It still makes me sad that Netflix went way out of its way to absolutely bastardize the source material. Peter Jackson's LOTR started something that Hollywood and other studios should have carried on. But instead as always Hollywood learned "the wrong lesson" and started tossing their junk in again, and Netflix followed suit. I don't understand why people keep "adapting" things like The Witcher and think to themselves "let's just toss the source material in the bin and make our own shit up!"
Its relatively easy to understand. Its not the IP they want, its the built-in customer case. If they were to make an original show with the same story beats as the Netflix Witcher or Disney Star Wars, they'd be colossal failures. But slap 'Witcher' or 'Star Wars' on it, and people show up.
@@b4usay746 Aye, someone who actually loved the source material and had the passion - and resources - and technical knowhow - to bring it to the screen, big or small. Is it really too much to ask for any fantasy novel to be given the same treatment? I mean if the studios' real objective is getting money from fandoms, they could at least give them something worth paying for and not a gold-dusted shit sandwich.
Why do they keep "adapting" things? One word - EGO. They do it to stroke their own egos, cause they really think they're as good or better than the person who wrote the iconic story that they're in charge of "adapting". You'd think they'd learn by now, but such is the downfall of the ego
I’m really sad because they are kinda perfect for a show but that chance has been fucked up so badly that it’s probably never getting a second crack at it
Fucked up twice actually. The old Polish show also failed to simply turn whatever is in the books into live-action. Obviously, minor cuts and simplification are fine when filming a book, but the Witcher books are written in such a way that barely any changes are needed, they are almost like a ready-to-use movie script.
Lets hope that one day it gets the proper treatment the material deserves. At least cdprojektred controls the game material and could do something resembling the Witcher with it.
@@rreece90 true, I forgot about The Hexer, but I sympathize with the attempt since it was mainly budget issues and stuff. And yes, I’ve been saying that for years, the books are like scripts, you can just copy them minus some monologues and you’d get a banger show without doing any real work when it comes to writing
Man, great idea. 2 things though: 1) you'd think this has to have been considered by CDPR at some point. 2) I wonder how you implement the decision making part of an RPG with such a tight script
There was a mod in progress by someone that aimed to recreate the entirety of Last Wish. It got pretty far too, they had almost the first half of the first book done, and I remember the nivellen quest was looking reallyyyy good. I think it was dropped but I think now with AI voice it'd definitely be possible to make it if a team of modders got together - the only problem is with level building, other than that there is so much potential.
Wait, actually? Damn, it's a shame it was dropped, that would've been amazing. They could have taken the "farewell of the white wolf" route with the text dialogue...
id rather pay (is it legal to pay for mods for a game they dont own??) for voice actors than AI voice tbh. but the mod sounds really cool, thanks for mentioning :)
I would like to see the books would be good adapted into a game, I'd also like to see a Vesemir prequel game, with him as a younger Witcher and how he became the mentor/father figure we see in the books and games
A trilogy of games adapting the Witcher novels should be enough for a good adaptation, so i think we could have something like this order: The Witcher - Sword of Destiny (adapting the two first books): The Edge of the World, A Matter of Price, The Last Wish, The Witcher and then The Voice of Reason sequence, chapter 1-5 in the game. Time skips to The Bounds of Reason, A Shard of Ice, The Eternal Fire, A Little Dedication, The Sword of Destiny and Something More (all the 2º book short stories). This was the ''game'' with more text, since the order is a big factor in the game development. The Witcher - Baptism of Fire (adapting the next 3 books: BOE, TOC and BOF) The Witcher - Tower of the Swallow (adapting TTOTS and LOTL)
Uno reverse card take: The Witcher games should be made into books. I’ve read the first two books, and they’re good, but the Witcher III (Hearts of Stone especially) just blows them out of the water. Granted, major parts of the tale don’t translate perfectly into text (particularly the brilliantly subtle musical storytelling done with O’Dimm’s theme), but the story itself is so well done it would benefit GREATLY from a novelisation.
O'Dimm is based on Stephen King's central antagonist, Leland Gaunt, from his book, "Needful Things". This said, what would you think about a full fledged CDPR-like treatment of the Dark Tower series? That is to say, in the same way CDPR provided the player with the books' central plot points as backstory to a game that told its own Geralt story, so another developer like CDPR could provide the player with the Dark Tower's main plot points in a game featuring an independent Roland Deschain story? A game like this would have much bigger potential than the Witcher, because the entire library of King's works tie into the Dark Tower series. We could play as Roland vs IT, Roland vs the Overlook, Roland vs the Mist creatures, etc.
It might be quite interesting to see how the games could be translated into books especially in regard to the motivations of certain characters which could be explored more. Some of it (Avallac'h, Eredin etc.) sometimes has a slightly rushed feeling. Maybe it could be further expanded providing more clarity
Game 1: The Last Wish & Sword of Destiny Game 2: Blood of Elves & Time of Contempt Game 3: Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallows, & The Lady of the Lake
Also coincidentally I'll be traveling to Europe soon again. Last time when I went to Eastern Europe I had The Last Wish with me. Now I am considering bringing Blood of Elves along.
iif they do something like then its best to approach iin a naughty dog style linear game because he witcher books are so continuos and well paced the story impact wont be big if there is spare time to do side quest
Vilgefortz boss fights would go so hard. This is also what i had in mind while reading the entire series recently. If anybody could do these books justice, it's CDPR.
I absolutely am in favour of this idea. I think the embellishment of the books should be kept to a minimum and should have to do with fighting monsters. As for adding contracts and side quests, that should be done too, provided it doesn't contradict canon. They could make this extra content more focused on choices and consequences since those don't happen in the main story. Yeah I don't see why this shouldn't happen. Adapting the books this way could make about two games. The 1st focused on the short stories and adding Kaer Morhen content, doing quests with Vesemir and other witchers. And the 2nd game would be the witcher saga with some side content as well.
