I’m all about getting the bad news over with first, so let’s address the elephant in the room: we’re probably going to have to wait a bit longer before we can cozy up with The Witcher 4. Up till now, all we’ve really had to cling to was the game’s reveal trailer from The Game Awards 2024.
But hold on—here’s the silver lining: that’s not entirely true anymore! Starting this Wednesday, everything shifted when CD Projekt Red shared a detailed behind-the-scenes video about the production of that six-minute cinematic trailer from last December. (And just so you know, this isn’t the first deep dive the studio has done about the trailer. They released another video right after the trailer’s debut, which featured an eight-minute breakdown by the game’s director, Sebastian Kalemba).
In this new making-of video, there’s an abundance of concept art, insightful interviews on how animating virtual cameras differs depending on whether they mimic handheld devices or cranes, and fascinating discussions with writers about the storytelling threads connecting Ciri to the village maiden she’s trying to help. You’ll also hear about the ties between the maiden and her father, along with how Ciri connects yet again to Geralt of Rivia, the hero of previous Witcher tales. It’s packed with analyses of themes found in Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher series and the folklore of Central and Eastern Europe. They even included snippets from days of test shoots that look like scenes straight out of Midsommar, which helped the team dive into lens studies—things like “distortions, lens flares, blooms, how the bokeh behaves,” as Karol Stadnik, the digital cinematographer, put it. This knowledge was then used to perfectly emulate those effects in Unreal Engine 5 for the trailer.
For me, the most fascinating bit in this 10-and-a-half-minute video is how they crafted the battle scene between Ciri and a creature called the Bauk. It’s a beast with a goblin head, snake neck, jaguar-like arms, scorpion pincers, and hindquarters reminiscent of a dinosaur.
Maciej Kwiatkowski, the motion capture expert known as Alpha 7, shared that “We created a physical version of Bauk’s shoulders and attacking arms. With four operators, we brought the entire monster to life,” allowing them to see a moving Bauk in real-time on screen.
Honestly, although I love what I do, I wouldn’t mind a day where I get to mess around with giant plastic rods, pretending to be a part of an imaginary creature. Just don’t expect me to throw on one of those mo-cap suits anytime soon!
