Following CD Projekt Red‘s recent announcement that The Witcher 4 has now “entered the full-scale production phase” and our first real look at the new RPG during its cinematic trailer at The Game Awards, game director Sebastian Kalemba and executive producer Małgorzata Mitrega confirm that the upcoming title wasn’t influenced by the Netflix series.
Speaking in a recent interview with Games.ch, Kalemba explains that the success of The Witcher TV series on Netflix didn’t necessarily influence the fourth game. “Generally how franchises work, there’s always some synergy between transmedia. That always works this way. Every single IP you see, there’s always this synergy that helps this franchise wheel bring in, let’s say, newcomers for example – but I don’t think that we rely on it anyhow.”
While the show may have brought “newcomers,” as Kalemba puts it, to CD Projekt Red‘s series of games, developers aren’t really looking to it for any story ideas or inspiration during production. Mitrega reveals as much, stating that storytelling in The Witcher 4 and previous entries is “our origin thing always” – and it isn’t something based on other Witcher-aligned media. The studio does, however, refer back to The Witcher books at times.
“The storytelling we’re doing and the plan for our project is our origin thing always,” details Mitrega. “We, of course, are always placing a lot of focus on the lore and also are inspired by [The Witcher] books by Andrzej Sapkowski,” she admits, “but this is mostly what we want to tell the world” – and what they tell should be big, considering how CD Projekt Red dubbed The Witcher 4 the “most immersive and ambitious open-world Witcher game” yet.
Can’t wait? Check out these other upcoming CD Projekt Red games to look forward to.