Honestly it would be perfect. because after reading the first two books i saw that there are a lot of random things like geralt singing to a mermaid about her boyfriend not wanting to give up his riches or whatever. or discussing trade with a doppler.. Loads of random ass quests that could be a funny secondary quest in an open world game like the w3
I just really want to see how the witchers first came to be, or the school of the cat or ursine, just whatever. SO much to go on without needing Geralt though i do love him greatly :)
I would love to see CD projekt red create a witcher type game that allows you to create a character maybe choose which school to join like the bear or griffin etc taking place years ago when they were all still in their primes. That would be so interesting to explore
The first two books could really work well in a short series composed by 2 seasons while the other main 5 would do well as movies (although 7 should probably be split into two movies)
I love the idea but I don't know if it's totally possible for a few reasons. 1- what would they do to incorporate important parts of the books in a new game chronologically without redoing the same quest? We already saw Geralt and Yennefer with the Djinn but that's an important story bit. Would they have to leave that out? 2- tw3 was huge on allowing the player to choose. I think if they tried recreating the books into games, we wouldn't have choices anymore. We'd have to play as Geralt is in the book- which isn't bad- but it'd take away the fun and intriguing choices that make the game interesting to play instead of the same story the whole time. I think tw3 was great but if they made a game that is more like the books and it took away our choices, it'd be a step down. Cdpr set a precedent in tw3 and idk if they could take choices out because it was such a pivotal part of the game. But for story telling purposes, they can't let us always choose how to play the games because they wouldn't stay canon with the book story. Like if they let us romance Triss, that's not canon and can't keep the story going in the way it's supposed to go. But if they took our choices out, would it still be a fun game to play? Or would we (fans) just play tw3 again.. I definitely want to see more of the excellent Witcher stories. I love the books and I love the Witcher 3 (I never played the previous games). I do think they could make a movie series based off the books AND HAVE HENRY PLAY GERALT. Kind of like the Harry Potter series. I think if someone who went into creating Witcher movies who has the intent on telling the story as it's written, that'd be a huge success. As long as the Creator doesnt try to write their own story like the Netflix series did. I'm sure new creators would see what a disaster that turned into and would actively try to create movies that incorporate the books because obviously that's what all us fans and even major actors- Henry Cavill- would want to do.
Or at least an expansion. An older Geralt telling Ciri stories from before he met her for example, with small alterations excused by his memory loss. Like a compilation of the best short stories from the first two books.
I couldn't agree more I was absolutely devastated with the Netflix series but not surprised I really was hoping that they would stick with the books because they're beautifully written I love your channel I've been watching it for several years now I think you do a wonderful job and you have fantastic ideas
i really love the concepts of the witcher, but no matter how many times i give it a chance i never enjoy playing the witcher 3, and it's not even a problem with cdpr, i loved cyberpunk since launch even though it had a lot of bugs
I'd love for this to happen but I don't think they can make a game out of the books unless it becomes a non RPG experience which would be weird for the witcher cause if it was in the Action RPG genres then many of choices would obviously retcon the books which would be weird
As far as I know, people who worked on the original witcher are the same people working on the remake so it seems they genuinely care and aren't just cashing in on remakes
Two things I would love One if they are gonna make a witcher ciri game they have to start from the last witcher book and we get to see her relationship with avalach and how avalach kinda toned down his disgust for ciri The second thing is pretty much what you said a full books extended adaptation lore accurateish adaptation, some aspects can be corrected (the whole fighting for yennefer thing or geralt boning fringilla when yennefer was tortured by vilgefortz or the reasoning behind vilgefortz defeat)
Witcher George, have you ever considered making a video detailing the differences between the books and games with regards to monsters and items in the world? I've started reading the books again and I've come to realize just how much of the Witcher world was created by CDPR. Many of the monsters and "lore" staples of the world don't exist in the novels. Do you consider the games to be canon? A Witcher vanilla video if you will, where only the creatures and items in the novel appear in the game so to speak, what would that game look like? better or worse?
I think a quite unique aspect of the Witcher games is the player's in-game choices and the way they change the game ending for you. This would be hard to incorporate if you're strictly following the books.
This is a really good point as I also really love that part of the games. I suppose a lot of choices (at least from the witcher 1 and 2) end up relatively inconsequential in the witcher 3, but for the experience of those games and the witcher 3 it is a really important part of the witcher games identity. However, I think that for this idea to work there can't be any major deviations from the story, it's possible to perhaps have different dialogue options that allow for you to understand different information, but there can't be any world changing events. Perhaps within the 'extra' content, like contracts, this sort of stuff could be further explored. I was thinking of a more linear main story like God of War or Red Dead Redemption 2 where the events are essentially the same, but with a witcher flare (so open world and different decisions on different contracts).
Studios like CD project red don't really seem like money-first kinda businesses, meaning that I don't think that the prospect of making money is enough for them to want to do something, it seems like they need to be passionate about the projects they do.
I am all worried about Witcher 1 remake, with how games are lately, with how netflix butchered the material in the name of diversity an such... CDPR still has this amazing IP on their hands, I just hope they DO NOT make anything else even related to netflix and won't go against the Witcher lore themselves. I mean there are new fans of the game that would like to see female witchers - all you need to do is to change some "unimportant" details from the books, right?
The issue with having to adapt the entire series with multiple playable characters is the fact you need to make models/animations/voicelines/etc. for each and every playable character. The reason why most games don't have several playable characters is because it's costly to prepare all of this. On top of that assets used for cut scenes in a RPG cannot be reused so it becomes a lengthy and costly process altogether. Would be hard to convince the shot callers on how profitable this will be and even if it becomes beloved, they won't be able to take full credit as this would be an adaptation instead of something that is largely of their own making like the Witcher games that take place after the books. I agree though that fans would love it, but excuse my skepticism when I say it rarely is about what fans would love or want in the gaming industry.
How would you think to deal with player choice / agency when adapting the given stories of the books? And consequences of these choices down the line, if that would lead to situations that are not compatible with how the story develops in the books somewhere in the middle and you'd need to re-adapt the story in entirely different ways?
Didn't cdpr supposedly greenlight more Witcher games than the remake and 4? Maybe one of them is a book focused game.It's long into the future if that's the case
With the new official modding tools coming next year, it'll take this idea to reality, I believe that the community will take it and do it. It'll make it like Skyrim in a way that the community creates something that the devs wouldn't, such as new area and story/quest to follow and enjoy
How would games like these even suppose to look? How would you want to play the story about Calanthe, Pavetta and Emhyr? Everyone was talking 95% of the time with some action at the end. It's not a gameplay material. It's not even an interactive movie material. The only way it could happen is TV show or animation. And remember that most of Witcher is just about dialogues
we have seee one ''part'' of the books in thronebreaker and it was almost amazing, so yea i will i greee with you i could be interesting to see the witcher books in games.
