The Witcher 4 Devs Want to Explore "Consequences" Through Its Open World

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has left behind an indisputable legacy in the video game industry – with everything from Assassin’s Creed to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth taking inspiration from its masterful open world. Following up a gargantuan game like that is no small task, but nearly a decade later CD Projekt Red is ready to take a confident stab at it. But the plan has been in place for longer than you’d think.

“We decided nine years ago that whenever we get back to the IP, the spotlight needs to be on Ciri,” game director Sebastian Kalemba tells Inverse.

Players were introduced to Ciri in The Witcher 3, as the second playable character of the game. Ciri had her own small sections throughout the game, and the story itself focused largely on Geralt’s relationship with her as his adopted daughter. Because of this, players might have some familiarity with the character, but there’s still so much of her personality and history that’s unexplored.

“Ciri deserves it, and she’ll help us expand the world even more – she’s a new, predefined, but not well-defined character. So it will give players, and us, the opportunity to sell the perspective of what a Witcher really is in this world,” says Kalemba.

With a shocking reveal at The Game Awards, we now know The Witcher 4 will star Geralt’s adopted daughter Ciri, who’s come into her own as a Witcher. For fans of the series, that change has some huge connotations. After the reveal Inverse had the chance to chat with Kalemba and executive producer Małgorzata Mitręga, to talk about the wild ambitions of the Witcher 4 – from a bigger emphasis on player choice, to the lesson learned from the last four years of polishing Cyberpunk 2077.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

A couple weeks ago, you announced that Witcher 4 had entered full production at this point. There’s been talk in recent years of announcing games too early. Why did you think now was the right time to announce The Witcher 4?

Kalemba: Actually, that was a planned strategy, right? We were working hard with the entire team to hit this milestone, and we did it. But on top of that, we wanted to finally reveal who's the main protagonist. That it’s The Witcher 4, Ciri is mutated, and she has Witcher gear on her.

That's one thing. And second, we wanted to remind everyone, and actually also showcase to all the people that haven't played Witcher – what is the world about? That it's dark, but there's this light of hope in the end.

We wanted to make this statement of the artistic innovation we've made, because that was actually pre-rendered in-engine footage. So that means that we aspire to achieve such quality in the game later on.

Mitręga: We want to remind everyone, and those that don’t know, that this is The Witcher profession. This is a monster hunter. To show them that not only is Witcher 4 in production, but this is what we’re cooking up.

If you look at The Witcher books, Ciri is very much the main character there. After three games with Geralt, how does casting Ciri as the protagonist change the experience in the games?

Kalemba: As you already said, Ciri is a super important character in the books, and we also introduced her in The Witcher 3 as a playable character. And also, one of the stakes, right? Geralt was looking for her because they love each other, and I don't want to spoil it, but generally, we told this story with Geralt and summed it up. Doesn't mean that Geralt won't appear, he will actually appear in the game. But we sum up his story in the first saga, we even leave him in Touissant in his mansion.

We decided, nine years ago, that whenever we get back to the IP that the spotlight needs to be on a Ciri. Because she deserves it, and she’ll help us expand the world even more – because she’s a new, predefined, but not well-defined character. So it will give players, and us, the opportunity to sell the perspective of what a Witcher really is in this world: That, of course, is a professional monster slayer and mutant. But at the same time with Ciri, you as the player have more freedom when it comes to defining her, because she's younger than Geralt, she doesn't have her own Codex yet, she's on The Path, and she's the very first Witcher by choice. So we decided it’s going to be a great step forward for the franchise, and this origin story.

You’ve talked about Ciri being a Witcher by choice before, and in the books her abilities are a little different from the typical Witcher – most of which are men. How does all that factor into her story going into The Witcher 4?

Mitręga: So in the trailer, you can already see that she's passed The Trial of Grasses [the ceremony to become a Witcher]. For newcomers, they might just think okay, a new power and new skill set. But for those with sentiment, who’ve already played Witcher, you can tell that this is not what was happening at the end of The Witcher 3. So something is going on in between. We cannot talk about it more, but we just want to tease and start some discussion through our fans.

