How the Gothic Series Influenced The Witcher
Our gameplay goal and dream
is to copy what we know form Gothic.
It's a legendary series, at least for us.
For instance, such an iconic game series as Gothic…
An example of a good German RPG.
Gothic and The Witcher are one of the most iconic series among Polish gamers
– not just with regard to the RPG genre,
but the entire gaming sector.
Both games won the hearts of thousands of Polish gamers,
and managed to gather crowds of devoted followers.
Not many realize that the Gothic series was a forefather of The Witcher games,
especially when it comes to to its dynamics and diversity, living, open world, and gameplay as such.
But the most incredible thing about the relationship of these two
is that although the elements of living world have been introduced already in The Witcher and The Witcher 2,
the full vision inspired by the Gothic series was fulfilled only in The Wild Hunt!
What is more,
the developers of the Witcher 3 decided to employ a range of other mechanics
that featured in the first two Gothic games,
the fact that they mention in various interviews, and that we will be mentioning shortly!
In this video, we will refer to multiple opinions about the Gothic series, and statements proving its influence over The Witcher saga.
We will be quoting some of the most prominent members of the CD Projekt Red team, namely:
Adam Badowski – head of the CD Projekt Red development studio,
Marcin Iwiński – co-founder of CD Projekt and joint CEO of CD Projekt SA,
Konrad Tomaszkiewicz – director of The Witcher 3,
and Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz – head quest designer in The Witcher 3.
You will also meet other important figures of the team,
such as Michał Madej – chief designer of the first Witcher game.
From the very beginning of the RPG genre,
the biggest challenge that the developers of RPGs had to face
was creating an authentic illusion of the living and dynamic world.
One could call it an attempt at imitating the real world
and implementing its framework into a virtual system,
where each character has their own everyday routines and duties to which they devote their time.
The goal was to create a world which is not just a background for the heroic deeds of the protagonist,
but a complex machine in which the player is but a small cog.
Another element that the RPG genre sought to employ was a concept of open world.
The main aim of the developers was to create a world devoid of artificial barriers between various locations in the game,
allowing players for its unrestricted exploration.
First games to successfully implement both of the aforementioned concepts
were Ultima VII (with isometric view) and Ultima Underworld (with first-person perspective).
In both games, every NPC had their own daily routine: things to do and places to go.
They could react to player's behaviour in a number of ways,
and would change their attitude towards the main character basing on the decisions he made.
Although the system was quite simple and limited, back in the day it was considered highly innovative.
It served as a cornerstone for more advanced solutions implemented in the series such as Gothic and The Elder Scrolls.
The founding fathers of both Piranha Bytes and Bethesda
readily admit that Ultima Underworld was one of their major inspirations.
Among other titles that experimented with the concept of living world
were such games as Albion, or Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale,
the classic isometric productions of Black Isle and Interplay.
Another ambitious production which contributed to the idea of open world was The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall.
Here, the size of the digital world was comparable with the actual size of Great Britain,
and the number of NPCs that the player could interact with
exceeded 750 thousand.
Since the world in Daggerfall was generated procedurally, it was different with each approach to the game.
The locations and the NPCs (together with their dialogue lines)
were built from ready-to-use elements, put together at random.
Unfortunately, the feeling of a real, breathing world that the developers intended on
was only an illusion that became more than apparent when closely examined.
Daggerfall is the perfect example of how quantity
does not translate to better quality of game immersion.
Gothic, by the time still in the stage of development,
stood on the other side of the equation.
The world of Gothic, although significantly smaller than that of Daggerfall, was carefully designed and crafted.
The developers left nothing to chance and paid equal attention
to each and every detail of the game.
In the interview for pcgamer.com,
Konrad Tomaszkiewicz (game director of The Witcher 3)
and his brother Mateusz (lead quest designer for the same production) mention that fact specifically.
Mateusz notes that both Gothic and The Witcher 3 pay exceptional attention to detail,
the only difference between the two being, as Konrad observes, the size of the world.
We will return to this interview shortly, on the occasion of discussing The Elder Scrolls.