Well I like the idea and would certainly buy those games. I'd also love if they made an open world MMO type witcher game, set in the past before the characters we know when witchers were plentiful. You'd get to create your own witcher with the usual character creation like you have in Cyberpunk. AI generated deep contract missions would make for amazing fun. This of course assumes it would be made as a proper MMO with CDPR level storytelling and not just a blatant shameless microtransaction hellscape like so many MMO's turn out to be.
Sorry, but I can’t see it working. I’m on the Lady of the Lake now so the story is fresh in my head and after Thaned, Geralt is just on a road trip, chapters go by where he isn’t even mentioned. All in all, books are Ciri’s story. So the whole game can be like the find Ciri quest chain from the Witcher 3. Might work, still have the last book to finish.
CDPR are good at making a style of content where you investigate remains and stories of once thriving villages in now war torn areas which I feel would be incredibly good to see all those lil ones they can come up with in the books setting, seeing remains of the first invasion, all the battlefield remains Geralt must have been around would be quite griping to explore, you could even have dandelion do his little narration as he does with the witcher 3, his writing in your quest log, so I do agree and would love to see something like this, seeing the standalone gwent art of book characters excited me so much as a long time fan, I'm sure CDPR thought of the idea, until the release of the witcher 3 and it's widespread popularity, it might've been less likely due to their relationship with the author, now though perhaps, I'm always hoping :)
I would love to see the books adapted into a game series! I will never get enough Geralt of Rivia. Geralt is The Witcher! All the others are... a Witcher. The original author himself dedicated this universe to its ultimate protaganist!! Geralt of Rivia! A Witcher property without Geralt is too much of a departure from the author's intent! His story can't end at Corvo Bianco. "No Witcher has ever died in his own bed"! Geralt won't either. But not until hundreds of more quests and rich characters to be experienced. I doubt I'll be very interested in a Witcher game worthy of multiple play throughs without Geralt. The books as games I would love to experience. They would have to include Geralt! And also, a tv series that adapts The Witcher 3 that is faithful to the game. It's a fantastic universe that Sapkowski created. And Geralt of Rivia is the heart and soul of it!
There's a problem with adapting a book directly into an RPG game, the two mediums do not translate well. To have a proper book adaptation you have to remove player choice, player choice is one of the key parts of an RPG. If Witcher 3 had one ending and set characters for the key events like Battle of Khaer Morhen and the characters always lived or died regardless of what the player does Witcher 3 would have been crap. With player choice you cannot have a direct book adaptation because events in a book are set in ink and unchanging. Geralt always makes the same choices, events always happen the same way. The best thing to do with translating a book to a game is use the book as a reference for the game world and characters and have a new story. Kinda like Witcher 1-3 was. You get the book characters, lore, and world you love alongside a game where player choice is available to make differences on the ending. I for one do not want the next Witcher game to be the books and would prefer it to not even have the main characters from the books in it.
i dont think its possible. cause geralt isnt main role of the books at least not solo one. game really isnt right medium for this kind of multicharacter storytelling books. tv series is the most promising way for its adaptation if they hadnt fumbled it. the best hope for the books to revive is netflix sells the ip to other and restart the whole series. favorably to use polish team this time. i think they will take it seriously.
The problem with adapting the books is generally that they are not that popular compared to the games. The Witcher 3 finished Geralt's story and most people would have trouble following the plot if they are not invested in the books. Not saying they cannot make it work but it would be an uphill battle, especially since the franchise has been beaten half to death by Netflix.
It's an interesting idea, but I don't know how to make it into a working coherent game story, because you might have to change it up quite a bit for the gameplay. But what I definitely want to see is a book adaptation by CDPR, preferably as an animated series in Gwent art style.
the reason why an adaptation of the books would be profitable is because CDPR will make them not because it's an adaptation of the books, i'm sure everyone egrees when i say we'll play what ever story they tell regardless of what's it's about. the only thing that might tip the scales is whether Geralt's in it or not and from everything they said, it's not likly that he'll be in one as the MC
This would be so fire. Either this or HBO making a show would be my pick for the next Witcher content but sadly I don’t think it will happen. Great video as always though 💯🙌
Its actually funny cause if you played witcher 1 and read the books you would quickly realize that a lot of the parts of the game are direct copies from parts of the book. I believe it was CDPR's intention to adapt the books into the games but they realized how hard that would be (like most adapters do), and resorted to creating new stories by themselves.
Season of Storms stories should be put in the chronological order between the rest of the shorts. I don't think the Witcher story would fit into the CDPR-style video games. I do think a Witcher adaptation would be a good idea, like a series that follows the story more precisely, that seems like a good idea. It's a huge shame that neither of the existing series actually followed the story as-written.
As a mangá/anime lover, don't think make games about the books is good narrative wise. The story/plots in the books a set in stone, we as a character don't have much to do to influence the plot, the outcome will be predeterminade... in the worst scenario we will be a director doing fanfic and destroying the original material. I love the Witcher games because it builds on after the books story. I like how they illustrate how Geralt earned his "of the Rivia" in Thronebreaker. New games, new stories is the way to go, the Witcher world is massive, I game with young Geralt, Eskel and Lambert becoming the Witchers they are in the books/games. Geralt after the end of Blood and Wine isn't good, because he is a God with the mutations and he settled his life in Corvo Bianco.
This might be odd, but I'm an Autist and my special interesst is The Witcher universe and your videos give me so much ^^ I started a personal Witcher wiki and use your videos for a source of information thank you for that
Interesting take and video, however i disagree, CDPR has made such a faithfull adaptation and continuation to the books that it feels so organic, that honestly kind of transcends videogames, people play the games and want to go read the books and honestly i think we kind of owe it to Andrezj to read this books, CDPR has the hearth and talent to tell new incredible stories in this universe that are pretty faithfull to the source material without just translating word for word from the books that is pretty much a remake for people that already know this stories, what i do agree with you is that it would be cool to play a game with Geralts Hansa, so many characters that mean so much to Geralt and are barely mentioned, except for Regis of course, bringing Regis back to life brought a tear to my eye
I can see this perspective, the books are there own thing and it's great to have something (like the games) to encourage people to read them. I think for me I find it frustrating that the show sort of became the 'backstory' for many people going into the games and to be fair cdprojektred did add in a bunch of optional stuff from the show like the Witcher netflix armour and character appearances. I feel that by making the books into games and providing a really faithful adaptation perhaps people can really get a good understanding of the material. Also I suppose they can exist at the same time. If you want a more visual adaptation of the material, there's a game, but if you want a really intricate understanding there's the books. It's a little like the LOTR books and films I suppose.
