Yennefer in The Witcher 3 almost had a completely different look. After 10 years, mystery of the Wild Hunt opening has been explained
Yennefer in the opening cinematic of The Witcher 3 looks very different than in the game. Only 10 years after the release, the developers revealed why this happened.
If you've played The Witcher 3, you've certainly noticed an inconsistency regarding the looks of one of the main characters. Of course, we're talking about Yennefer, who in the first cinematic looks completely different than her model in the game. Now, 10 years after the release, we finally found out why that happened.
Inconsistency
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of The Witcher 3, our friends from the tvgry YouTube channel, GryOnline, and GameStar worked together on an interview with the CD Projekt Red devs, during which many interesting pieces of info were shared. We learned, among other things, that although all the characters in the game were hand-modeled, Yennefer was supposed to be an exception.
As Pawel Mielniczuk, the Lead Character Artist in The Witcher 3, said, the team really wanted her to be a "truly recreated person in the game." To get this done, they found a model, did a photoshoot, scanned her face, and then tried to recreate it in the game engine. Unfortunately, the devs "failed in the process" and encountered several complications, including a lack of necessary skills, technological limitations, and more.
Note from translator: Quotes below have been translated from Polish to English.
We ran into this problem that we didn't realize at first; the faces in The Witcher were actually pretty stylized. […] So when we juxtaposed them with this very realistic character, with realistic proportions and facial structure, she just stood out a lot. So we made the decision to go with hand modeling for all characters.
The scanned version of Yennefer wasn't completely erased from the game. We can still see her in the first cinematic, which you can watch below. You can see right away that her face (clearly visible at 1:49) looks completely different compared to the model in the game.
Of course, the players noticed this difference immediately after the launch, and their opinions were divided. Some people think the sculpted model looks better, while others prefer the scanned model's face.
I'm glad they changed it from how she was supposed to look in that opening scene. Her character model now is spot on.
I was actually thinking the exact opposite. The face model in the opening cutscene looks much more like how she should look. Her features are too fashion model-like in the game.
Yesterday, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt celebrated the 10th anniversary of its release, which took place at exactly midnight from May 18 to 19, 2015. To celebrate, CD Projekt organized a special concert tour. Nevertheless, many more attractions may await the fans.
- Good reception of The Witcher 3 on Switch pushed CD Projekt RED to release Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2
- The Witcher 1 skill tree is coming to The Witcher 3. A CD Projekt Red contest winner shared that he’s been working on the mod for the past 8 months
- CD Projekt Red was really surprised by The Witcher 3 success. „We felt like rock stars on stage”
