The original The Witcher video game isn’t as popular as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. However, the original entry featured a fascinating plot where Geralt could make choices and fight the monsters that fans of the franchise came to know and love in more recent games in the franchise. Many characters from future Witcher games are also in the first title.
Since The Witcher wasn’t as well known when it was originally released, a lot of fans don’t know much about this game. There are lots of interesting things to be discovered about The Witcher, including canceled DLC and major plotholes.
10 The NPC AI Is Very Advanced
The AI in The Witcher is advanced for its time as most NPCs can perform advanced tasks and routines that most games didn’t have in 2007.
A great example of the AI in The Witcher is that the NPCs would attempt to get out of the rain whenever a storm started by hiding under buildings. Although there were other open-world games with advanced AI at the time, such as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Witcher had a world that felt uniquely alive.
9 The Witcher Only Released On PC, Although A Console Release Was Planned
The Witcher never released on any platform other than PC; however, there was a planned release for consoles that unfortunately got canceled.
This version was called The Witcher: Rise Of The White Wolf, and it was supposed to be released in the Fall of 2009. This new version would have featured an entirely new engine that would have most likely improved many of the original game’s technical problems.
8 Yennefer Doesn’t Appear The Witcher
Although Yennefer is an incredibly important character in The Witcher franchise, the original game doesn’t feature her at all. This is because the developers wanted to create their own story outside of the books. For players that didn’t play The Witcher or haven’t played it in many years, it may come as a surprise to learn that Yennefer didn’t make an appearance.
This resulted in many characters, including Yennefer, not being brought back for The Witcher 1. However, some of the characters that were left out of the first game were eventually brought back in The Witcher 2 and 3.
7 A Demo Was Released For The Witcher
There was a demo released for The Witcher in December of 2007, which featured the prologue, and players could get a feel for the gameplay in The Witcher. This demo included both dialogue and combat sequences from the full game.
The demo was easy to miss since The Witcher didn’t have a large fan base at the time. Not too many PC players knew what The Witcher was, which led to it getting overlooked.
6 CD Projekt Red Stated That It Was Trying To Keep The Story Morally Ambiguous
On numerous occasions, the developers of The Witcher have pointed out that they were trying to leave the story morally ambiguous and make it so that players could choose their own path without the game telling them what is right and wrong.
Some of the choices in The Witcher feel like they have a more obvious answer between good and evil; however, it is quite evident when the plot is observed from an objective point of view that Geralt and his friends could see different meanings in each choice.
5 Player Mods Were Officially Patched Into The Witcher
The modding scene for The Witcher is actually quite large for such a small game. The most notable of these mods were small add-ons that had new quests, dialogue, and characters.
Eventually, CD Projekt Red added a few of these larger mods into the official game with a patch. An example of a mod that the studio added features Geralt at his own wedding marrying Triss.
4 The Witcher Had Two Cancelled Add-Ons: Scars Of Betrayal And Outcast
The Witcher had two canceled add-ons following its original release in 2007. One of these add-ons was called the Scars Of Betrayal; Geralt would have traveled to the mountainside to set out on a new adventure and make moral choices.
The other add-on, The Outcast, would have players travel back in time to before Geralt became a Witcher. This sounds like a promising plot, and it’s unfortunate that it was never fully developed.
3 None Of The Outcomes Of The Major Choices In The Witcher Are Immediately Visible To The Player
Although it may not be immediately noticeable to players, one of the key features in The Witcher is the choices that don’t have any immediate effect on the game world.
CD Projekt Red was trying to create choices that had effects that would only be seen multiple chapters from when the decisions were made. The point of this feature is so that players cannot save and reload when they make a choice that they regret.
2 The Witcher Has Many Inconsistencies With The Books
The Witcher books tell stories that are separate from the plot of The Witcher video games. However, there is still an overlap between the narrative of the books and the new stories that are told in the games.
Since there is a connection between The Witcher books and the video games, it would make sense that CD Projekt Red would want to be as accurate to the books as possible. However, there are many inconsistencies between the books and the games that don’t make any sense. An example of this is that the game should have been set in 1273, but the game states that the year is 1270, which doesn’t line up with the events of The Witcher books.
1 The Witcher’s Combat Consists Of A Quick Style, A Group Style, And A Heavy Style
Players that have gotten used to the combat in The Witcher 3 may not even remember how different the gameplay was in the original game. Instead of having a more modern combat system with the freedom to move around quickly, The Witcher had a unique system with three different types of combat stances.
There is a quick style, a group style, and a heavy style that can be used depending on what type of enemy Geralt is fighting or if he is fighting multiple enemies at the same time. Most players disliked this combat system, and it is one of the biggest complaints that the game still has to this day.
NEXT: The Witcher 3: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Golems
