CD Projekt Puts Cluster-Migraine Suffering Fan in The Witcher 3

In what I feel is a pretty classy gesture, the developers at CD Projekt have offered an ill fan a chance to be a small part of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt by using his face as a model for a couple of NPCs. The story was originally broken on Reddit by the fan himself, Nick, who explained he suffers from cluster migraines, how games like The Witcher 2 have helped him get through, and how that prompted him to contact the developers directly to simply thank them:

I have a brain condition that gives me, essentially, a non-stop Migraine. It’s a terrible, shitty Disability and I’ve had to live with it my entire life. There’s no real “Cure” for Migraines these days, so ever since I was 14 I was placed on an ever increasing painkiller “cocktail” regiment.

This ties in because due to my condition and the heavy amount of medicine I have to take, I experience side-effects and sometimes the pain doesn’t go away at all, so quite a bit of time pain-locked to my bed and there’s only a small amount of things that can take my mind off the pain: redditing, reading and gaming. The reason that those things are able to help me is because they’re all very immersive and vast, so I can really get lost in a graphic novel or an open-world video game (Reddit is something I do if it hurts too much to game/read).

So there’s only been a very small amount of games that offer that truly immersive experience I need to truly get lost within them and escape the pain that I’m feeling, and The Witcher 2 happened to be one of those games! Now, whenever I come across a game like this, I look around really deeply on the web to find some way of communicating directly to the team that created that game so that I could tell them my story and personally thank them for how they’ve helped me so much.

In response to Nick’s touching letter, CD Projekt offered to reproduce his likeness in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and a number of keys for Witcher-releated digital products. The story was later published on Eurogamer (their article is also the original source for this newspost), whose article includes a small message from CD Projekt:

“Some time ago we got an email from this guy. He described his situation and wanted to let the studio know what he thinks about our games and what they mean to him. That was a very kind and touching email. He didn’t ask for anything, just to pass the message to others in [CD Projekt] Red.

“Over the weekend we exchanged a couple of emails and finally came up with an idea to put his face in The Witcher 3. Let me quote one of these emails: ‘It is great that we can do something to make him feel better :)’. I think that sums it up pretty well.”

Overall, while I’m sorry to hear about Nick’s story, it’s heartening to know that interactions of this kind can happen, and that once in a while a videogame can actually help someone get by through very rough times. The entire GameBanshee staff wishes Nick all the best.