When it comes to a remake, it can be a difficult balancing act between bringing the game up to modern standards, yet keeping it faithful to avoid annoying fans of the original game. Sometimes you have a developer that goes rogue with the whole idea of what a remake can be - hello Square Enix - but most remakes tend to be faithful reimaginings of classic titles. Fool’s Theory is probably aiming for the same withtheir remake of The Witcher.
However, that doesn’t mean that Fool’s Theory is afraid to change things that may not have aged too well over the past two decades. Speaking with Edge Magazine (thanksGamesRadar), Fool’s Theory CEO Jakub Rokosz has explained that the team working on the game will remove certain parts of The Witcher that “are simply bad, outdated, or unnecessarily convoluted.”
While Rokosz doesn’t go into what’s getting changed, for obvious reasons, we can make a few good guesses. For starters, the combat in The Witcher is very rough when you take into account the strides the series has made over the past two decades. Given that the combat in The Witcher 3 isn’t sparkling, you get the sense that the game’s combat will more than likely need a complete overhaul, as well as certain portions of the game that may be tedious and ill-designed when compared to modern titles.
One thing that probably won’t be changed is the game’s dialogue, as Geralt of Rivia voice actor Doug Cockle claimed close to the game’s announcement thathe hadn’t been contacted by CD Projekt Red.
You also have the rather blatant misogyny. We all know that The Witcher is a very raunchy series, and some of the best scenes in The Witcher 3 come as a result of that, but Geralt collecting weird trading cards depicting the women that he sleeps with like some kind of geeky little black book has always seemed seedy, and even more so by today’s standards. Even Karol Kowalczyk, one of the minds behind the system,doesn’t look back on its addition fondly.
For now, we’ll have to trust Fool’s Theory to do right by the title, while also making all the improvements they need to bring the game up to modern standards. As for when we’ll get to play it, we’ll probably be waiting for quite a while, as it was claimed in late 2022 that The Witcher Remake willbe made with tools currently being developed for The Witcher 4, and will only launch after the fact.
