The Witcher 4 devs hired a beet farmer they found remaking The Witcher in their spare time

Let it be known that you can find your big break into the games industry at any time. Hires at CD Projekt Red just proves this.

In a recent interview, Pawel Sasko talked about one particular hire the studio made after seeing the person’s talent online.

The Witcher 3 is still a masterpiece and recent mod tools are expanding the game in ways we never imagined

Talking on the Flow Gaming podcast, Sasko relayed the story of a modder who was brought onto the team after he saw their work on YouTube.

One day Sasko saw that someone was remaking The Witcher in The Witcher 3, they’d already recreated the prologue of the original game. What’s most impressive is that they were doing it without modding tools.

Seeing this, Sasko asked a fellow developer, previously a modder, if they knew this guy on YouTube. Apparently, they did and a chat was set up.

It turned out the modder was Eero Varendi, a beet farmer originally from Estonia, now living and working on a farm in Australia. They would spend their days harvesting beets then head on home to mod and code in the evenings.

After taking several tests at CD Projekt Red, and going through an interview process, Varendi was hired and is now working as a senior on the production of The Witcher 4.

Sasko comments that “I always advise young people when they ask how to get into the industry, I say, 'Go mod. Just go and learn how to mod.”

He’s not the only one. Many developers often give this advice because there are so many ways to learn and tools to use. Usually, it’s the best way to create a portfolio of work, too.

It goes to show that if you’re creative and willing to learn the tools, especially if they’re tools used by the developers themselves, you can find your way onto teams by simply creating and doing what you enjoy.