The Witcher Interview

PCZone’s Will Porter brings us another interview looking back at the successes of the Witcher with chief designer Michal Madej.

Madej: The initial idea was to create a fantasy RPG based on a known franchise. We started talking to Interplay about making a PC port of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, and after some time and some problems, we started looking for something else.

We realised Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher saga would be great. First of all, he’s our own Polish writer and because he has a new vision of fantasy his work was fantastic to turn into a game. It was inspiring, it was unique, it was fresh, and while we had to translate the IP to other territories and that would be a challenge, we knew it would be a success.

In Poland, Russia and the Czech Republic, people are crazy about his work. I believe he’s as popular as Tolkien, or even more so. Everyone went crazy about the game when it was released. In these countries it’s not just a game – it’s more like a cultural event. We had mainstream newspapers writing about it, it was on TV, everywhere. He’s the most popular Polish writer today – and not just in fantasy writing – he’s just the best Polish writer.

Imagine a Dark Alliance PC port instead of the Witcher. Bleh.