PC Gamer - UK (2022-02)

C

D Projekt Red is a phenomenon that could

only have occurred in Poland – and only,

really, in the ’90s. It’s a time that explains

more than the studio’s ludicrously

anachronistic title. This was not just the

golden age of the CD-ROM, but the golden age of

piracy too – at least in the former Eastern Bloc. Under

communist rule, without legitimate access to Western

retailers or any copyright law to speak of, Polish PC

gaming culture grew in the street markets, where

games were sold for £3 a pop – according to the

excellent reporting of Eurogamer’s resident Witcher

scholar, Robert Purchese.

As the iron curtain lifted, local companies – including a

pair of skinny young hopefuls named Marcin Iwiski and

Michał Kiciski – could finally, legally import and sell the

biggest games from around the world. But in doing so

they would have to compete with the Captain Kidds and

Calico Jacks who had thrived in their stead.

For its vanguard release, the nascent CD Projekt

picked Bioware’s Baldur’s Gate. In its favour was the fact

that it came on five discs, reducing the ability of pirates to

sell it cheaply. And since it was an RPG, it was built

around words, which CD Projekt could translate in full

• casting renowned local actors in some of the key roles.
  Rounding out the value proposition was every luxury
  you could dream of in a big box PC game at the time: a
  parchment map, an audio CD, and a D&D rulebook.
  Despite the low-price competition, sales were stellar, and
  CD Projekt learned its founding principle – to overdeliver.

BALD DEBUT

Baldur’s Gate gave CD Projekt more than its first sales

success, of course. It gave the company a blueprint for its

own development efforts. During that localisation process,

it had internalised the Sword Coast’s iron ore crises and

dark omens; the way Baldur’s Gate blends social and

economic problems with matters of the gods and asks you

to sort through the mess. The Witcher took five years and

more funding than the business strictly had to finish, but

Bioware’s influence was clear to see in the result.

CD Projekt knew Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka well

enough to license the Aurora engine, and the two doctors

even lent their Polish cousins a corner of their booth at

E3. (Make no mistake, Bioware got behind The Witcher; I

first saw Geralt when a dramatic piece of art appeared in

the launcher for Neverwinter Nights, a space otherwise

reserved purely for that game’s expansions and DLC.)

With the benefit of half a decade’s visual and

atmospheric advancements, CD Projekt put Neverwinter

Nights’ tech to more powerful use than Bioware could

have. Pulling the once-isometric camera close to Geralt’s

shoulder, it situated players among the filth and flora of

Vizima. And there was something worth zooming in for:

though The Witcher had its share of jank, it also possessed

unusual flair for its genre.

Since the shift to 3D, Western RPG fans had resigned

themselves to stiff animations and clunky conversations

• the trade-offs for scale and reactivity. Yet somehow,
  despite its lack of pedigree and staff of former bankers
  and doctors, CD Projekt upped the standard. None of its
  peers could offer the sight of a pirouetting Geralt severing
  a drowner’s head from its dank blue shoulders – leaving
  the monster to ragdoll down an embankment into the
  rain-pounded river from whence it came.

LESSER EVILS

Even when Bioware put out Dragon Age: Origins two years

later – its own spiritual sequel to the D&D games of the

’90s – it failed to match The Witcher for its sense of danger

in the wilderness, a trait Baldur’s Gate had exemplified a

decade before. It was the first time CD Projekt had

out-Bioware’d its mentors, and wouldn’t be the last.

Just look at the Grey Wardens. In retrospect, Dragon

Age’s warrior order is a clear echo of Geralt’s: a gaggle of

lonely monster hunters, maligned by wider society,

subjected to a strange cocktail during training that kills off

most initiates and leaves just a handful of elite mutants.

Then there are its elves, an impoverished subclass eking

DISC WORLD

How CD PROJEKT RED climbed to the top of the RPG mountain – and slipped

BELOW: (^) Sapkowski
would describe that
top as a ‘jerkin’. He
once sold furs for a
living, don’t you know.
TAVERN DISTRACTION
A potted history of Witcher minigames
DICE POKER
The citizens of
Vizima go wild for
this game of chance

• presumably
  because it can bag
  them loads of orens,
  not because it’s
  particularly deep or
  satisfying to play.

A R M

WRESTLING

By The Witcher 2,

downtime had got

physical. This is a

Fable-esque matter

of finesse and motor

control. Don’t worry,

Geralt provides all

the strength.

GWENT

So much fun it

spawned a

standalone release,

this three-laned card

game reflects the

world around it – in

that, in the event of a

draw, Nilfgaard

always wins.

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