@@WitcherGeorge yeah i totally get it like the main source material got a little tainted by the very bad show adaptation so it would be cool to have games that bring those wonderfull stories to life for people that maybe are not into reading books, now that i think about it i would not mind it see the books in videogame form, however i think it would be better if it was in another game format like thronebreaker, thronebreaker actually recreates the battle on the bridge were Geralt is knighted and Cahir makes an appareance fighting with him, i think thats more plausible, because a main game like Witcher 3 comes once every 5 to 10 years, and there is no way you are putting all the books in one game so we would be talking about a several decades ordeal to tell the same story that you can just read in the books
The witcher 3 game team is mostly gone, the studio is too corporate now. For as much i would kill to play games adapting the books, it won't happen in my eyes.
I feel like the only way would be Travellers Tales type of game, some good anime series would be awesome too but true to the books not that bs fanfic lvl crap netflix is doing.
Cool idea but it wouldn’t work. The storyline of the Witcher is more intricate than you give it credit for. The gravitas of the Witcher is wrapped up in geopolitics and mythology, neither of which translate over to a direct video game format well at all. The gravitas of the series would be lost completely on the player. The game would be hack and slash but wouldn’t have any of the soul of the series. Yeah it’d be really cool and fun but with a disjointed storyline and an eye to Arthurian legends, it would just be a parody of the source material. The reason the Witcher 3 has all that gravitas is because the Witcher 3 doesn’t try to parody or imitate the books, the Witcher 3 merely says “yep all of that totally happened just as it was written before this stuff happened.” The Witcher 3 doesn’t have to get involved in all of that higher tier philosophical stuff but can still ride that wave. If you made games of the books, the games would have to *be* that wave which is an impossible challenge and would only leave a bitter taste, like the Netflix show did.
It would be best done in a style of the first two games without the open world, and the first two books should be done like the witcher adventures in the witcher 1 since theyre anthologies
I'm a literary purist, so I'm going to take a pass. I'm not going to give a hard no, but I will say I can find no good reason to fully game his story in the way you're talking. I'll put it to you like this, would you like to see a complete word-to-game translation of the Harry Potter books? Or are you still at that point where you say the books are going to be better no matter what? And if so, then what's the point of translating them into game format? What CDPR did was the way it should have been done. Provide the player with the books' essential plot points as backstory, and then provide the player with a great game, thereby encouraging the player to go back and read the books. I will give you the title of another franchise that someone should do this same thing with - The Dark Tower series. Someone like CDPR should game Roland Deschain's story like CDPR storied Geralt's. Not a complete word-to-game translation, but rather a beyond-the-word story that ultimately entices players to go back and read the books. A game like this would have much bigger potential too, because the developer would have opportunity to pull from all of King's other books as well, since they all have ties to the Dark Tower.
Terrible idea, why do you think Cdpr decided to do games past the books in the first place? You can't adapt books into RPG games. You would have to make 100% linear game with jumping across whole continent between characters and have a narrator tell you what's going on in their heads. In Witcher 3 you have 6 sections on the map, now imagine having to make whole continent. It's uneconomic and large part of the fanbase wouldn't buy it because they already know whole story. Only way to adapt these stories is through a good TV show.
After reading that cyberpunk wants to remaster the first 2 witcher games for "modern audiences" and the miss management of cyberpunk and the top talents and veterans leaving project cdr, i lost faith in gaming
netflix series was so bad, so disgusting, that I completely understand why you made this video and where this line of though is coming from and I agree with you. I mean so far they have done a decent job with witcher, and they have even redeemed themselves by fixing cyberpunk so I dont see any reason why they shouldnt adapt the books as games.
If we play as Geralt with the option to have Triss as a companion, I'll be happy. If we play as a different male Witcher that is well written with his own story that is well written and his own entourage ..that are well written ... I'll be happy. Keep the Woke feminazi cult FAR away from this IP please. (Looking forward to the Witcher 1 remake and hopefully a Witcher 2 remake in the future, both at least on the same quality level as Witcher 3)
Just tell me you have no idea about what can happen in the background of an industry without telling me.. First of all, these books can NEVER be made into games due to their lack of world connection throughout a single book.. Also, the books have kind of a frequency of connecting things between like Chapter 1-3 and 2-4.. so they can never make it like this.. it'll be told a different story.. also Sapkowski would fcking suck every single penny out of those releases and he wouldn't care if they succeded or not.. It's a big gamble and it's mostly a big "loose" situation.. they need storytellers that can actually make something good..
Me personally, I'd love to have a story of the witchers as children, Vesemir giving them life lessons, their first monsters, first choices...That would be great
It still makes me sad that Netflix went way out of its way to absolutely bastardize the source material. Peter Jackson's LOTR started something that Hollywood and other studios should have carried on. But instead as always Hollywood learned "the wrong lesson" and started tossing their junk in again, and Netflix followed suit. I don't understand why people keep "adapting" things like The Witcher and think to themselves "let's just toss the source material in the bin and make our own shit up!"
Its relatively easy to understand. Its not the IP they want, its the built-in customer case. If they were to make an original show with the same story beats as the Netflix Witcher or Disney Star Wars, they'd be colossal failures. But slap 'Witcher' or 'Star Wars' on it, and people show up.
@@Bateluer That's intellectual dishonesty.
@@ravensthatflywiththenightm7319 it is. But that's what's happening
@@b4usay746 Aye, someone who actually loved the source material and had the passion - and resources - and technical knowhow - to bring it to the screen, big or small. Is it really too much to ask for any fantasy novel to be given the same treatment?
I mean if the studios' real objective is getting money from fandoms, they could at least give them something worth paying for and not a gold-dusted shit sandwich.
Why do they keep "adapting" things? One word - EGO. They do it to stroke their own egos, cause they really think they're as good or better than the person who wrote the iconic story that they're in charge of "adapting". You'd think they'd learn by now, but such is the downfall of the ego
I’m really sad because they are kinda perfect for a show but that chance has been fucked up so badly that it’s probably never getting a second crack at it
they had one job
If they ever give it another chance, they could go the Castlevania route and make it animated. They did that with Vesemir's early days as a Witcher.
