The Witcher 4 Developement Without Much Influence From Players
CD Projekt RED studio have spoken out about consulting players during the development of the next installment of the Witcher series. It turns out that they don't intend to do so, at least when it comes to critical elements of the game.
Yesterday, CD Projekt RED studio announced that the pre-production phase of Project Polaris, aka The Witcher 4, will soon come to an end and enter proper production. During the conversation with investors, the company's management talked a bit about the game's design philosophy.
One of the conference participants asked if the developers use surveys to obtain players' opinions on the development and future of the franchise during the development process. In response, board member Michal Nowakowski stated:
We've never, in all our history, developed games based on any surveys. It’s a mix of knowing your niche, being the expert in it, and relying on your guts. We do obviously carry out research and trials when it comes to UX or interfaces – but not in terms of how the storyline should go.
None of The Witcher saga games were done this way and we don’t see it happening in the future.
How we’re planning the next trilogy is in line with what we’ve been thinking of for a long time (...).
This seems like a good approach. The games of this studio have always provide an excellent storyline and this aspect could lose a lot if the developers, instead of following their own ideas, tried to adapt to the expectations of the audience. However, gathering player feedback on gameplay and interface may prove useful.
Number of DRM-free games on GOG.com
Staying on the topic of the investors meeting - during it, we could also learn about the latest achievements of the GOG.com service. Currently, it offers over 9,000 games from 1,300 producers/publishers. This is all the more impressive because all of them are DRM-free, and convincing game publishers to release a game without it is not always easy.
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