GameCyte

Polish developer CD Projekt RED isolated themselves for months in order to perfect their PC fantasy RPG The Witcher — after the title had already sold 600,000 copies. Now, they’re finally coming in from the cold, and ready to explain where they found the motivation to relocalize and rework their magnum opus… without charging gamers a single grosz.

Ports that are better than the original. Localization that goes far beyond language. Revolutionary, game-changing DLC — for free.

In Not Content to Cash Out, GameCyte profiles those developers and publishers who go the extra mile — building content, squashing bugs and actually listening to fans — when they could have just called it a day and gone home. Today, we’ll introduce you to CD Projekt RED, a developer who’s setting a new bar for quality control with their upcoming release of The Witcher: Enhanced Edition.

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Though it was hardly the first time the CD Projekt crew had carted their game to the Electronic Entertainment Expo, I had my first taste of the Polish action-RPG The Witcher at E3 2006, previewing the title for a small startup called the International House of Games. Suffice it to say, I was impressed. The game seemed to have everything: beautiful graphics, engaging combat, role-playing decisions that actually influenced the game’s narrative and — Chief Designer Michal Madej promised — an immersive, nuanced story of racial prejudice based on the acclaimed fantasy novels of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. To my mind, the only thing CD Projekt was missing was a publisher.

CD Projekt found that publisher in Atari… but in the exchange that followed, that nuanced plot — the feature I had been most looking forward to — was somehow lost in translation. It soon came out that The Witcher’s dialogue had been heavily edited for English-speaking audiences, and although the title still received plenty of praise for its other feats, critics rightfully called out the game’s poor localization. Naturally, these reviews couldn’t help CD Projekt make a better game; in Polish, we were told, things sounded just fine, and at any rate, retail boxes were already on store shelves. The damage had been done.

Project Lead Maciej Szczesnik

At least that’s what I thought until this February, when CD Projekt revealed a seemingly ridiculous plan. They would relocalize the entire game, rewriting and re-recording over 5,000 lines of spoken dialogue. They’d reduce the game’s lengthly load times by 80%. They’d improve the inventory system. They’d even add new character models and animations to make the game more immersive. And most impressive of all, they would also offer all this new functionality and all this improved dialogue to existing players for free via downloadable patch.

Why? How? And what’s in it for them? Maciej Szczesnik, project lead on The Witcher; and Tom Ohle, CD Projekt RED VP of PR and Marketing, provided some honest and some hilarious, tongue-in-cheek answers to these questions.

GameCyte: What was the primary motivation to optimize The Witcher, and fully relocalize it for English-speaking countries?

Maciej Szczesnik: We wanted to make this game even better. We had some suggestions from fans and press and also lots of our own ideas about how to improve The Witcher. This sort of thing often happens after the battle to hit deadlines… You work very hard for a few months in the studio, then you finally go to your home for well deserved rest, confident that you’ve done a great job. A normal person would go for a long, long vacation in the Bahamas, but what does a game developer do?

He sits in front of his PC, turns it on, runs the game he just made, plays a while, and thinks, “Oh my God! We should make this and that different, better, faster.” That was our situation. At first we made some patches, but we wanted to give more to those who trusted us and bought our debut game. This was the primary motivation to improve The Witcher. The goal of our studio is to make only triple-A games.

GameCyte: How did the decision first come about? Whose decision was it? Was there any particular resistance to/enthusiasm for the idea on the part of either CD Projekt or its Western publishers?

Tom Ohle: Don’t get us wrong; we were very happy with The Witcher and were confident in the game we released. However, as Maciej said, we wanted to deliver the game that fans deserved. We were grateful for all of the feedback we got from fans and media (and horribly angry at the reduction in review scores brought about by the issues raised… the anger still builds up inside me sometimes, so bad I can hardly stand it!!!) …breathe, Tom, breathe.

Okay, so we had two options: just release a typical patch that would let us fix only a few of the issues, or whip a larger team together, spend some more money and make a lot of changes that would ultimately give us the best game possible. Our publishing partners have been very enthusiastic about the idea; rather than just churning out some “Game of the Year” edition, we’re giving them a much more polished product that will help us reach a lot of people who never played the original.

GOTY? Try Ultimate Collector’s Edition. At retail, TWEE comes with two audio CDs, a making-of DVD, an official game guide, a Sapkowski short story, a map and best of all — a host of audio and subtitle options.

GameCyte: How is the Enhanced Edition being funded?

MS: We sold our cars, and houses, and had a little whip-round. Unfortunately I also had to sell one of my kidneys. What can I say… life is hard. Of course the truth is different. Together with our very supportive publishing partners, we have been able to fund the title rather easily. Our fans’ opinions are most important for us. I know it’s not popular business thinking, but this is what we think is really important.

Also important: fleeing an angry mob. TWEE’s NPCs have improved facial expressions, 100 new conversational gesture animations, and now look at Geralt as he walks (or desperately runs) by them.

GameCyte: Why spend more money to improve a title that is ostensibly already complete?

TO: As gamers, we thought about the situation and the response was obvious. The team has always stated that The Witcher was to be used as a way to introduce the brand to a global audience; this wasn’t some one-off game that we’d use to make some quick cash to fund our real passion for Barbie-doll dress-em-ups. We want people to remember The Witcher, and we want them to like us as a company.

When not dressing Barbies, CD Projekt likes to give the occasional makeover to prominent Vizima prostitutes.

GameCyte: What kind of return does the team and company expect for their additional hard work, whether financially or otherwise?

MS: As a team we expect better opinions from fans and press. That’s all, and that would be the best reward for us. Sure, we would love to sell a lot of copies…

Above: Maciej’s house turns to ash

GameCyte: What challenges or obstacles were involved in reworking the game?

MS: The most challenging thing during the process was the re-recording of all German voice-work and lots of English voices. It was hard because of tight deadlines. But Arek Trojanowski, our producer, managed to find a new, very good studio, and we did everything on time. The new voice-overs really fit well.

GameCyte: What is the team currently working on?

MS: The game is basically done; we’re just polishing at this point. At the studio in general, we’re working on The Witcher: Enhanced Edition… and some other very top-secret projects. I hope Tom will censor what I wrote. If not, I will probably die in a car accident or my house will blow up. Tom, I was kidding; they won’t believe that we are working on something other than TWEE, right? Please don’t call Mr. Ivan, ok?

GameCyte: When can we expect the Enhanced Edition to arrive in North America?

TO: If Maciek is still alive, we should be on schedule for September… and well… if not, it’s a big industry and Warsaw’s a nice city. I’m sure we can find someone else. We’re not quite ready to get more specific than September, because again, we want to deliver the best game possible. If that takes a bit of extra time, we’ll take it.

What doesn’t take extra time: drawing and sheathing Geralt’s shiny silver sword. TWEE promises improved combat responsiveness

GameCyte: Is there anything… special hidden in the update you’d like to let us know about?

MS: Now, but you didn’t find every secret or Easter egg in The Witcher yet… Keep looking! In the Enhanced Edition, though, we focused on adding new functionality and fixing all known issues. I hope you will play The Witcher: Enhanced Edition and like it. Have fun!

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Thanks to both Maciej and Tom for the interview, and for a little something extra for GameCyte readers: two freshly recorded samples of English dialogue, side by side with their original counterparts. Have a listen, and tell us what you think in the comments!

“Let’s go to the Circle of Elements…”

Before/after

“Quick, to the Laboratory!”

Before/after

Is your developer Not Content to Cash Out? Tell us all about it, right here.

UPDATE 9/17: The Witcher: Enhanced Edition is now available for the ridiculously awesome price of $40.

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