Fucked up twice actually. The old Polish show also failed to simply turn whatever is in the books into live-action. Obviously, minor cuts and simplification are fine when filming a book, but the Witcher books are written in such a way that barely any changes are needed, they are almost like a ready-to-use movie script.
Lets hope that one day it gets the proper treatment the material deserves. At least cdprojektred controls the game material and could do something resembling the Witcher with it.
@@rreece90 true, I forgot about The Hexer, but I sympathize with the attempt since it was mainly budget issues and stuff. And yes, I’ve been saying that for years, the books are like scripts, you can just copy them minus some monologues and you’d get a banger show without doing any real work when it comes to writing
The Ciri ice-skate battle scene at the end of Tower of Swallow would be sick in gameplay
Man, great idea. 2 things though:
1) you'd think this has to have been considered by CDPR at some point.
2) I wonder how you implement the decision making part of an RPG with such a tight script
just make a linear game, not everything they make needs to be an rpg
I want a prequel about a young Geralt/Vesemir
There was a mod in progress by someone that aimed to recreate the entirety of Last Wish. It got pretty far too, they had almost the first half of the first book done, and I remember the nivellen quest was looking reallyyyy good.
I think it was dropped but I think now with AI voice it'd definitely be possible to make it if a team of modders got together - the only problem is with level building, other than that there is so much potential.
Wait, actually? Damn, it's a shame it was dropped, that would've been amazing. They could have taken the "farewell of the white wolf" route with the text dialogue...
id rather pay (is it legal to pay for mods for a game they dont own??) for voice actors than AI voice tbh. but the mod sounds really cool, thanks for mentioning :)
I would like to see the books would be good adapted into a game, I'd also like to see a Vesemir prequel game, with him as a younger Witcher and how he became the mentor/father figure we see in the books and games
totally agree, I would also love a game about the time between the books and games were Geralt was part of the hunt
A trilogy of games adapting the Witcher novels should be enough for a good adaptation, so i think we could have something like this order:
The Witcher - Sword of Destiny (adapting the two first books): The Edge of the World, A Matter of Price, The Last Wish, The Witcher and then The Voice of Reason sequence, chapter 1-5 in the game. Time skips to The Bounds of Reason, A Shard of Ice, The Eternal Fire, A Little Dedication, The Sword of Destiny and Something More (all the 2º book short stories). This was the ''game'' with more text, since the order is a big factor in the game development.
The Witcher - Baptism of Fire (adapting the next 3 books: BOE, TOC and BOF)
The Witcher - Tower of the Swallow (adapting TTOTS and LOTL)
Uno reverse card take: The Witcher games should be made into books. I’ve read the first two books, and they’re good, but the Witcher III (Hearts of Stone especially) just blows them out of the water. Granted, major parts of the tale don’t translate perfectly into text (particularly the brilliantly subtle musical storytelling done with O’Dimm’s theme), but the story itself is so well done it would benefit GREATLY from a novelisation.
I love this idea and it would give a cannon path for the Witcher games
O'Dimm is based on Stephen King's central antagonist, Leland Gaunt, from his book, "Needful Things". This said, what would you think about a full fledged CDPR-like treatment of the Dark Tower series? That is to say, in the same way CDPR provided the player with the books' central plot points as backstory to a game that told its own Geralt story, so another developer like CDPR could provide the player with the Dark Tower's main plot points in a game featuring an independent Roland Deschain story? A game like this would have much bigger potential than the Witcher, because the entire library of King's works tie into the Dark Tower series. We could play as Roland vs IT, Roland vs the Overlook, Roland vs the Mist creatures, etc.
The Witcher books are way better than the games wut.
The Witcher books blow the Witcher 3 out of the water..
It might be quite interesting to see how the games could be translated into books especially in regard to the motivations of certain characters which could be explored more. Some of it (Avallac'h, Eredin etc.) sometimes has a slightly rushed feeling. Maybe it could be further expanded providing more clarity
Game 1: The Last Wish & Sword of Destiny
Game 2: Blood of Elves & Time of Contempt
Game 3: Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallows, & The Lady of the Lake
Yes! With good side quests that CDPR know how to do , there are more than enough material for 3 games.
@@Sousaice Game 2 can end with the Thanedd Coup with a massive cliffhanger as well.
Also coincidentally I'll be traveling to Europe soon again. Last time when I went to Eastern Europe I had The Last Wish with me. Now I am considering bringing Blood of Elves along.
iif they do something like then its best to approach iin a naughty dog style linear game
because he witcher books are so continuos and well paced the story impact wont be big if there is spare time to do side quest
Vilgefortz boss fights would go so hard.
This is also what i had in mind while reading the entire series recently. If anybody could do these books justice, it's CDPR.
I'd love to play a mage, even if it is a side story like with Ciri in W3
I absolutely am in favour of this idea. I think the embellishment of the books should be kept to a minimum and should have to do with fighting monsters. As for adding contracts and side quests, that should be done too, provided it doesn't contradict canon. They could make this extra content more focused on choices and consequences since those don't happen in the main story.
Yeah I don't see why this shouldn't happen. Adapting the books this way could make about two games. The 1st focused on the short stories and adding Kaer Morhen content, doing quests with Vesemir and other witchers. And the 2nd game would be the witcher saga with some side content as well.
Honestly it would be perfect. because after reading the first two books i saw that there are a lot of random things like geralt singing to a mermaid about her boyfriend not wanting to give up his riches or whatever. or discussing trade with a doppler.. Loads of random ass quests that could be a funny secondary quest in an open world game like the w3
I just really want to see how the witchers first came to be, or the school of the cat or ursine, just whatever. SO much to go on without needing Geralt though i do love him greatly :)
I would love to see CD projekt red create a witcher type game that allows you to create a character maybe choose which school to join like the bear or griffin etc taking place years ago when they were all still in their primes. That would be so interesting to explore
I like the narrative books as 1-2 per game. Then the short story books as monster contacts within those games
The first two books could really work well in a short series composed by 2 seasons while the other main 5 would do well as movies (although 7 should probably be split into two movies)
I saw you had some Skyrim lore vids so can you please do a Skyrim play through 🥑🥑🥑
Also a mage / Sorceress focused game would be fun. Flesh out the magic system a lot more.
What a great idea! I rarely get chills from ideas but the thought of meeting Geralt, Yennefer, Ciri, etc for the first time in game souns amazing.
I love the idea but I don't know if it's totally possible for a few reasons.
