The Witcher 3 helped create the illusion of an all-powerful CD Projekt RED. „That was the beginning of a bit of magical thinking for the company”
The success of The Witcher 3 triggered overconfidence and „magical thinking” in CD Projekt RED. The developers believed that regardless of the situation, everything would work out in the end anyway.
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The huge success of The Witcher 3 brought CD Projekt RED to the top of the gaming industry. It gave the developers confidence that they are capable of creating ambitious and engaging large-scale RPG titles. However, it turned out to be a double-edged sword, as Michal Nowakowski recently told in an interview for PC Gamer.
Magical thinking
That gave us confidence. Maybe in many ways even too much confidence looking back, to be honest, because I think that was the beginning of a bit of magical thinking for the company, which only stopped after Cyberpunk.
Nowakowski mentioned that back in February 2015, a few months before the release of The Witcher 3, he itted that the latest version of the game didn't look great. Adam Badowski calmed him down, assuring him that everything would be fine once the last patch is on.
I talking to some of the key tech people, and they were tired—exhausted, to be honest—but it's OK. We're gonna make it happen. And they did. Of course there were a lot of patches afterwards, but the whole thing was like a force of nature. Lots of chaos, and a lot of final-moment efforts over there, without I think proper planning.
This is where the aforementioned "magical thinking" came from. At CD Projekt RED, there was a belief that regardless of the situation, everything would eventually work out as if by the touch of a magic wand. Nowakowski itted that it was a change for the worse. However, it also had its positive side - it helped the creators to develop great ambitions.
Influence on Cyberpunk 2077
This approach was reflected in the studio's next project, Cyberpunk 2077. In the game, you can see both the benefits of ambition and the problems that come from being too confident. Nowakowski recalls, for instance, the way of creating each of its elements.
A lot of things were developed in almost isolation, as weird as it may sound, so we sometimes didn't see the actual effects of how it actually interacts until it was put together. If those things developed in isolation don't magically come together, you end up with a game full of disconnected systems, and sidequests.
And that's exactly what happened. In the case of The Witcher trilogy, work was done in the same format, but the scale of those games was much smaller. Although, as Nowakowski its, in The Wild Hunt one could already hear that "the boat is creaking a bit."
A major change only occurred after the release of Cyberpunk 2077, when the studio began working on breaking down this "isolation." We can only hope that this will bring positive effects in the case of The Witcher 4.
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