Witcher 4 has been announced and many players are looking forward to it. However, work on the game at developer CD Projekt Red started several years ago – with an unusual task for new employees.
How is CD Projekt Red preparing? During the Game Awards 2024, The Witcher 4 was announced with a long trailer. In it, the new protagonist Ciri, Geralt’s adopted daughter, was shown. This alone has stirred excitement among fans.
The responsible studio CD Projekt Red has, of course, been working on the new game for much longer. And although the team has a lot of experience with role-playing games, they particularly wanted to bring new employees into the right mood for the dark world of the Witcher.
For this purpose, they had to design a quest about two years ago. But it wasn’t just an exercise that quietly disappeared in the basement. No, this quest found its way into the predecessor, The Witcher 3.
Back to Geralt of Rivia
What quest is it about? With the 4.0 update, which was released in December 2022, mainly technical aspects of The Witcher 3 were improved. But there was also a new quest called “In the Shadow of Eternal Fire.”
This is the aforementioned exercise, where new employees were accompanied by experienced developers. They were to provide Geralt with another adventure and thus become familiar with his world, the mood, and the gameplay.
The quest sends the Witcher into a creepy cave where plague victims were imprisoned. There he meets an old Witcher who is possessed by a spirit. The quest is classic Witcher fare and is therefore probably exactly the result that the responsible people at CD Projekt Red expected.
As it seems, they were very satisfied with the result and incorporated it into The Witcher 3. According to the narrative director of the fourth part, Philipp Weber, it was the perfect start to get back into the mood of the world (via x.com).
After all, one must not forget: The Witcher 3 is now almost 10 years old. It was released in May 2015 – at this point, you may feel old.
Since so much time has passed, it was certainly not a bad idea to practice a bit on the predecessor before actually starting work on The Witcher 4. Fans of the third part have thus also received another quest. If you have seen the trailer for Witcher 4, a question may have arisen: The Witcher 4: What kind of monster is Ciri fighting in the new trailer?
