The Witcher may be one of the most popular pieces of media at the moment, but the Netflix series wouldn’t have been possible without the Witcher video games that preceded it. Andrzej Sapkowski’s original Polish novels may have gotten the franchise started, but for many around the world, it was CD Projekt RED’s highly-acclaimed series of games that really introduced them to it and got them excited for a live-action version.
Yet anyone who has experienced both knows that The Witcher is more directly based on the books, leading to some big differences between The Witcher TV show and the games. That said, though, the show’s creators did look to CD Projekt’s titles for inspiration, and recently showrunner Lauren Hissrich revealed that, in particular, the visuals of the games were an influence on the latest adaptation’s look.
Explaining on the podcast Writer Experience, Hissrich said that, while she’s not a gamer herself, she was intrigued by watching a friend play through The Witcher back when she first took on the project. “And I took in the visuals of the world. And what I will say is that, that's probably the biggest thing I took from the game,” she said.
Specifically, it was the beauty of the game’s visuals that stuck with her and the rest of the show’s creators. “Oftentimes people think of fantasy as really dirty and gritty and horrible and everything's dark. And the truth is, The Witcher actually has a lot of color, has a lot of life, has a lot of everything to it,” she said. Indeed, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has no shortage of beautiful locations for players to explore, serving as a nice contrast to the dramatic grimness of the game’s plot and side-stories. “Even in tragedy and real life, the sun still rises, and it sets and that can still be beautiful, even if there's a war going on next door,” she said. “So that's something that we took.”
Although this was the biggest thing The Witcher took from the games, Hissrich stated that “there's a lot of little easter eggs” in the show that are there specifically for fans of the games. Add to that the way The Witcher’s actors nail many of their characters’ mannerisms from the games and it’s clear that The Witcher has plenty to offer fans of the games, and it’s likely that it will have even more to offer in future seasons.
The Witcher is available on Netflix.
Source: Writer Experience