The Witcher 4 is set to be the most important game in developer CD Projekt Red’s impressive history. The developer is trying to turn the series’ reins over to Ciri and is moving Geralt to a secondary role. Plus, they’re last launch was the rocky release of Cyberpunk 2077. On top of all that, The Witcher TV show continues to be incredibly popular among fans, with many of them potentially ready to enter the video game side of the franchise once The Witcher 4 launches.
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With all of that in mind, there is a ton of pressure on CD Projekt Red. Not only do they have to deliver a relatively polished day-one product to re-earn the goodwill they built with The Witcher, but they must do so while making a massive narrative change and accounting for new players. It’s that latter point that has me very concerned about The Witcher 4.
Look, I’m not against developers making a game more appealing to a wider audience. By all means, if it helps them get paid, I can’t really fault them for making that choice. However, The Witcher is a strange case.
See, we’ve already heard from The Witcher showrunners that they felt the need to dumb down the political intrigue for the American Netflix audience. Now, The Witcher 3 didn’t feature as much political intrigue as previous games in the series, but that was largely a problem of time.
Simply put, CD Projekt Red had to focus on Geralt’s personal tale to end his trilogy, leaving quite a bit of content on the cutting room floor. With the focus shifting to Ciri, the developers are free to get back to the Game of Thrones-like political machinations that made the first two games so captivating. That’s doubly true when you remember that Ciri herself is the daughter of the leader of Nilfgaard.
We’re also starting a brand-new story. In theory, that means CD Projekt Red can re-focus on player choice. Wild Hunt narrowed things a bit as the team was wrapping up Geralt’s story, but Ciri is an open book.
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I worry that CD Projekt Red will see that massive Netflix audience and dumb down The Witcher 4. The series has continuously shed bits of gameplay from previous entries to make a more polished product, and some would argue it’s lost a bit in doing so. For example, we no longer have the multiple combat stances of The Witcher 1. Is that a huge loss? That depends on how much you liked the more tactical combat of the original game. What can’t be denied is that CD Projekt Red has continued to smooth down The Witcher’s rough edges to deliver a product that appeals to the masses.
Again, I have nothing against a developer doing that, but they also can’t go too far. The Witcher 4 is too important for CD Projekt Red to mess up the balance between bringing in new fans and pleasing veterans, and the lackluster launch of Cyberpunk 2077 makes striking that balance even more difficult.
Thankfully, the team has had plenty of time to get this right, and, to be fair to the developer, most of their decisions have worked well for them. Plus, we’ve seen games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 release to great success despite doubling down on mature themes and complicated gameplay. Hopefully, CD Projekt Red has noticed the success Warhorse Studios enjoyed earlier this year and is using that as a sign that players are primed for ambitious, systems-heavy action RPGs.
The good news is that CD Projekt Red has proven that it will stand by its games and fix issues the community has. As Cyberpunk 2077 showed us, that can even mean wholesale changes to core gameplay. Hopefully, it doesn’t come to that point, but it’s comforting to know that CD Projekt Red is more than willing to put in the work to please its fans, even when it has several major projects in active development.
So, while I’m worried about The Witcher 4 chasing a larger audience and not getting back to the complex politics and systems-heavy gameplay that made it so popular, I’m also cautiously optimistic that CD Projekt Red can weather any storm and ultimately release a game the community loves. I just hope it doesn’t take several years after launch to get there.
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Image courtesy of Lionsgate
