Geralt’s trip from the pages of Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels to the games we know was not an easy one.
Polish gaming site Arhn.eu published a documentary today titled on YouTube as “The Witcher‘s video game history,” telling the story of the first Witcher game’s development. (According to a commenter, the thumbnail translates to “White Wolf: The history of digital Witcher.)
Although it’s in Polish, English subtitles are available.
In it, the developers of The Witcher tell stories of hardship and trials, and even discussions with Sapkowski over the writing and characterization of leading man Geralt of Rivia.
One developer relates a correspondence with Sapkowski over the end of Chapter 3, in the Kikimore lair, where the player can find a letter written to the Professor. The team inserted a phrase written by Sapkowski basically verbatim, a proud moment for them.
“However, I must insist you cease referring to him as a ‘son-of-a-bitch’ — appellations of that nature are entirely inaccurate, inappropriate and painfully primitive.”
Other little tidbits include a mysterious missing mission and other strange facts about the development of the game.
At almost two hours it’s a hefty run-time, but worth your time if you want to see how The Witcher made the jump to games and laid the foundation for some excellent games to come.
Comments
3 responses to “Polish Witcher Documentary Shows Journey From Books To Game”
I hope it includes the discussion over how much they paid the creator for the rights. it goes something like this:
“Hey, we can give you a portion of the profits from sales if you like.”
“Screw that, it’ll never sell. Just gimme a big fat check up front.”
Seven years and 25 million copies of the games later…
“Well shit…”
That type of situation can always happen.. hindsight is a wonderful thing. How about Ronald Wayne, one of the co-founders of Apple – sold his shares in 1976 for $800 (10% stake), and they would now be worth billions if he had kept them.
It’s actually a little sad. The writer of the books thinks games are anti-productive and he’s never played games, can’t understand the attraction, or so he said in some way or another.
I really did think that the books were more immersive than the games for me.
I played halfway through Witcher 1 on PC when it was released but didn’t get the story, thought I might be missing something. Then I discovered the novels and realized they preceded the game. So I quit the game, went and read all of the books, then continued on with the Witcher on PC and followed up with Witcher 2 when it was released, appreciated the Witcher universe a lot more.
It’s just a shame that the writer of the books distanced himself and doesn’t regard the games as “Canon”. For someone like me who really enjoyed both the books and games, I’m kind of divided. I guess at the end of the day, who cares right? I read the books for my pleasure, played the games for my pleasure.
I’ve actually only just started Witcher 3, been a busy past year or two but now I’ve got time to play it. I’m really hoping that W3 can tie up the loose ends of the book, even though they may not be “canon”…