The Witcher: Crimson Trail. The Witcher beyond CDPR trilogy

The release of the original Witcher video game was accompanied by a Java-based platform game designed for whatever it was we used before smartphones. Weighing less than, get it, half a megabyte and adapted to operate on about 250 popular models of phones at the time, Crimson Trail was developed by Breakpoint. And it actually did a better job than you'd expect.

The cellphone (as such games were not yet called "mobile" at the time) Witcher was a side-scroller whose action was set many years before the events of Sapkowski's books. We played young Geralt, barely learning the hardships of his profession. And he had quite a lot to learn – the small game included twelve levels set in four visually diverse locations, eleven types of monsters, characters, potions, and even character development. Against the backdrop of direct competitors, this production definitely had nothing to be ashamed of, with a few internet reviews calling it one of the best games of its kind ever.

The Witcher: Crimson Trail didn't conquer the world for two main reasons. First, gaming on cell phones was a marginal phenomenon, especially compared to what happens now on iOS and Android, and second, the game used an ill-fated distribution model. The game was only available to users of a certain telecom operator in Poland via an exclusive deal, which further limited the customer base.