Released in Germany in 2001, and one year later in Poland,
Gothic became the first RPG to successfully combine realistic 3D environment with highly developed NPC behaviour.
The world of Gothic doesn't feature loading screens (aside from underground areas in the main storyline),
and the NPCs have their individual habits, memory,
appearance, personality, place in the hierarchy, highly developed SI and their own voice.
These are exactly the aspects that won the hearts of the critics.
In the premiere review in the 71th issue of the CD-Action magazine, published on March 2002,
Gothic was hailed the candidate for the title of the game of the year
alongside with EA Games' Medal of Honor: Allied Assault!
The person responsible for the review was late Andrzej Sawicki.
Also known under the nickname of 'El General Magnifico,' or EGM,
the man was famous for his sharp pen and strict, yet fully objective, rating system.
Under his detached scrutiny, Gothic received a 9 out of 10 score.
Here's what he wrote about the first game of the series:
"When playing Gothic, you have a feeling that every little detail of it was carefully thought out.
In the Colony, there are hundreds of prisoners and each of them has a memory of a wounded elephant.
If you mess with someone they will not only feel offended, but also warn others against you.
On the other hand, enemies of your enemies will become your allies.
Whereas some of the prisoners will greet you with open arms,
others will jump down your throat at the very sound of your voice.
So you better think twice before you decide to get under somebody's skin!
You'll see that the Colony lives its own life.
At dusk, wild creatures go to a well-earned rest, after spending their day on howling and roaring.
The camp settlers either retire to their quarters or sit by the fireplace
and, the real men they are, indulge in the "F" word pleasures
(such as frolicking, fattening up, farting, fighting over one's advantages… and more of the sort…)
Social rule number one is not to approach anyone with your weapon drawn, and to avoid trespassing in random houses.
Otherwise you may get in trouble...
[…] The people from Piranha Bytes have managed to create an extensive open world.
Wandering from one camp to another, you will learn that their inhabitants devote themselves to a variety of different occupations.
You can spot them fixing their cottages, sitting by the fire, cooking meals, dancing,
eating, drinking, smoking pipes, and so on.
When night falls, the very same camps turn into ghost towns.
Walking through the forest, you may come across wild creatures hunting one another.
Some NPCs wander from place to place.
Watching this world change will be a true feast for your eyes!"
As you can hear, such a believable world with thoroughly designed communities,
at the time the game was published, was a real novelty.
For this very reason, Gothic has gained the appreciation of the reviewer.
Among other strengths of the game, El General lists the impression of being lost in a big world of the penal colony.
In his final assessment of Gothic, he praises its vast and diversified world, non-linear storyline,
advanced AI of NPCs, stunning graphics (in spite of what people tend to think of it today)
as well as atmospheric audio and background music.
Among its only disadvantages, EGM points out the game's then high system requirements when one wanted to run it on the top settings.
The remaining part of the CD-Action editorial board criticized the game for its rather awkward controls.
Gothic has created a perfect illusion of a world that would go on living its own life
even without the presence of the protagonist.
Asking yourself what makes modern role-play video games prominent,
you will find out that a lot of these features were already present in both The Witcher and Gothic series.
Among them are:
Realistic settlements and towns full of details and trivia;
Living and thoroughly developed NPC communities;
NPCs that react to your actions;
Creatures with realistic behavioural patterns, living their own life in the game;
Living world your hero can interact with in a number of different ways,
including climbing, swimming and diving;
Well-written characters, dialogues, and an interesting storyline;
Combat system which allows the player to develop their character's skills,
as well as track their individual progress;
Gothic was first 3D video game to combine all these elements
and give the main character, the Nameless Hero, a voiceover.
Back when protagonists of RPGs were mute, it was an unusual and remarkable feature.
Even The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, released one year after Gothic, did not manage to implement that solution,
and it was neither seen in Oblivion nor in Skyrim, the more recent games of the series.
Björn Pankratz, the last remaining developer of the current Piranha Bytes' team who worked on the first Gothic,
refers to this revolutionary addition in an interview for TVGry.
