The Polish developers don’t communicate much with Andrzej Sapkowski about the backstory of the Witcher franchise.

Andrzej Sapkowski recently wrote a prequel to his Witcher novels titled Crossroads of Ravens. During the novel’s launch, GamesRadar asked the author if he had been involved in developing The Witcher 4. He replied that he had not. He said that the developers at CD Projekt RED (CDPR) asked him for advice and additional details about the game world during the development of previous games. However, nowadays, it is rare for CDPR to contact him about the story.

This is understandable, considering how much the studio has contributed to the Witcher games—for example, building the Witcher schools based on a side reference that Sapkowski himself raised and later regretted. Sapkowski added that his agreements with CDPR are currently excellent, and he hopes it remains that way. This alluded to the royalty lawsuit between CDPR and Sapkowski that ended in 2019, in which the author claimed he had transferred the rights for less than their value.

The Witcher 4 marks the start of a new trilogy of Witcher games, but since full development only began at the end of 2024, we shouldn’t expect CDPR’s next game anytime soon. Because of this timeline, it’s possible the title will be next-gen, arriving on PlayStation 6 and the new Xbox (Xbox Magnus). Although Sapkowski did not regularly discuss this with CDPR, the game’s narrative director received details about Crossroads of Ravens in advance, so information from it could easily find its way into The Witcher 4.

This would be fair, as Sapkowski admittedly plays a character and only strikes a distant, harsh tone in interviews and the media; as we noted earlier, he could at least feel that CDPR still values his work.

Source: PCGamer, GamesRadar