Witcher 3 Story Director on Remaster: ‘Not Untouchable’

CD Projekt Red is remastering The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and the man who wrote it says the 2015 RPG is fair game for changes. Marcin Blacha, the game’s lead writer and now the studio’s vice president of narration, told PC Gamer that the game is neither a monument nor something beyond improvement.

No Sacred Cows

Blacha was direct when asked whether there is any hesitation about altering a game held in such high regard. “For me, The Witcher 3 is not a monument and is not untouchable,” he said. “When I’m playing The Witcher 3, I still find some places that I think maybe nowadays, I would do it differently.” The remaster, due out later this month, is designed to feel like more than a visual upgrade. CD Projekt Red has stated its goal is to make the game feel new rather than just polished, which represents a notably ambitious target for a project revisiting a decade-old release.

What Blacha Would Change

Blacha pointed to a few concrete areas where he sees room to grow. He mentioned Dandelion as one example, saying he would make the bard a bit wiser and more genuinely supportive rather than leaning so heavily on him as comic relief. He also said he would look at expanding the number of meaningful choices available to Geralt and sharpening the consequences that follow from them. Some of those changes, he acknowledged, come from recognizing limitations in the original work. Others come from the fact that he himself has changed since writing it, much like the characters he created. “It is still a very uplifting feeling,” he said of returning to the project, describing it as a kind of time machine back to when he was younger and more enthusiastic.

New Expansion and a Confident Writing Team

The remaster arrives ahead of an entirely new expansion, Songs of the Past, which is scheduled for 2027. That project comes with its own vote of confidence from the team behind it. As PC Gamer reported, the expansion’s lead writer wrote her university thesis on Hearts of Stone, partly to make the case to her professors that games deserve serious academic attention. The base game remaster will cover the original campaign along with the Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions, giving returning players and newcomers alike a substantial package before Songs of the Past arrives.

Sources: PC Gamer, PC Gamer