The only thing that Bjorn regrets
is that the game didn't feature verbal reactions of the character to such interactions as looting dead bodies,
or his inability to open locked chests due to the lack of adequate skill.
These verbal reactions, however, were further developed in Gothic 2.
The developers of The Witcher, too, learned their lesson from the experience of Piranha Bytes.
Their game featured a number of remarks made by Geralt on certain occasions.
Another example are the farewell lines in dialogues.
In Gothic 1 and 2, this reaction was used only selectively.
In The Witcher games, however, this feature became a standard.
Another interesting element introduced in the Gothic series which increased the immersion
were unique NPC faces, provided even to secondary and background characters!
In 2001 and 2002, it was a truly remarkable improvement,
especially when we realise that a lot of recent games still pay little attention to this aspect.
The developers of Gothic managed to solve this problem with a simple modular system.
They created around 100 face textures for characters, and a variety of different outfits.
This solution allowed them for changing the skin tone of various body parts with but a few clicks.
What is more, the tool allowed the developers
to generate a whole array of diverse NPCs basing on seven distinct head models they have designed.
Unfortunately, the problem of 'the attack of the clones' didn't spare The Witcher.
The game featured only a small number of 3D models,
limited to such an extent that even main characters looked similar to each other.
In the developer diaries from The Witcher 2,
Paweł Mielniczuk, lead character artist, shares with us the team's insight into that matter:
In The Witcher, we had only a limited number of models at our disposal.
It was a problem because in the game you would meet the same models performing as different characters.
In The Witcher 2 we definitely wanted to change it, so we decided to implement the modular system.
There, each and every character was created from previously prepared components.
By creating unique sets of arms, legs, torsos, hats and equipment,
we could design our characters in relation to their background and their purpose in the game.
As you can see, the old modular system implemented by Gothic proved to be a timeless solution!
To understand why Gothic was such an inspiration for the creators of The Witcher series,
we must go back in time to the moment when Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński established CD Projekt.
Michał and Marcin met in Tadeusz Czacki High School in Warsaw,
and soon decided to join forces in their mutual passion for video games.
It was a time of major political transformation for Poland.
The fall of communism pushed the trade market to streets, bazaars and local flea markets.
In order to keep pace with the rapidly changing video game market,
Iwiński and Kiciński got in touch with players from beyond the Polish border.
Eventually, they started to import games from other countries and trade them at the local flea market at Grzybowska Street in Warsaw.
While Michał took on the task of game distribution, Marcin engaged in establishing and maintaining foreign contacts,
and would import games from abroad.
In 1994, they decided to start their own business, and so CD Projekt became a reality.
The men put their trust in quality
and managed to fend off the trend of computer piracy
by providing Polish gamers with fully translated and perfectly localised games,
released in elegant boxes with many bonuses inside.
Since the RPG genre was their area of expertise,
games like Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale soon became cult classics in Poland.
Their effort pays off.
Baldur's Gate, the first game dubbed in Polish (by such prominent actors as Jan Kobuszewski or Piotr Fronczewski),
sold in an astonishing number of over 100,000 copies,
which by then was a tremendous success!
However, what Michał and Marcin have really wanted was to create their own RPG.
They knew all too well that it was a matter of time
before Western publishers like Ubisoft or Electronic Arts enter the Polish market.
They had to act quickly.
The experience the men have gained in the trade market
gave them a running start in the video game industry.
The early business helped them raise funds for their future game,
and in the long run allowed them to focus solely on the video game production.
When at the turn of the year 2001-2002 Gothic came out in Germany,
CD Projekt obtained the rights for its distribution in Poland.
Marcin and Michał were so impressed by the game
that they decided to localise it fully along with Polish dubbing,
and like Germans before them, they hired the best of Polish dubbing actors.
Unlike in the previous RPGs,
each and every line in Gothic was vocalised,
including those of the protagonist.
On the downside, the feature required from the developers to record nearly 7000 dialogue lines,
which was the biggest dubbing challenge CD Projekt has ever faced.
Marcin Iwiński became the leader of the Polish localisation team,
and Michał Kiciński took on the marketing task.
