The world of The Witcher 3 is populated by a variety of NPCs. During development, their behavior in certain situations underwent some changes because the developers knew: players can be incredibly curious.
The open world of The Witcher 3 feels alive, and part of the reason for this are the numerous NPCs who inhabit the villages and towns. The developers at CD Projekt Red knew while working on the role-playing game that their fans are curious and pay close attention in an immersive world.
Philipp Weber, who is currently working as the Narrative Director on The Witcher 4, discussed the issue in an interview with Edge Magazine (via Gamesradar).
“Since we focused on the rural environment, it was easier for players to become curious. If a village only has eight houses, people want to know if the inhabitants really exist in this world or if everything is just a facade. Many people are interested in such details nowadays, and this really posed a challenge for us.”
Therefore, it was important to give the NPCs a lot of love during development. This resulted in some rather curious scenes.
Witcher 4 is currently in development and will likely be even more detailed than its predecessor – here you can see the trailer:
Panic ensues… and babies fall
How did they proceed? According to Weber, it would not be a problem today to build a small village with eight houses within two hours. During the work on The Witcher 3 in 2012, things looked different.
Back then, the team mainly focused on a correct day-night cycle and the realistic simulation of NPC daily life. How the inhabitants of the villages and towns reacted to the player was less of a focus: “There weren’t as many details,” Weber explains.
So what happens if Geralt suddenly creates chaos in a village and panic breaks out? For a while, the reaction of the NPCs was as follows: they dropped everything and fled from the danger.
That alone would make sense, but the problem arose that NPCs really dropped EVERYTHING. Not just baskets, brooms, or jugs. Weber summarizes: “For several weeks, women were dropping their babies left and right.”
The team had to step back and address the absurd issue. In the end, most NPCs received a selection of places to which they could move. There was no specific guideline, as Weber illustrates with an example: “For the 50 sailors in the harbor of Novigrad, we set up 200 possible locations, so they would still have options even if all 50 were active at the same time.”
It is therefore thanks to the curiosity of the players that the developers had to demonstrate great attention to detail even in seemingly insignificant areas. Are you one of the players who want to test all possibilities in a title? Feel free to share your experiences with us in the comments. A developer veteran is already raising hopes for a spectacular sequel: He left Larian for CD Projekt Red, announcing after 6 months at The Witcher 4: “People are not ready for it”
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