The Witcher 1 is rough, gangly, utterly idiosyncratic, and fine as it is, if you ask me. Nevertheless, it’s due an open-world remake courtesy of the devs over at Fool’s Theory, and it sounds like they aren’t squeamish about updating some of the, ah, more awkward parts of CDPR’s original 2007 classic.
In a chat with Edge magazine (via GamesRadar), Fool’s Theory CEO Jakub Rokosz said that he’s always “wanted a chance to give [The Witcher 1] the justice it deserved,” and that means being clearsighted about the various ways Geralt’s original videogame adventure falls down.
“First and foremost, we need an honest, down-to-earth analysis of which parts are simply bad, outdated, or unnecessarily convoluted and need to be remade,” Rokosz told Edge, but noted the need to still highlight “the parts that are great, should be retained, or are direct key pillars that can’t be discarded.” More specifically, Rokosz says that means “removing the bad parts and rearranging the good ones to create something that is both satisfying and still resonates with the feel of the original.”
Now, Rokosz isn’t calling out by name the parts of The Witcher 1 that are bad and need sanding down, nor those that are great and need highlighting, but it doesn’t take a detective to figure out at least some of what he’s talking about. First and foremost has to be the first game’s absolutely buckwild combat system, a kind of pseudo-rhythm game thing that saw you clicking at a particular cadence in order to defeat your enemies, rather than the more standard (and less baffling) third-person melee combat of Witchers 2 and 3.
But also, let’s not beat around the bush. The first Witcher game is legendary for some great scenes, good writing, and that part where Doug Cockle says “What is this crap?” in a tone so disaffected you aren’t sure if it’s just his actual reaction to the script. But it’s also notorious for its, uh, well, it’s notorious for the sex cards.
If you’ve somehow escaped knowing this in 2024, then read on and I’m sorry, but the first Witcher game took an almost impressively adolescent approach to its various romances. Geralt could make merry with almost every woman he encountered (or at least it felt that way) and upon pursuing any of the game’s romantic lines of inquiry to their natural conclusion would be rewarded with a literal baseball-style trading card. Except instead of Bill Ripken and his controversial bat it was one of the game’s women in a state of undress.
It was more risible than anything, and luckily CDPR got it out of their system (mostly) in time for the next two games. But what only got a roll of the eyes in 2007 would just seem pathetic nearly two decades on, and I can’t imagine Rokosz doesn’t have the cards in mind—and the treatment of The Witcher 1’s women in general—when he refers to bits of the game being outdated. Obviously, the answer is to fill The Witcher remake with a load of firemen’s calendar-style cards of Zoltan Chivay to balance it out, but I suspect the only trading cards you’ll find in The Witcher 1’s remake will be of the Gwent variety.