Summary
- CDPR brought together new writers and experienced quest designers to create a quest for The Witcher 3.
- The post-launch quest worked on by new developers is In The Eternal Fire’s Shadow.
- The tone of The Witcher remains delightfully dark from what we’ve seen of The Witcher 4.
CD Projekt Red (CDPR) has expanded a lot since it released its breakout hit, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The rapid expansion of a studio can cause fans to worry because it can feel like the “soul” of the team is being diluted. What if all the new hires don’t understand what made The Witcher 3 so good in the first place? Well, CDPR already addressed potential friction between the new and old developers by having them jointly work on a post-launch quest for The Witcher 3, according to narrative director Philipp Weber.
The quest wound up being In the Eternal Fire’s Shadow, released two years ago in the free next-gen update for The Witcher 3. The quest sees Geralt encounter a centuries-old School of the Wolf witcher named Reinald who disappeared while trying to cleanse The Devil’s Pit. Reinald is possessed by a spectre and Geralt must defeat him to allow his spirit to pass on. Your choices during the quest will determine the nature of Reinald’s spirit’s departure.
The Spirit of The Witcher
According to Weber, “Two years ago we released a new quest for The Witcher 3. New designers and writers worked on it while preparing for The Witcher 4, together with one of our most senior quest designers who has been with us since Witcher 1. All in all, it was the perfect start to getting back into the vibe.”
The quest certainly matches the “vibe” of The Witcher. It’s got the human element in Rainald, a malevolent creature that tries to manipulate Geralt, a climactic fight and an end-of-quest decision that determines the fates of multiple people. Tonally, it’s quintessential Witcher. The only thing that’s more The Witcher is Geralt sitting in a hot bath playing Gwent with sorceresses in various states of undress.
The side-quest depicted in the cinematic reveal trailer for The Witcher 4 is of a similar nature, with Ciri defeating an evil creature only to discover the village has pointlessly sacrificed a young woman. The parallels drawn between the raw evil of monsters and the more malicious evil of humanity is a core theme of The Witcher, and CDPR expertly captures it perfectly every time.
The Witcher IV is a single-player, open-world RPG from CD PROJEKT RED. At the start of a new saga, players take on the role of Ciri, a professional monster slayer, and embark on a journey through a brutal dark-fantasy world. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, it aims to be the most immersive and ambitious open-world Witcher game to date.