In a worrying admission that hints the upcoming title may end up falling victim to one of the worst trends in modern video gaming history, Fool’s Theory CEO Jakub Rokosz has revealed that not only will the studio’s upcoming remake of CD Projekt Red’s first The Witcher title seek to address those parts of the original release that “are simply bad, outdated, and need to be remade,” but that it will completely excise those parts which are determined to be outright “bad”.
Rokosz provided this insight into his team’s upcoming The Witcher remake during a recent interview given to GamesRadar’s Edge entertainment news imprint.
A former CD Projekt Red dev whose tenure at the studio saw him serve as a Senior Quest Designer on both The Witcher 2 and The Witcher 3, Rokosz began his time with the outlet’s Ali Jones by explaining that his desire to tackle the first game in the series was born out of his own personal disappointment at how he “missed” the original opportunity to do so.
“I wanted a chance to give it the justice it deserves,” he told Jones.
From there, Jones raised the topic of the first game’s lack of polish – while its sequels would go on to be some of the most well-regarded titles in all of video game history, Geralt’s original outing was plagued with such issues as graphical glitches and lackluster combat mechanics – to which Rokosz revealed, that “first and foremost, we need an honest, down-to-earth analysis of which parts are simply bad, outdated, and need to be remade.”
To this end, the dev explained that the analysis was being undertaken with the aim of both “highlighting the parts that are great, should be retained, or are direct key pillars that can’t be discarded” and “removing the bad parts”.
“[We’re] rearranging the good [parts] to create something that is both satisfying and still resonates with the feel of the original,” Rokosz ultimately affirmed.
As of writing, the results of Fool’s Theory’s analysis, including what parts of the original The Witcher they believe to be ‘bad’, remain unknown to the public.
However, in light of the industry’s ongoing deference to the terminally offended, it’s currently speculated that that one of the aforementioned “bad parts” of the game that will be removed is its Romance Card system, wherein after sleeping with one of the game’s many female NPCs, the player would receive a special trading card featuring a risqué reminder of their intimate encounter.
Giving weight to this theory is that fact one of the system’s own designers, Karol Kowalczyk, has publicly voiced their regret at its inclusion in the original game.
“It is about the fact that you switch to a mindset that you need to collect them all, right?” he told video game news outlet Time Extension in December 2022. “And in that context, it is indeed very disturbing that the game kind of forces you to become a mindless sex addict to get some of those. We failed to see that as when you are testing the game for the 100th time, you start to do it mechanically and don’t really feel those emotions.”
As of writing, Fool’s Theory’s The Witcher remake has yet to receive an official release date.