The screenwriter of the first "Witcher" — on the remake, Geralt’s amnesia, and erotic cards
If, say, 20 years ago CD Projekt RED had the money and tools it has now, how different would the first Witcher have felt? Artur Ganszyniec, who worked on two entries in the saga, told the Polish site Chip that, in spirit, the debut might have resembled The Witcher 3 more than the 2007 release we know.
He argues that "The Witcher 3" captures much of what "Witcher" could have been if the team had time, cash, better tech, and experience. “We didn’t have any of that. We had Aurora — and we did what we could,” he said, sounding both proud and a little rueful.
The upcoming The Witcher Remake by Fool’s Theory is being built in Unreal Engine 5, which should help in practical ways: combat and camera feel more genre‑typical, the map can be stretched without so many jarring load screens, etc. (Yes, e.g. UE5 gives level-design tools that Aurora simply lacked.)
About the open world, Ganszyniec warns: make it bigger without thinking and you’ll alter pacing, quest beats, and story triggers — sometimes in ways you don’t want.
Expand the map and the game changes. Bigger world = more content, and more content reshapes pace and scale. In "The Witcher" we always knew where the player was; that let us trigger a scene, place Alvin between field and village, and move on. In a full open world you'd have to rethink all that.
He pointed to chapter five, where Geralt walks the swamp near Vizima. If the original had been a true open playground, a player could hop in a boat and head straight to Salamandra HQ — ruining planned encounters and surprises. “As a player, I would have loved that option. As a designer — I’d go gray,” he admitted, with an almost embarrassed chuckle.
A sprawling map gives more player choices, sure, but it also multiplies the permutations writers and designers must cover. There’s a budget and sanity limit; at some point the team has to pick how cinematic beats and sandbox freedom coexist (think Baldur’s Gate‑style scope vs. controlled set‑pieces).
For Ganszyniec, the first “Witcher” is what it could be under its constraints. Concessions were made, ideas were shelved, and yes — simplifications happened. That doesn’t automatically make those choices flaws to be “fixed” in a remake; sometimes they’re the grout holding the thing together. Frankly, he sounds more defensive than nostalgic.
A few other bits from the interview:
- Some players call Geralt’s amnesia a lazy plot device. Ganszyniec won’t pretend it was perfect, yet he insists it solved several early‑game problems in one go. For a series debut you need to ease people into lore, systems, and tone; starting with a protagonist who learns as the player learns is a practical shortcut. Also, the memory gap let the story avoid dragging in Ciri and Yennefer too soon. If Geralt had remembered everything, the game would have leapt into events tied to Elder Blood, the lodge, and the rest — threads CDPR weren’t ready to juggle in 2007.
The first “Witcher” grew from earlier script drafts where Geralt wasn’t the lead but a supporting figure. The team had built locations and setups around another witcher — Berengar — and when I joined they didn’t want to throw away that work. That boxed us in; there simply wasn’t room to introduce Ciri or Yennefer.
- People also ask: why didn’t anyone inform Geralt about his past — why the friends didn’t spill the details about Ciri and Yennefer? Ganszyniec says there may be no single canonical answer. His take is practical and a little human: friends like Zoltan, Shani, Triss, and Dandelion likely agreed to let Geralt settle in first rather than shove a full dossier at him and risk him storming off into danger.
I don’t know what official canon says — there might not be a neat answer — but my version is: they thought, “He’s alive; let him breathe.” Don’t dump everything on him at once.
- The swamp forest near Vizima is huge and easy to get lost in; Ganszyniec admits that part could’ve been handled better. He even took responsibility for placing obelisks there — they were meant to echo the Kabbalistic Tree of Life — but the location was already finished, so his original scheme had to be toned down (or quietly abandoned), which frustrated him.
(There were other small confessions — bits about card art, mature content, and studio compromises — moments where the team picked what to keep and what to cut. The interview is worth reading if you like behind‑the‑curtain messiness rather than polished origin myths.)