CDPR Co‑Founder Made The Witcher 3 Developers ‘Suffer’ by Asking Them One Question About a Gameplay Mechanic

12.11.2025 Comment Views: 23

Implementing Geralt’s swimming proved to be a complex challenge.

CD Projekt RED co‑founder Adam Badowski recently shared memories from his time working on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. His sensible remark about the swimming mechanic ultimately led to a substantial amount of additional work.

I recall the moment I asked a deceptively simple question: there is water — so where is the swimming? The entire room fell silent.

At that stage the Witcher 3 team worried they might have to remove content to avoid the need for a swimming mechanic.

In the end Geralt was given the ability to swim. Without swimming, the character would either be prevented from entering water or would simply sink — both of which would break immersion. For Badowski, the question of immersion propelled ideas forward:

If there’s water, there should be swimming; if there’s swimming, there should be diving; if there’s diving, entirely new locations need to be created. And the team is like, “well, that’s logical!” Sometimes we — as developers — simply overlook that chain of logic.

Source: iXBT.games

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