As it will later turn out, this will be one of their last attempts at game distribution.
Soon, the men will be preoccupied with developing their own RPG,
and the task will be handed over to other representatives of CD Projekt.
In March 2002, the Polish version of Gothic is released.
Interestingly enough, some of the earliest internet reports of The Witcher game being produced by CD Projekt
can be traced as far back as to July 2002.
One can see an analogy in this.
In the same year, CD Projekt Red emerges.
Gothic sold very well, and its sequel
(for which Marcin and Michał are no longer directly responsible) became a record-breaker on the market.
Its great popularity came as a shock to the original developers of the game.
Björn Pankratz still remembers the surprise he felt at an unexpected success of the series:
Gothic turned out to be one of the most profitable series ever distributed by CD Projekt,
and provided the team with the means for creating The Witcher.
The man behind the initial concept of the first Witcher game was Michał Kiciński.
In the earliest drafts, he imagined The Witcher as an isometric, plot-driven RPG,
with a combat style inspired by Dark Alliance and Diablo series.
More on the early concept of the game can be found in a documentary on arhn.eu,
where Ryszard Chojnowski and Jacek Komuda further expand the topic.
At first, it was supposed to be a game in the same vein as
Baldur's Gate, but not an RPG.
Right around that time a console game called Dark Allience came out.
with an isometric view and gameplay similar to Diablo.
CD Projekt Red came out with a middle-ground solution,
by which the plot-driven gameplay was meant to interact with a realistic open world.
Their approach, however, was not entirely innovative.
In an interview for gamebanshee.com from November 28th, 2007,
registered right after the premiere of the first Witcher,
Michał Madej, chief designer of the game, admits that the Gothic series was one of his main sources of inspiration in this matter.
Quoting Madej:
We were greatly influenced by the Gothic series,
especially the feeling of a living world, freedom of choice and the realistic fantasy theme.
he observes, and lists Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment as other games with well-written plots.
Madej's statement proved to be more than empty words.
The Witcher, in spite of rather limited freedom of world exploration,
created an equally authentic impression of a lively community as the Gothic series,
and gave the player a similar freedom to choose their preferred storyline.
In an interview for IGN.com from July 3, 2007,
Madej goes one step further in indicating analogies between Gothic and his own production.
Madej makes remarks on the concept of roaming the world of Gothic,
which was later implemented in the first Witcher game.
The Witcher turns down the idea of quest markers
in favour of numerous hints that give the player a good inkling
of where and what they should be looking for.
Still, Madej praises the way in which Gothic faithfully reflects the real nature of adventure.
With a map and a journal as their only points of reference, the player simply rambles on through the world,
hoping to find what they've been looking for.
In Gothic, the point of the journey isn't its potential success or failure, but the experience of it.
The sheer joy of discovery
makes the player a part of the virtual world they've been wandering through.
While comparing Gothic with the then-popular Oblivion,
Madej observes that while both games feature open worlds,
the greater number of limitations present in the first one
made his in-game experience more enjoyable.
Gothic was designed in such a way that, according to Madej,
"despite it was open-ended, still it was story driven.
Oblivion was not story driven at all."
Although he praises the game for its graphics,
Madej thinks that the main storyline of Oblivion could be completed within less than 10 hours.
That factor, only enhanced by the disruptively non-linear gameplay, made Oblivion simply boring.
Madej is also against freely customized characters, which he believes to be bland and shallow.
According to him, custom characters are irrelevant to the plot of the game
and, as a result, make it less immersive.
Usually, instead of ROLE-PLAYING and fully engrossing in the hero's journey,
players only PLAY as their characters which are stripped out of context, story and, essentially, genuineness.
Madej holds that this is what poses a threat to the very idea of computer RPGs.
What is more, he believes that charismatic individuals like Geralt or Nameless Hero embody an archetype of a "well-rounded" character,
and constitute as exemplary protagonists of a good RPG.
Michał Madej was the chief gameplay designer of the first Witcher game.
Between 2004-2008, he worked as a chief designer in CD Projekt Red,
and after that period he continued his career in a rival company.