1- what would they do to incorporate important parts of the books in a new game chronologically without redoing the same quest? We already saw Geralt and Yennefer with the Djinn but that's an important story bit. Would they have to leave that out?
2- tw3 was huge on allowing the player to choose. I think if they tried recreating the books into games, we wouldn't have choices anymore. We'd have to play as Geralt is in the book- which isn't bad- but it'd take away the fun and intriguing choices that make the game interesting to play instead of the same story the whole time. I think tw3 was great but if they made a game that is more like the books and it took away our choices, it'd be a step down. Cdpr set a precedent in tw3 and idk if they could take choices out because it was such a pivotal part of the game. But for story telling purposes, they can't let us always choose how to play the games because they wouldn't stay canon with the book story. Like if they let us romance Triss, that's not canon and can't keep the story going in the way it's supposed to go. But if they took our choices out, would it still be a fun game to play? Or would we (fans) just play tw3 again..
I definitely want to see more of the excellent Witcher stories. I love the books and I love the Witcher 3 (I never played the previous games). I do think they could make a movie series based off the books AND HAVE HENRY PLAY GERALT. Kind of like the Harry Potter series. I think if someone who went into creating Witcher movies who has the intent on telling the story as it's written, that'd be a huge success. As long as the Creator doesnt try to write their own story like the Netflix series did. I'm sure new creators would see what a disaster that turned into and would actively try to create movies that incorporate the books because obviously that's what all us fans and even major actors- Henry Cavill- would want to do.
Or at least an expansion. An older Geralt telling Ciri stories from before he met her for example, with small alterations excused by his memory loss. Like a compilation of the best short stories from the first two books.
I couldn't agree more I was absolutely devastated with the Netflix series but not surprised I really was hoping that they would stick with the books because they're beautifully written I love your channel I've been watching it for several years now I think you do a wonderful job and you have fantastic ideas
I’ve wanted to play through the Thanedd coup so badly since the first time I read it.
i really love the concepts of the witcher, but no matter how many times i give it a chance i never enjoy playing the witcher 3, and it's not even a problem with cdpr, i loved cyberpunk since launch even though it had a lot of bugs
I'd love for this to happen but I don't think they can make a game out of the books unless it becomes a non RPG experience which would be weird for the witcher cause if it was in the Action RPG genres then many of choices would obviously retcon the books which would be weird
I hope witcher project is doing alright at cdpr, they said they had 2 major game lead teams...
Great video my witcher bro!
As far as I know, people who worked on the original witcher are the same people working on the remake so it seems they genuinely care and aren't just cashing in on remakes
Only took CZcams 10 days to notify me this time. Good video. Dragon Age Origins camp would be amazing.
Good old reliable CZcams
Two things I would love
One if they are gonna make a witcher ciri game they have to start from the last witcher book and we get to see her relationship with avalach and how avalach kinda toned down his disgust for ciri
The second thing is pretty much what you said a full books extended adaptation lore accurateish adaptation, some aspects can be corrected (the whole fighting for yennefer thing or geralt boning fringilla when yennefer was tortured by vilgefortz or the reasoning behind vilgefortz defeat)
Witcher George, have you ever considered making a video detailing the differences between the books and games with regards to monsters and items in the world? I've started reading the books again and I've come to realize just how much of the Witcher world was created by CDPR. Many of the monsters and "lore" staples of the world don't exist in the novels. Do you consider the games to be canon? A Witcher vanilla video if you will, where only the creatures and items in the novel appear in the game so to speak, what would that game look like? better or worse?
I think a quite unique aspect of the Witcher games is the player's in-game choices and the way they change the game ending for you. This would be hard to incorporate if you're strictly following the books.
This is a really good point as I also really love that part of the games. I suppose a lot of choices (at least from the witcher 1 and 2) end up relatively inconsequential in the witcher 3, but for the experience of those games and the witcher 3 it is a really important part of the witcher games identity. However, I think that for this idea to work there can't be any major deviations from the story, it's possible to perhaps have different dialogue options that allow for you to understand different information, but there can't be any world changing events. Perhaps within the 'extra' content, like contracts, this sort of stuff could be further explored. I was thinking of a more linear main story like God of War or Red Dead Redemption 2 where the events are essentially the same, but with a witcher flare (so open world and different decisions on different contracts).
I don’t want to do the level where Ciri walks in the desert for what seemed like half the book 😂
Studios like CD project red don't really seem like money-first kinda businesses, meaning that I don't think that the prospect of making money is enough for them to want to do something, it seems like they need to be passionate about the projects they do.
I am all worried about Witcher 1 remake, with how games are lately, with how netflix butchered the material in the name of diversity an such... CDPR still has this amazing IP on their hands, I just hope they DO NOT make anything else even related to netflix and won't go against the Witcher lore themselves. I mean there are new fans of the game that would like to see female witchers - all you need to do is to change some "unimportant" details from the books, right?
Will you ever make a video about what you want from the New Witcher games?
The issue with having to adapt the entire series with multiple playable characters is the fact you need to make models/animations/voicelines/etc. for each and every playable character. The reason why most games don't have several playable characters is because it's costly to prepare all of this. On top of that assets used for cut scenes in a RPG cannot be reused so it becomes a lengthy and costly process altogether. Would be hard to convince the shot callers on how profitable this will be and even if it becomes beloved, they won't be able to take full credit as this would be an adaptation instead of something that is largely of their own making like the Witcher games that take place after the books. I agree though that fans would love it, but excuse my skepticism when I say it rarely is about what fans would love or want in the gaming industry.
How would you think to deal with player choice / agency when adapting the given stories of the books? And consequences of these choices down the line, if that would lead to situations that are not compatible with how the story develops in the books somewhere in the middle and you'd need to re-adapt the story in entirely different ways?
Didn't cdpr supposedly greenlight more Witcher games than the remake and 4? Maybe one of them is a book focused game.It's long into the future if that's the case
With the new official modding tools coming next year, it'll take this idea to reality, I believe that the community will take it and do it. It'll make it like Skyrim in a way that the community creates something that the devs wouldn't, such as new area and story/quest to follow and enjoy
How would games like these even suppose to look? How would you want to play the story about Calanthe, Pavetta and Emhyr? Everyone was talking 95% of the time with some action at the end. It's not a gameplay material. It's not even an interactive movie material. The only way it could happen is TV show or animation. And remember that most of Witcher is just about dialogues
we have seee one ''part'' of the books in thronebreaker and it was almost amazing, so yea i will i greee with you i could be interesting to see the witcher books in games.
