Witcher 1 Remake: Original RPG Story Lead Admits Ending Cutscene Wasn’t Crafted by Story Team, Calls It a “Mistake”

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The shift in The Witcher 2 towards a more politically charged narrative stems from a decision made by someone at the top of CD Projekt Red, who wanted an additional ending cutscene for the first Witcher. This choice was made with minimal input from the studio’s narrative team, as revealed by original lead story designer Artur Ganszyniec.

Ganszyniec recently completed his first playthrough of the original Witcher in nearly two decades on YouTube, sharing a 26-video series filled with fascinating development insights. His latest video offers fresh perspectives on how the game’s final cutscene was conceived.

While we typically wouldn’t issue spoiler warnings for games that are nearly 20 years old, the upcoming remake of the first game makes it necessary to mention that we’ll be discussing significant plot details from the conclusion of The Witcher 1 and the beginning of The Witcher 2. If you want to experience the series without any prior knowledge, you might want to skip this.

“We envisioned the game ending with an open question and a sense of future possibilities. However, as we were finalizing the game, a decision was made—either by the board or [Michał Kiciński, co-founder of CD Projekt Red]—that we needed an animated outro,” Ganszyniec explained.

Based on the fantasy novels by Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher series has always had an undercurrent of political intrigue, but it didn’t become a central theme until the second game, where Geralt finds himself framed for murder. Interestingly, the climactic scene in The Witcher 1, where Geralt confronts an assassin targeting Foltest, was not the original intended ending and set the narrative on a much broader path, moving away from the more personal story of the first game.

“The script for the animation we see now was created without significant input from the story team. We didn’t pay enough attention, and that was a mistake. This animation conveys a different narrative than the outro images, as Geralt is still in Vizima, deeply entangled in political machinations due to an assassination attempt on Foltest,” Ganszyniec noted.

“This led to the realization that the next game would need to explore why Witchers were involved in killing kings. Consequently, The Witcher 2 became heavily political, leaving little room to delve into Geralt’s character, his family, and his backstory.”

The Witcher remake was announced in 2022 as a complete overhaul of the original game, being developed in Unreal Engine 5 by Fool’s Theory, a studio known for its contributions to RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sin 2. A release date has yet to be revealed.

In the meantime, here’s everything we know about The Witcher 4.