associate game director Paweł Sasko, though, that quest was almost very different. Geralt and Yeneffer atop a snowcapped mountain with a ruined ship in the distance as part of The Last Wish sidequest in The Witcher 3. Geralt and Yeneffer atop a snowcapped mountain with a ruined ship in the distance as part of The Last Wish sidequest in The Witcher 3. CD Projekt In an interview with DBLTAP celebrating The Witcher 3's tenth anniversary, Sasko revealed that Yennefer's motives for The Last Wish were initially going to be about restoring her fertility. In The Witcher lore, sorceresses like Yennefer are made infertile during a ritual to increase their power, and the quest would have originally revolved around that. Instead, Sasko and the writing team at CD Projekt Red decided to angle the story around Yennefer and Geralt's love for one another. "My first idea was probably the most edgy, and that's one that we decided not to go with," Sasko told DBLTAP. "We went with more of an emotional thing that also binds them together. The previous idea I mentioned would make her feel a bit more egotistic, because it's more about her rather than about you together. It was important for us that she doesn't seem cold as a person, because Geralt is incredibly important in her life." The result of that shift is one of the most memorable sidequests not only in the game, but in gaming as a whole. It's filled with intimate, romantic moments between Geralt and Yennefer, something that Sasko says came to him while designing the quest. "I wanted to introduce the player into the romantic vibe of being on a boat together with Yennefer," Sasko says. "They're sailing together, casting a spell and seeing things through Geralt's eyes, and he hears her voice in his head. It's very intimate. So I slowly started changing the genre towards romance." CD Projekt Red is now hard at work on The Witcher 4, which was officially revealed last year at The Game Awards in a trailer that revealed Geralt's apprentice, Ciri, as the main protagonist, who will be the protagonist of a whole new Witcher trilogy, according to the developer. No release date has been set for the game, but it's expected to be released on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5.
