Witcher 3 - Hearts of Stone Interview @ Redbull

Last week Redbull interviewed CD Project Red's senior art producer Michał Krzemiński about the The Witcher 3 expansion Hearts of Stone.

Was there any feedback about the gameplay and quests in the main game that tailored how you designed Hearts of Stone?

The feedback from Wild Hunt we receive on forums or social media is, where applicable, being introduced to the game itself. A good example of this is the game's GUI [graphical user interface], which we changed (adjusted the size) according to what gamers told us would be optimal. It would be unfair to introduce these changes with HoS only, as we do continue to support Wild Hunt, even if you choose not to buy the expansions. Also, remember that the expansion was planned well before the launch of the main game – we started work on it when we finished Wild Hunt, and that's too little time to change anything significant.

 

Tell us what's the process is for an expansion at CD Projekt Red. Does the team actually get a break any more after the game’s release?

It's very fluid. In a nutshell, as various teams wrap up with their stuff for Wild Hunt, after a much-needed break they start working on the expansion. However, this doesn't mean the whole studio went for a month of leave after we launched Wild Hunt. Many teams end their work well before the game ships. For instance, the writers and localisation team need to wrap-up first, as dialogue needs to be recorded into many different languages, and that takes a lot of time. Their work gets finalised first so, say, a joke in the game can be really funny instead of being a Siri-sounalike voiced by two grayboxes.

Other teams work on other stuff and then move to other aspects of the game as it nears completion. That's why it's so hard to pinpoint the exact moment the entire studio started working on Hearts of Stone. The core of the work, however, was started after we shipped Wild Hunt. Hearts is really massive, and I'm really hyped that gamers are soon going to get the expansion in their hands. As for Blood and Wine [the second major expansion for the game], yeah, it's being worked on, but it's still pretty early for details.

Thanks Eye.