Six years ago, unknown quantity CD Projekt Red released The Witcher, a buggy but wonderful RPG built using a modified version of BioWare’s Aurora toolset, originally developed for Neverwinter Nights. Now, a day before the sixth anniversary of Witcher Geralt’s first outing, CDP celebrates 6 million combined sales across multiple platforms.
The Witcher 2 is one of my favourite all-time RPGs, making it into my list of the 15 PC RPGs that you just have to own, and the third installment of the series is already looking mighty impressive. It will be the developer’s first simultaneous multi-platform release, with a vague launch window of “2014”.
The studio has come a long way from its fairly humble beginnings, leaving the aurora toolset behind and developing their own engine. REDkit seems like a natural progression from the aurora toolset, with CDP doing what BioWare originally did by giving modders the very tools they used to make the game.
Along with the open world The Witcher 3, CDP are also developing Cyberpunk 2077, based on the sci-fi tabletop game.
Happy birthday, Geralt.