The Witcher 4 aims for expressive characters and a Kingdom Come-like world, while staying true to its roots. Baldur's Gate 3 is a different matter
CD Projekt is staying true to its core values, but the developers of The Witcher 4 are not blind to the RPG achievements of the past decade.
The developers of Baldur’s Gate 3.
The Witcher 3 is still undoubtedly one of the most important RPGs of the second decade of the 21st century, if not the entire quarter-century. It's also a crucial, almost flagship game from CD Projekt Red - the title that finally brought global fame to the Polish developer.
So it's no surprise that the fourth installment of the series immediately became one of the most anticipated games, even without Geralt. As we can easily guess, many players essentially expect more of the same: an engaging, intriguing world, interesting characters, and dialogues.
New features, the CD Projekt Red core
However, for a decade the industry has not stood still - and the Polish studio is well aware of that. Josh Wolens from PCGamer had a chance to chat with CD Projekt Red representatives during the recent State of Unreal conference about the development of the gaming market since the release of The Witcher 3 in 2015.
Adam Badowski (one of the two CEOs of CD Projekt Group) addressed, among other things, the issue of BioWare - or rather the noticeable decline in the studio's form, once known for brilliant RPGs, now having problems after the launch of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
According to him, this is not only the result of changes within BioWare itself, but also the entire industry, which has not stood idle. That's why CD Projekt Red not only wants to preserve the most important elements of their games but also seeks new innovations, especially in the context of gameplay, interface, etc. (because, in Badowski's opinion, the narrative in RPGs has not made big progress).
CD Projekt Red will not copy Larian Studios
It's best to look for new features in the titles that have won the hearts of RPG fans. Especially those that more or less shook the industry, like Baldur's Gate 3 and the Kingdom Come series ( that even the first KCD hit the market 3 years after The Wild Hunt).
Of course, such inspirations cannot go too far, especially when we are talking about the turn-based RPG from Larian Studios. Nonetheless, BG3 inspired CD Projekt Red studio, even if the team realizes that some solutions from Larian Studios will not work in the context of an action RPG, like the Witcher series. Especially because the fourth installment definitely won't give players as much freedom in shaping the story, partly because of the "fully developed," strongly outlined characters, without rich customization options available even for ready-made protagonists.
The more direct inspiration for the developers was supposed to be the Warhorse's RPG. Badowski clearly likes the "realism" and sense of humor in Kingdom Come, but also the more "simulation" oriented and strongly focused on complex gameplay systems.
The Kingdom Come kind of simulation, it's great. There's so many options, you can change the world, it's super great. And we would like to keep that, we'd like to follow this trend as well. So these are our next steps for sure, and it's kind of a similar challenge to what we have in The Witcher 3 because of the open world and storytelling here, freedom of choices. But at the same time, we would like to build very fleshy, very well-motivated characters. So it's kind of in contradiction from time-to-time. That's a great design challenge.
It's possible that these won't be the last inspirations of CD Projekt Red. The Witcher 4 is set to remain in development for a long time, possibly even until the next decade (or at least until 2027).
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