After working for six months on 'The Witcher 4', a developer turns on the hype train: "People are not ready for this"

There is a term that we have normalized in the world of technology and video games: "hype". I don't like this anglicism at all and prefer "engorile". That enrogile is an essential part of current marketing because so many things are launched and for so many years that you have to create expectation as soon as possible and in a big way. There are games like 'The Witcher 4' that don't need it, but even so it just received a portion of gorillaism from someone who knows something about RPGs.

A veteran of Larian Studios, the geniuses behind the fantastic 'Baldur's Gate 3', who ensures that we are not prepared for what they are cooking with 'The Witcher 4'.

The CD Projekt of the Galacticos. Video game studios have a high staff turnover. It doesn't just have to do with layoffs, but something much more practical: some of them want the best to be on their ship. An example is Valve, whose employees can, from the first day in their new job, recommend developers from other studios.

For developers, a project like 'The Witcher 4' is striking both for the history of the saga (especially after the fantastic 'The Witcher 3') and for being a game of the minds after 'Cyberpunk 2077'. That game came out as it did, but the Polish studio has redeemed itself through patches and content updates.

For the new Witcher game, CD Projekt is strengthening itself with developers from similar studios such as Warhorse (creators of 'Kingdom Come: Deliverance') or Larian Studios (those of 'Baldur's Gate 3' who are now with the new 'Divinity').

Things are coming. Working at Larian implies stability because the games they make are more or less the same. If in a Ubisoft you are either in an 'Assassin's Creed' game or in a 'Far Cry' game, in Larian they do one thing, and they do it very well: CRPGs. And one of the Larian veterans who has unpacked his bags at CD Projekt RED is Felix Pedulla.

Pedulla was the cinematics designer for 'Baldur's Gate 3', this being an impressive section in the game and it seems that he will have the same role in the Polish studio. After the first six months at CD Projekt RED, Pedulla has seen things and this week he made a decision: light the fuse of the engorile with a typical "things are coming" statement.

After a long message on LinkedIn in which he looks back on the past, the vertigo of change and reviews those first six months in his new home, Pedulla concludes with "Do you know what we are doing for 'The Witcher 4'? People are not prepared for this."

There's a lot left. Basically, Pedulla has not said anything at all (nor can he, since the confidentiality clauses in these works are extremely strict), but although these types of statements are not foreign to the world (we have seen them with many other games, with examples such as the highly anticipated 'GTA VI'), they do not usually come from sources directly involved in the development. At least, not in such a public way.

But, although I don't particularly like these practices, I understand that from time to time these messages are launched because we have to keep the enthusiasm and attention alive for a project that arrives at a time when everything competes for that attention. Because there is still a long time left to have 'The Witcher 4' in our hands and we have to warm up the atmosphere.

This week the non-E3 is celebrated, a week full of video game conferences and who knows if in any of them we will see a real video of 'The Witcher 4' of which we have only seen a cinematic (the Pedulla field, curiously) and a technical demo in Unreal Engine 5. Or perhaps we will not see anything because before the fourth installment of the Witcher there will arrive a new expansion of the veteran 'The Witcher 3'.

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