I'll support the idea as long as Gwent is included 😂
Well I like the idea and would certainly buy those games. I'd also love if they made an open world MMO type witcher game, set in the past before the characters we know when witchers were plentiful. You'd get to create your own witcher with the usual character creation like you have in Cyberpunk. AI generated deep contract missions would make for amazing fun. This of course assumes it would be made as a proper MMO with CDPR level storytelling and not just a blatant shameless microtransaction hellscape like so many MMO's turn out to be.
Sorry, but I can’t see it working. I’m on the Lady of the Lake now so the story is fresh in my head and after Thaned, Geralt is just on a road trip, chapters go by where he isn’t even mentioned.
All in all, books are Ciri’s story.
So the whole game can be like the find Ciri quest chain from the Witcher 3. Might work, still have the last book to finish.
CDPR are good at making a style of content where you investigate remains and stories of once thriving villages in now war torn areas which I feel would be incredibly good to see all those lil ones they can come up with in the books setting, seeing remains of the first invasion, all the battlefield remains Geralt must have been around would be quite griping to explore, you could even have dandelion do his little narration as he does with the witcher 3, his writing in your quest log, so I do agree and would love to see something like this, seeing the standalone gwent art of book characters excited me so much as a long time fan, I'm sure CDPR thought of the idea, until the release of the witcher 3 and it's widespread popularity, it might've been less likely due to their relationship with the author, now though perhaps, I'm always hoping :)
I would love to see the books adapted into a game series!
I will never get enough Geralt of Rivia. Geralt is The Witcher! All the others are... a Witcher. The original author himself dedicated this universe to its ultimate protaganist!! Geralt of Rivia! A Witcher property without Geralt is too much of a departure from the author's intent! His story can't end at Corvo Bianco. "No Witcher has ever died in his own bed"! Geralt won't either. But not until hundreds of more quests and rich characters to be experienced.
I doubt I'll be very interested in a Witcher game worthy of multiple play throughs without Geralt. The books as games I would love to experience. They would have to include Geralt! And also, a tv series that adapts The Witcher 3 that is faithful to the game. It's a fantastic universe that Sapkowski created. And Geralt of Rivia is the heart and soul of it!
There's a problem with adapting a book directly into an RPG game, the two mediums do not translate well. To have a proper book adaptation you have to remove player choice, player choice is one of the key parts of an RPG. If Witcher 3 had one ending and set characters for the key events like Battle of Khaer Morhen and the characters always lived or died regardless of what the player does Witcher 3 would have been crap. With player choice you cannot have a direct book adaptation because events in a book are set in ink and unchanging. Geralt always makes the same choices, events always happen the same way.
The best thing to do with translating a book to a game is use the book as a reference for the game world and characters and have a new story. Kinda like Witcher 1-3 was. You get the book characters, lore, and world you love alongside a game where player choice is available to make differences on the ending. I for one do not want the next Witcher game to be the books and would prefer it to not even have the main characters from the books in it.
i dont think its possible. cause geralt isnt main role of the books at least not solo one. game really isnt right medium for this kind of multicharacter storytelling books. tv series is the most promising way for its adaptation if they hadnt fumbled it. the best hope for the books to revive is netflix sells the ip to other and restart the whole series. favorably to use polish team this time. i think they will take it seriously.
The problem with adapting the books is generally that they are not that popular compared to the games.
The Witcher 3 finished Geralt's story and most people would have trouble following the plot if they are not invested in the books. Not saying they cannot make it work but it would be an uphill battle, especially since the franchise has been beaten half to death by Netflix.
It's an interesting idea, but I don't know how to make it into a working coherent game story, because you might have to change it up quite a bit for the gameplay. But what I definitely want to see is a book adaptation by CDPR, preferably as an animated series in Gwent art style.
the reason why an adaptation of the books would be profitable is because CDPR will make them not because it's an adaptation of the books, i'm sure everyone egrees when i say we'll play what ever story they tell regardless of what's it's about. the only thing that might tip the scales is whether Geralt's in it or not and from everything they said, it's not likly that he'll be in one as the MC
and as a studio i think they what to have the freedom to make their own story like they did with cyberpunk as well as the witcher
Totally agree.
This would be so fire. Either this or HBO making a show would be my pick for the next Witcher content but sadly I don’t think it will happen.
Great video as always though 💯🙌
Its actually funny cause if you played witcher 1 and read the books you would quickly realize that a lot of the parts of the game are direct copies from parts of the book. I believe it was CDPR's intention to adapt the books into the games but they realized how hard that would be (like most adapters do), and resorted to creating new stories by themselves.
Season of Storms stories should be put in the chronological order between the rest of the shorts.
I don't think the Witcher story would fit into the CDPR-style video games.
I do think a Witcher adaptation would be a good idea, like a series that follows the story more precisely, that seems like a good idea. It's a huge shame that neither of the existing series actually followed the story as-written.
You should try to do a video about the animated movie the witcher nightmare of the wolf talk about the story about vesemir
As a mangá/anime lover, don't think make games about the books is good narrative wise. The story/plots in the books a set in stone, we as a character don't have much to do to influence the plot, the outcome will be predeterminade... in the worst scenario we will be a director doing fanfic and destroying the original material. I love the Witcher games because it builds on after the books story. I like how they illustrate how Geralt earned his "of the Rivia" in Thronebreaker. New games, new stories is the way to go, the Witcher world is massive, I game with young Geralt, Eskel and Lambert becoming the Witchers they are in the books/games. Geralt after the end of Blood and Wine isn't good, because he is a God with the mutations and he settled his life in Corvo Bianco.
This might be odd, but I'm an Autist and my special interesst is The Witcher universe and your videos give me so much ^^ I started a personal Witcher wiki and use your videos for a source of information thank you for that
God I hope they never do! They are butchering beloved franchises. Even CDPR swore loyaly to the cult of ESG. Everything ESG touches becomes garbage.