Some time later, he was given a job at Ubisoft Shanghai,
first as an associate creative director, then as a creative director, and finally as a content director.
There he supervised the production process of the studio's two blockbusters,
Far Cry 3 and Far Cry Primal, thus achieving huge international success.
In September 2015 (after over 6 years of working for Ubisoft),
Michał returned to CD Projekt Red, taking up the position of a creative director, which he holds to this day.
We can only assume that this fact may have something to do with the Cyberpunk project.
That's how, following in the footsteps of the Gothic series,
the first Witcher entered the market.
Unbelievable though it may sound, some of the solutions taken from the ageing German production
were implemented only in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
The members of CD Projekt Red readily confirm that, especially as far as the general mechanics of the world is concerned.
First, let us refer to an interview for pcgamer.com, in which Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, director of The Witcher 3,
and his brother Mateusz, lead quest designer forin the same production, both admit:
"[Gothic] is most similar to our game, I think.
A quite perfect combination of storyline and freedom in the open world.
It's quite similar, the Gothic series, in terms of quest design and how we organise the story."
In another interview, Adam Badowski, head of the CD Projekt Red studio, says:
Our gameplay goal and dream
is to copy what we know form Gothic.
It's a legendary series, at least for us.
Inspired by Gothic, the developers of The Witcher didn't implement the difficulty scaling system in their production.
Thanks to that decision, players are free to roam and explore the world from the very beginning of the game.
That doesn't mean, however, that they will not stumble upon monsters far beyond the level of their abilities.
For instance, an inexperienced hero, when taking a walk through a nearby forest,
may have to face a deadly beast he will not be able to overcome at his current level.
In order to defeat an outscaled opponent, the player must first measure up to the challenge:
gather better equipment and develop sufficient skills.
Konrad and Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz refer to this solution quite often.
In an interview for gameinformer.com, published on YouTube on February 9, 2013,
both developers admit that they decided against monster level scaling
in order to provide players with a possibility of free and unbounded exploration of the virtual world.
In another interview, Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz observes that the absence of monster level scaling
positively contributes to the quality of immersion in a game.
Players can feel pride and a sense of accomplishment
by keeping track of the development process of a hero,
who gradually turns from a typical rookie into a die-hard monster killer.
As their character improves,
players realise that the monsters which once constituted a real challenge
now are nothing more than bloody pulps sprawling at their feet,
and the NPCs who used to shun them now cheer for their victory.
"You felt satisfaction once you leveled up.
Once you got this strong character, you joined some factions, and found some better equipment, you felt satisfaction.
'Hey, I can beat this orc now. I struggled two hours to even approach him before,
and now I can beat him.'
I think this is satisfying for the players,
and I hope we did it properly."
In an interview for gamespot.com, Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz stresses
that in this regard Gothic should serve as a real example to follow.
"In Gothic you had these areas where the world was open.
You could go there, but basically there were orcs or stuff like that would whoop your ass."
Beasts in Gothic are more than mere obstacles popping up randomly on the player's path.
They are alive in every sense of the word.
Wolves migrate, hunt and rest in packs, in a manner similar to their real-life counterparts.
Malicious goblins use guerrilla tactics
and dance around annoyed adventurers, waiting for them to lower their guard.
As the game progresses we learn that Orcs, by generally regarded as barbaric, honourless raiders,
are capable of creating an entire society, with its own culture, history and traditions.
In an interview for tvgry.pl from August 8, 2013,
Adam Badowski refers to that solution while discussing The Witcher series.
He says that in Gothic we can encounter creatures with habits of their own, not necessarily looking for a fight.
Encounters with monsters were designed in a very convincing fashion.
The creatures didn't mean to tear my character apart every time I met them.
Of course, players tend to think outside the box. They play the game in ways not intended by the designers,
sometimes by using exploits, but that's a good thing, too.
The idea of monster level scaling does not fit this game.
There, your character needs to grow into new challenges,
and he must do so by gathering sufficient experience and better equipment.
It's not an easy task. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The case is similar when it comes to NPCs' reactions to the hero's behaviour.
