Witcher Lore Was Almost Rewritten During Spin-Off Development

Witcher lore as we know it was almost shattered by this card-based spin-off, before the developers realised it’d be going too far.

You’d be hard-pressed to find an RPG series as thematically and historically rich as The Witcher. This is a dark-fantasy series beloved by millions across several forms of the media from the books to the games to the show (maybe not the show).

Geralt, Ciri and the rest of the loveable cast live in such a complex world and it’s hard to not feel invested in its socio-political happenings.

Witchers in general are fascinating because they come in so many different flavours, with each school having its own beliefs, teachings, strengths and weaknesses.

Recently I’ve been playing Reigns: The Witcher, a spin-off of the increasingly popular card-swiping series of the same name. Made in collaboration with CD Projekt Red the player takes on the role as the bard Dandelion, singing songs of Geralt’s adventures and character to gain fame throughout the lands. It makes sense as Dandelion is a storyteller, so of course he’d be the perfect protagonist for a game about telling endless stories, however that wasn’t always the plan…

I spoke with Reigns: The Witcher’s Narrative Director Oscar Harrington-Shaw and its Design Director Francois Alliot to learn more about the bold spin-off, and how the team at Nerial went about adapting the world of The Witcher into the Reigns format.

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Can a Witcher be Resurrected?

We talked about bringing out the comedy and levity found in the series but the bit that stood out to me the most was the original pitch for its lead character.

Oscar explained that during development the team toyed with the idea of redefining the Trial of Grasses, the almost ritualistic process of creating a witcher with alchemy.

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“In the original Reigns game you play as a King” Oscar began, "and deaths are a central part of the experience. You go on a run and you die and then do another run.

“In Reigns there’s an obvious solution to that which is you’re playing as a king and when you die you then play as his successor. There’s an obvious person to come next.”

Oscar then explained that witchers are a little tricker as they “don’t have a dynasty or lineage.”

One of the workarounds for this was to look back at the Trial of Grasses and whether it would be possible to have “a witcher than can be almost resurrected” but apparently there were “complicated canonical questions” about how feasible that would be.

Personally I think it would have been cool but I can understand how that might be lore-breaking.

The game being based around Dandelion’s performances just makes more sense, and it’s definitely more entertaining.

Reigns: The WItcher will launch on Steam later this month on 25 February, toss a coin to it if you can.