Interesting take and video, however i disagree, CDPR has made such a faithfull adaptation and continuation to the books that it feels so organic, that honestly kind of transcends videogames, people play the games and want to go read the books and honestly i think we kind of owe it to Andrezj to read this books, CDPR has the hearth and talent to tell new incredible stories in this universe that are pretty faithfull to the source material without just translating word for word from the books that is pretty much a remake for people that already know this stories, what i do agree with you is that it would be cool to play a game with Geralts Hansa, so many characters that mean so much to Geralt and are barely mentioned, except for Regis of course, bringing Regis back to life brought a tear to my eye
I can see this perspective, the books are there own thing and it's great to have something (like the games) to encourage people to read them. I think for me I find it frustrating that the show sort of became the 'backstory' for many people going into the games and to be fair cdprojektred did add in a bunch of optional stuff from the show like the Witcher netflix armour and character appearances. I feel that by making the books into games and providing a really faithful adaptation perhaps people can really get a good understanding of the material. Also I suppose they can exist at the same time. If you want a more visual adaptation of the material, there's a game, but if you want a really intricate understanding there's the books. It's a little like the LOTR books and films I suppose.
@@WitcherGeorge yeah i totally get it like the main source material got a little tainted by the very bad show adaptation so it would be cool to have games that bring those wonderfull stories to life for people that maybe are not into reading books, now that i think about it i would not mind it see the books in videogame form, however i think it would be better if it was in another game format like thronebreaker, thronebreaker actually recreates the battle on the bridge were Geralt is knighted and Cahir makes an appareance fighting with him, i think thats more plausible, because a main game like Witcher 3 comes once every 5 to 10 years, and there is no way you are putting all the books in one game so we would be talking about a several decades ordeal to tell the same story that you can just read in the books
The witcher 3 game team is mostly gone, the studio is too corporate now. For as much i would kill to play games adapting the books, it won't happen in my eyes.
I feel like the only way would be Travellers Tales type of game, some good anime series would be awesome too but true to the books not that bs fanfic lvl crap netflix is doing.
Cool idea but it wouldn’t work. The storyline of the Witcher is more intricate than you give it credit for. The gravitas of the Witcher is wrapped up in geopolitics and mythology, neither of which translate over to a direct video game format well at all. The gravitas of the series would be lost completely on the player. The game would be hack and slash but wouldn’t have any of the soul of the series. Yeah it’d be really cool and fun but with a disjointed storyline and an eye to Arthurian legends, it would just be a parody of the source material. The reason the Witcher 3 has all that gravitas is because the Witcher 3 doesn’t try to parody or imitate the books, the Witcher 3 merely says “yep all of that totally happened just as it was written before this stuff happened.” The Witcher 3 doesn’t have to get involved in all of that higher tier philosophical stuff but can still ride that wave. If you made games of the books, the games would have to *be* that wave which is an impossible challenge and would only leave a bitter taste, like the Netflix show did.
Not everything in the books is so great or captivating, but I still support the general idea.
Yes yes yes!!! Thats been on my mind too!!! I agree
I would love to play the books, but that might take a while
Can you make a video about the ice giant?
It would be best done in a style of the first two games without the open world, and the first two books should be done like the witcher adventures in the witcher 1 since theyre anthologies
I'm a literary purist, so I'm going to take a pass. I'm not going to give a hard no, but I will say I can find no good reason to fully game his story in the way you're talking.
I'll put it to you like this, would you like to see a complete word-to-game translation of the Harry Potter books? Or are you still at that point where you say the books are going to be better no matter what? And if so, then what's the point of translating them into game format? What CDPR did was the way it should have been done. Provide the player with the books' essential plot points as backstory, and then provide the player with a great game, thereby encouraging the player to go back and read the books.
I will give you the title of another franchise that someone should do this same thing with - The Dark Tower series. Someone like CDPR should game Roland Deschain's story like CDPR storied Geralt's. Not a complete word-to-game translation, but rather a beyond-the-word story that ultimately entices players to go back and read the books. A game like this would have much bigger potential too, because the developer would have opportunity to pull from all of King's other books as well, since they all have ties to the Dark Tower.
They could make a trilogy of games with all the books!
I was excited about The Witcher 1 remake on Unreal Engine 5. Then they said it would be made for a modern audience. Ok....nevermind.
No, they shouldn't. Period.
just make sure to offer sapkowski the deal and pray he doesn't berate them for not giving him more money later lol
Great idea I certainly buy that game
Nah, they are fine where they are, thanks
Terrible idea, why do you think Cdpr decided to do games past the books in the first place? You can't adapt books into RPG games. You would have to make 100% linear game with jumping across whole continent between characters and have a narrator tell you what's going on in their heads. In Witcher 3 you have 6 sections on the map, now imagine having to make whole continent. It's uneconomic and large part of the fanbase wouldn't buy it because they already know whole story. Only way to adapt these stories is through a good TV show.
Triss-mancers would be in shambles 😜
After reading that cyberpunk wants to remaster the first 2 witcher games for "modern audiences" and the miss management of cyberpunk and the top talents and veterans leaving project cdr, i lost faith in gaming
I’ve been thinking the same for a long time, and this is something that would be very good (if pulled off right)
OMG new video!!! :) Love your work WG
netflix series was so bad, so disgusting, that I completely understand why you made this video and where this line of though is coming from and I agree with you. I mean so far they have done a decent job with witcher, and they have even redeemed themselves by fixing cyberpunk so I dont see any reason why they shouldnt adapt the books as games.
Hmmmm
Winds howling
Time to pay an Old Sapkowski a visit and more money😅😅
This is brilliant
But they did?!?
If we play as Geralt with the option to have Triss as a companion, I'll be happy.
If we play as a different male Witcher that is well written with his own story that is well written and his own entourage ..that are well written ... I'll be happy.
Keep the Woke feminazi cult FAR away from this IP please.
(Looking forward to the Witcher 1 remake and hopefully a Witcher 2 remake in the future, both at least on the same quality level as Witcher 3)
Just tell me you have no idea about what can happen in the background of an industry without telling me..
First of all, these books can NEVER be made into games due to their lack of world connection throughout a single book..
Also, the books have kind of a frequency of connecting things between like Chapter 1-3 and 2-4.. so they can never make it like this.. it'll be told a different story.. also Sapkowski would fcking suck every single penny out of those releases and he wouldn't care if they succeded or not..
It's a big gamble and it's mostly a big "loose" situation.. they need storytellers that can actually make something good..
Me personally, I'd love to have a story of the witchers as children, Vesemir giving them life lessons, their first monsters, first choices...That would be great
🍻🍻🍻
George, you’re daddy!
Ola! 👍🍉🤣
Would be better than the shiet show
i’ve been saying this