Cyberpunk sequel's associate director reveals the "hardest quest I have ever designed and implemented" is in The Witcher 3: "I was losing my mind and my sleep"

News
By published

The Battle of Kaer Morhen was no easy feat to develop

The Witcher 3
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

Paweł Sasko, associate director on the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel codenamed Project Orion, has revealed the Witcher 3 quest that nearly broke him while it was in development.

Sasko is a longtime CD Projekt Red developer and was lead quest designer on The Witcher 3. He's not shy to comment on the projects he's worked on, which is why we have this little gem of an anecdote about one of the more popular missions in The Witcher 3's main quest: the Battle of Kaer Morhen, which takes place near the end of the story. Apparently, the quest gave Sasko quite a headache.

As a game journalist and not a developer, I can't imagine the complexities of designing a game like The Witcher 3 with so many different possibilities and branching paths, but I can only imagine it's significantly more challenging than designing a more linear game of comparable scope. Still, that didn't stop the folks at CDPR from upping the ante in terms of player choice in Cyberpunk 2077, and I hope whatever comes of Cyberpunk 2 and The Witcher 4 is even more multifaceted.

It also hasn't stopped the former CDPR devs over at Rebel Wolves from making their new vampire open-world RPG all about "maximising players' freedom."

Jordan Gerblick
Jordan Gerblick
Staff Writer

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.