The Witcher 2 Holds a Mirror to Polish History

Digital Love Child’s Reid McCarter has published a somewhat interesting editorial on the relationship between The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings’ story and Polish history. Here’s a quote that I feel best expresses the parallels:

The Witcher 2, perhaps the most internationally successful game to have been created by a Polish developer, certainly embodies the underlying fear that characterizes the nation’s history. The game’s events all take place within the fictional Pontar Valley an area that comprises the southern tip of the Northern Kingdoms and is bordered on all sides by expansion-minded kingdoms. Each of the cities visited by protagonist Geralt of Rivia during the game are located in this area. He journeys through a region that lives with the constant knowledge that it is a potential military flashpoint, liable to be invaded at any time by the antagonistic Nilfgaardian Empire bordering its south and the surrounding kingdoms that recognize its strategic importance. As the plot gets underway, The Witcher 2 sees its hero framed for the assassination of a Northern king, setting in motion a story that revolves around Geralt’s attempt to clear his name and uncover the motives of a conspiracy that seeks to destabilize the region by knocking off its key leaders. The intrigue is confusing and, with its endless use of bewildering fantasy place and personal names, almost frustratingly obtuse at first. But, as the player guides Geralt further through his quest, all of that alien information begins to crystallize into something that can be sorted out. It’s at this point that real-world parallels begin to emerge and The Witcher 2 reveals itself as a game that is more concerned with the home of its developer than the fictional setting in which it takes place.

CD Projekt RED is staffed by developers who, by virtue of chronology, either remember life during Communist Poland or have grown up with stories from the time. The people who wrote The Witcher 2’˜s script and brought its world to life may have been forced to learn Russian in school; to worry about their homeland’s role in a potential war with the West; to hear of occupation under Nazi Germany. It would be next to impossible to grow up in a culture like this and not express elements of it, whether consciously or not, in the art and entertainment you create. CD Projekt RED is not an exception++. They are the developers of a game set in the Pontar Valley a land that is, like Poland, populated by people who are subject to the manipulations of the great powers surrounding it. They created a story where the leaders of the Northern Kingdoms attempt to destabilize its cities in order to further their own power bases. (The first chapter of their game involves a corrupt town mayor who extorts his own people and gets away with it because he’s in the pocket of the powerful Kaedwen nation. This mayor is depicted as one of the most despicable villains of the game and is a clear analogue to the sort of Polish government officials who (sold out) their nation to the USSR.) When fighting breaks during the many instances of diplomatic failure in the game, it’s the citizens of the Pontar Valley who are shown being thoughtlessly slaughtered or hiding in their burning homes as a result of the ensuing battles. This is also a game where an independent body of powerful sorcerers called the Conclave serves as a neutral, multinational peacekeeping body a veritable United Nations that decides the fate of the powerless Pontar Valley by regulating the actions of its more powerful neighbours.