On Tuesday, CD Projekt Red finally released The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on the Nintendo Switch, allowing Switch owners to play through what could be the best open-world game of the current generation. But, the devs weren’t always sure that the game, which is packed full of content, would keep players busy.
While speaking with EuroGamer, Jakub Szamalek, who is the lead writer at CD Projekt Red, said that the devs were worried that The Witcher 3 wouldn’t have enough quests and dialogue choices to keep players busy in the game’s massive open-world. But, their concerns ended up being unfounded, as the game took players between 70 and 100 hours to complete.
“We had a lot of tables and trees and diagrams and post-it notes to try and build the whole picture but it was extremely difficult,” said CD Projekt Red’s lead writer. “We were actually very worried that we didn’t have enough content. We were seriously concerned there weren’t enough quests, enough dialogue sequences, there wasn’t enough to keep the player busy.”
“Obviously we were hugely mistaken,” Szamalek continued. “The density of the experience is definitely not lacking – but it was so hard to assess it when the game was still being made.”
Of course, the main game isn’t the only thing that’s packed with content that’ll keep players busy, as both DLC expansions — Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine — were also packed with a ton of content. Also, some would argue that the two expansions are necessary to play through, which isn’t always the case with post-launch story content.
The Nintendo Switch version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt also includes the two aforementioned story expansions at no additional charge, so it’s safe to say that owners of the console will have hundreds of hours of new content to experience.
Now that The Witcher 3 has finally come to the Nintendo Switch, CD Projekt Red can look towards their next release, which is Cyberpunk 2077. During this year’s E3 event, it was revealed that CDPR’s newest IP will come to consoles and PC on April 16, 2020. After that, they’ll likely begin working on developing The Witcher 4.
The biggest question surrounding the next Witcher game is will it feature Geralt of Rivia as the main protagonist? Some have said that they’re ready for a new main character, but if the upcoming Netflix series takes off and becomes the next Game of Thrones, then it’s likely that CDPR will bring the longtime face of the franchise back for one more game.
