The Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski says he has an “excellent” deal with developer CD Projekt Red, but admits it’s “rare” that the studio gets in touch to ask for additional details these days.
Addressing fans at a book event to promote his Witcher prequel book, Crossroads of Ravens (thanks, GamesRadar+), Sapkowski revealed that while he had worked more closely with CDPR on prior games, he had not been approached to contribute to The Witcher 4, but insisted “the contracts between me and the game people are excellent right now”.
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” he added.
Back in 2017, Sapkowski told Eurogamer the global success of The Witcher following the release of the third game in the series hadn’t made him any money because he sold the rights to CD Projekt for a lump sum without asking for royalties, prompting a new deal in 2019.
“I was stupid enough to sell them rights to the whole bunch,” Sapkowski told Eurogamer at the time. “They offered me a percentage of their profits. I said, ‘No, there will be no profit at all – give me all my money right now! The whole amount.’ It was stupid. I was stupid enough to leave everything in their hands because I didn’t believe in their success. But who could foresee their success? I couldn’t.”
As for more recent The Witcher news? Last month, Sapkowski discussed a key plot point in the video game series that was actually a mistake in his novels, saying “video game people have clung to the idea with remarkable tenacity”.
“The issue of ‘witcher schools’ requires – I apologise – a longer explanation,” Sapkowski told a questioner in an AMA. “A single sentence about some ‘school of the Wolf’ mysteriously made its way into The Last Wish. I later deemed it unworthy of development and narratively incorrect, even detrimental to the plot. Therefore, later I never included or referenced any Witcher Gryffindors or Slytherins again. Never.
“However, that one sentence was enough. Adaptors, particularly video game people, have clung to the idea with remarkable tenacity and have wonderfully multiplied these ‘witcher schools’. Completely unnecessary.”