You can tell that she’s able to do magic, we see it in a trailer. And her being more agile, but at the same time, taught by Geralt among the others, is something that gives us the opportunity to give the player something new, something much, much different. At the same time, this has been mentioned before, but one of the questions we needed to start with was that Ciri was really overpowered in Witcher 3. So this is something that we needed to address as well, but we cannot say how exactly right now.

The Witcher 3 is a very choice-heavy game. Are those choices being taken into account in some way in Witcher 4?

Kalemba: We can’t share many details, but what we can say is definitely. Witcher 4 happens a few years after Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Secondly, we will definitely refer to some endings here and there, seasoned players will notice changes on this deeper level – but it’s the same world. So if you left this world 10 years ago you’ll feel at home, but looking through the prism of Ciri. But you’ll also get the opportunity to explore this world, because we are going to showcase completely different regions.

Mitręga: But if you don’t know anything about the Witcher world, you can still start with Witcher 4 freely and experience it, and actually, it will be a different experience. Because your introduction to the profession of The Witcher and to the world of the Witchers is with her, and to create the Witcher you want. Because she has a lot of freedom on The Path and we create that character in a way that you can make a lot of choices on what your progression will look like in the game. So you can start becoming a Witcher, and then come back to the other stories after that.

Looking back on The Witcher 3, there’s been a lot of opinions on how influential it was, how it redefined open world design. With that in mind, how are you going into this project – seeing how many games take inspiration from Witcher 3? How are you hoping to do that again?

Kalemba: The biggest change from Witcher 2 to 3 was actually adding this open world factor. Then when you look at our timeline we had Cyberpunk and Night City, which had some contained parts, but was generally open world.

The way we’re making Witcher 4 is no less than that, but we want to explore more possibilities around distress and consequences factors, and put even more emphasis on the player agency side there. Just to make you feel like you have more of an impact on a global level, so it’s meaningful to you.

With Cyberpunk 2077 over the last few years you’ve transformed it into almost a completely different game. What have you learned from that as a studio? Are there any lessons from Cyberpunk you’re carrying forward?

First of all, there were of course struggles right after Cyberpunk, but what defines us is the lesson you got through it. So since that time, we released the Phantom Liberty expansion. It was work when it comes to how we develop a game on a different level, and when it comes to the release stage, and how we do the marketing campaign for that. Of course, it was an expansion, not a full game, but still, it was huge, and the changes were significant when it came to the gameplay and world itself, right? So we can already see that there’s a new quality in that.

So with The Witcher and the new project we are working on right now. Yeah, it's a continuation of the evolution, improvement, and transformation we are going on. To make sure that the vision is there, everybody understands what we are doing. Not just on a project level, it’s a vision for the company level. It's the strategy that we all understand how to participate, so we are all going in the same direction,

On the team level, when it comes to development, there are many changes. But among them, we do have much better and transparent communication, more honest communication within the teams, within the leadership, between the projects, with the board, so we all have the same goals. And we can rely on each other and help each other. We talk a lot, a bit making sure those people are the best possible people, there’s a healthy way that they work, and also they’re having fun with what they do, and don't forget about that, right?

What’s fascinating about this series is how each game redefines what it means to be a Witcher game, and has been a massive leap forward. For this project did you look back not just at Witcher 3, but at the first two games as well?

Kalemba: This is the way we evaluate, even internally, the whole development process, and the way we establish unique selling points for upcoming games. We actually take it very seriously, because it’s this unique factor we have – we can use our knowledge, the empiric data, and really think about okay, like this crafting system, does it work well? Or we could prepare something here regarding combat. We look at that in a really full spectrum. Not only talking about Witcher, but also about Cyberpunk.

We want to make this process as deterministic as possible, and based on that knowledge we are trying to be super educated when it comes to the next steps. There’s a strong sense of why we own things.

Mitręga: What's great is that we’re opening a new saga, we're coming for a new trilogy. Right now we’re fully focusing on Witcher 4, but even with that we already have in mind what the bigger plan is here.

The Witcher 4 is currently in development.