The Witcher 2 - Principal Designer Moves On

GameBanshee has learned Artur Ganszyniec - principal designer for an unnamed AAA project (read: Witcher 2) has left CD Projekt Red. Artur was previouly lead story designer on the first Witcher.
More information.

Ah damn! I really loved the story and quests in the Witcher. Hopefully whoever remains behind can do the title justice - this is def one I'll be watching with keen interest.

Gotta hate bad news.

Ouch, this seriously puts a damper on my day. I have very high hopes for TW2, and I pray this doesn't have too much of a negative impact on the project.

Yeah, not a good sign leaving before the game is released. Last time I saw this RandyS left Thief 3 just before release.

Hopefully he got a lot done

I was told the Witcher 2 is in crunch mode, which means the main story is done at least, and probably most of the dialogue too.

Still, by now the Witcher 1's story lead, lead designer and art lead have all walked, as well as quite a few other devs. CD Projekt RED doesn't really resemble the RED that made TW anymore.

Originally Posted by Brother None
I was told the Witcher 2 is in crunch mode, which means the main story is done at least, and probably most of the dialogue too.

Still, by now the Witcher 1's story lead, lead designer and art lead have all walked, as well as quite a few other devs. CD Projekt RED doesn't really resemble the RED that made TW anymore.

any ideas as to why they moved on? Did the studio treat them badly? Seems like more than regular attrition, especially if the Witcher was a successful title (was it?)

Originally Posted by booboo
any ideas as to why they moved on? Did the studio treat them badly? Seems like more than regular attrition, especially if the Witcher was a successful title (was it?)

It does seem like a bit more, but as far as I know the art lead left simply because he wanted to do something other than the Witcher (it was a long project), and according to CD Projekt comments the same is true for Ganszyniec.

At the same time, a lot of devs left when the the third Witcher project (not RotWW or TW2) was cancelled/merged into TW2, either because they didn't like it or because they were made to leave. That's quite a few of the programming staff that - I think - worked on the engine now used for TW2, so that doesn't include these guys.

I keep getting this feeling that CD Projekt's in a bit of trouble… even though the original Witcher apparently made money for them…

I just hope that TW2 has even more RPing elements than TW did… and TONS of moddability. The writing for TW wasn't too bad either or at least by TWEE patch and/or unofficial english patching, and seemed to be fairly in character line with the Last Wish at least. (We won't discuss Blood of Elves as either it was truly excessively tedious and bombastic or just suffered a horrific translation…)

[EDIT]
Should still be decent so long as it's not even close to as badly done as that horrific aborted attempt at a TV show… How could they go so wrong with such great material? i.e. the technical aspects(wardrobe, settings, etc.) of the series were mostly OK(cheesy FX though even by recent standards) but the base material changes were just awful.
[/EDIT]

Originally Posted by cutterjohn
Should still be decent so long as it's not even close to as badly done as that horrific aborted attempt at a TV show… How could they go so wrong with such great material? i.e. the technical aspects(wardrobe, settings, etc.) of the series were mostly OK(cheesy FX though even by recent standards) but the base material changes were just awful.

There was a TV show??

Originally Posted by JDR13
There was a TV show??

Yes.

Originally Posted by cutterjohn
I keep getting this feeling that CD Projekt's in a bit of trouble… even though the original Witcher apparently made money for them…

The original Witcher didn't make that much, it was more of a franchise establishing title than a cash cow. Hence the loans to start multiple titles in the franchise, now reduced to one. Dig back to the original rumblings for this.