As Andrzej Sawicki previously observed, the convincing and time-dependent activities of each NPC
is one of the greatest strengths of the Gothic series.
The world of Gothic is literally teeming with life.
Its open, diverse, yet coherent internal structure
provides an unforgettable and fascinating experience to every old hand at the electronic entertainment.
That's the very reason why the chief quest designer of The Witcher 3, Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz,
describes Gothic as one of his all-time favourites.
This is what he says in the interview for techradar.com from April 24, 2017:
"I would say that Gothic II is one of my all-time-favorites on PC —
it's one of my first RPG games, and one of most the immersive RPGs I played.
I remember that I was very surprised how every NPC had their own place in the world;
how they reacted to various player actions like entering their houses,
taking their things, or even just unsheathing your weapon in front of them.
This, plus the right combination of immersive gameplay systems,
made the world feel alive and believable —
you wouldn't just enter a UI-based crafting pane and craft a sword like you do nowadays,
you would heat up the metal first, then form it on an anvil, then cool it in bucket of water,
and later sharpen it on a grindstone.
When joining a faction or a guild, the world around you would also react to you in different ways.
For example, if you get arrested,
you could have expected a guard to let you go since you've become a revered Fire Mage.
Those are just a few examples of how Gothic handled things differently,
which always inspired me to strive for crafting most immersive experiences possible."
A significant number of features specified by the CD Projekt Red team as the main advantages of the Gothic series
are nowadays considered obligatory elements of a well-designed RPG.
What was previously regarded as innovative and groundbreaking, in time became a standard of the genre.
Today, it is hard to imagine a computer RPG
that would completely give up on the idea of open world in favour of strictly linear storyline.
One of the most popular sandbox games which embodies modern video game trends is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
In an interview for gameinformer.com, the Tomaszkiewicz brothers observe
that the game, regarded by many fans of the genre as an ultimate sandbox RPG,
became a victim of its own ambition.
In order to breathe life into the immense world of Skyrim,
the developers filled it with repetitive characters and carelessly prepared side quests
which often had no effect on the NPCs' later behaviour.
Skyrim, therefore, seems to fulfill the prophetic words of Michał Madej from 2007,
and the effect of an immense sandbox world in the game was achieved at the cost of most fundamental features of the RPG genre.
Fortunately, The Witcher managed to avoid that issue.
Mateusz and Konrad Tomaszkiewicz were right to compare their production to Gothic,
as both the series manage to achieve a highly immersive balance
between storyline and open world.
The result of that inspiration is clearly visible in The Witcher 3,
since in this regard the game resembles Gothic to the most extent.
In retrospect, it was a real pleasure
to watch The Witcher games develop into a legendary series.
CD Projekt Red managed to set new standards for the RPG genre,
leaving the competition far behind.
It is truly incredible how over the years
both Gothic and The Witcher series, along with studios that created them,
managed to rebound from their once underdog position and gain a well-deserved prestige.
Surprisingly, Björn Pankratz,
the only person in the current Piranha Bytes team who worked on the Gothic series,
in an interview for CD-Action released on October 2017,
mentions The Witcher as one of the main inspirations during the process of developing Elex,
Piranha Bytes' new game.
Pankratz admits that while designing companions for the main protagonist in Elex,
they heavily drew from The Witcher 3,
a game full of well-written characters.
When in 2003 Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński were dreaming of creating an RPG that could live up to Gothic,
they did not expect that their own production
will become something Piranha Bytes will look up to.
Proud is the pupil who surpassed his master.
Still, unwise is he who disregards the deeds of the past.
The tremendous influence that the Gothic series had over The Witcher
must be remembered and respected
by the fans of both productions,
as it is by their developers.
That's all for today.
Thank you for watching this video.
We encourage you to subscribe to our channel to be always up to date with our next productions.
We remind you that you can support our video division crew via Patronite.
It is only thanks to your help that we are able to produce our video materials.
Finally, sending love and respect to the fans of both Gothic and The Witcher,
we say farewell! And may Innos watch over you... always!
Read by Jacek Brzostyński
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