STACK#127 May 2016

GAMES

FEATURE

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The wait is over, Witchers. It’s here!

STACK spoke with head of global communications Michał Platkow-Gilewski about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt .

Sapkowski, who had agreed to license a mobile game based on the Witcher books, told the two budding developers to go and get the license. This they duly did, and now eight years later and after three delays, CD Projekt RED are about to release the concluding part of The Witcher trilogy: The Witcher III: Wild Hunt. Head of global communications Michał Platkow-Gilewski told STACK recently that the delays were necessary. “It’s really unfortunate that we had to delay the game but we see it like this – we either release just a good game and make people say that they could have pushed this [back] a few months and polished it a bit, or do exactly that: postpone the launch, squash the remaining bugs and make this adventure even more epic. “The things we focused on were mostly

T he CD Projekt story makes for interesting reading. Based in Poland, the origins of the studio stretch back to Warsaw computer swap-and-meet markets in the early nineties. Adam Kiciński and Marcin Iwiński were earning a living selling bootleg games, priding themselves on being able to obtain the latest triple-A titles from the West for an eager Polish audience. The advent of CD ROM technology proved to be a turning point for the young gamers, who set up a business named CD Projekt and began legally importing games through American distribution companies. After establishing relationships with publishers directly, Kiciński and Iwiński took it a step further and began 'localising' content. This was enough to ignite the creative flame and the pair decided

We postponed the launch, squashed the remaining bugs, and made this adventure even more epic

to open a development wing to the company – CD Projekt RED was established. Having an interest in fantasy RPG, Kiciński and Iwiński approached the Polish 'Tolkein', Andrzej Sapkowski, who had developed the critically-acclaimed Witcher series of books, believing they had little to no chance of engaging with the author. To their surprise,

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