Morrowind came out in 2002, the same year as isometric RPGs like Icewind Dale 2, Divine Divinity, Freedom Force, and Dungeon Siege. Its first-person/third-person perspective was a selling point at the time, though some would argue that playing a full 3D game with randomized to-hit chances made for an unsatisfying experience. Nowadays, thanks to the mod combo of OpenMorrowind and OpenNevermind, we can experience Morrowind as if it was a top-down CRPG complete with click-to-move and having to zoom in so you can pick up small objects.
YouTuber Mehrunes Mike just uploaded a video showcasing OpenNevermind and a UI mod of his own design that gives Morrowind an action bar and a little bit of Baldur’s Gate 3 flavor—minimap in the top right, enemy portraits across the top, you know the deal. It’s an impressive piece of work, and I hope he shares it with the rest of us, even if it’s not designed to deal with the massive inventory of the average Morrowind hoarder.
Isometric Morrowind is Cursed (and Kind of Awesome) – YouTube
Mehrunes Mike stuck with the top-down perspective for most of his playthrough, in which he completed Morrowind’s main questline, explored all the dwemer ruins, and killed every single werewolf to cap it off. There were a few moments where he had to cave in and switch back to first-person, mostly to pick up items that were tiny and obscured from above, and sometimes to go through doors.
For the most part though it works surprisingly well. It’s fascinating watching someone play Morrowind from a completely different perspective yet do all the things I do, like trying to jump into the water from the top of Molag Mar and failing to clear the bottom level. And a lot of it looks great—areas with levels like the Waistworks, some of the dungeons, and anything with a bridge looks gorgeous, even if he has to rotate the camera a lot to see where he’s going.
If you want to play Morrowind like this you’ll need to download OpenMW and then OpenNevermind. The latter mod started out as an April Fool’s joke but despite its issues has been embraced by the Morrowind community, who are pretty comfortable with a high degree of jankiness to begin with.
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Sound the “it’s happening” klaxon, folks, because it’s happening: CD Projekt announced today that Cyberpunk 2—which, by the way, the studio is now calling Cyberpunk 2 instead of Project Orion—is now in the “pre-production phase” of development.
It’s not the biggest surprise of the year—we’ve known since 2023 that a new Cyberpunk game is in the works from a new Boston branch of CDPR, after all—and “pre-production” is still very early on in the process. Even so, CD Projekt chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz said it’s a pretty big deal during today’s earnings highlights presentation.
[PL/EN] Grupa CD PROJEKT – wyniki finansowe za I kwartał 2025 r. | KOMENTARZ – YouTube
“The Phantom Liberty expansion has reached another sales milestone, having been purchased by 10 million gamers,” Nielubowicz said. “This is an excellent result, given that only 20 months have passed since its release, and it confirms sustained interest in the Cyberpunk universe on the part of the gaming community.
“Given these developments, it fills me with even greater satisfaction to announce another important stage in our work on the next big game in this franchise: Several weeks ago, Cyberpunk 2—previously referred to as Project Orion—wrapped up its conceptual phase and entered pre-production. Congratulations to the entire team!”
(Image credit: CD Projekt)
CD Projekt’s focus is still firmly on The Witcher 4, which entered “full-scale production” in late 2024, but Cyberpunk 2 will see a boost throughout 2025: During an investors call, CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski said the Cyberpunk 2 development team “will be our primary recruitment focus” for 2025.
(Image credit: CD Projekt)
As for what this means as far as a possible release date, the short answer is that Cyberpunk 2 remains a very long way off. In response to a speculative question suggesting that previous development timelines from pre-production to full release puts the Cyberpunk 2 release in late 2030 or early 2031, Nowakowski did not disagree.
“I can reiterate in a way what I said in one of the previous calls, which was basically that our journey from pre-production to final release takes four to five years on average,” Nowakowski said. “Having said that, keep in mind that each project is unique, and there are many variables that influence the final outcome. So I will not lead you into specific years, but yes, this is pretty much how it looks.”
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https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Cyberpunk-2-which-is-now-officially-called-Cyberpunk-2-has.jpeg10801920Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-28 17:52:052025-05-28 17:52:05Cyberpunk 2, which is now officially called Cyberpunk 2, has entered pre-production, but don’t expect it out before 2030
Transform your daily Wordle into a smooth and surefire win with our convenient range of word finding help. The most obvious is today’s answer, which is only a short scroll away now you’re here and ready whenever you are. But if you like the idea of slightly less extreme assistance, there’s a hint for the May 28 (1439) game here too.
Oh heck, just one letter off an early win after two rows? There’s a part of me that’s irritated by how almost right I was, basically one small typo away from an impressively quick finish. But it’s also easy to see how that miss turned itself into a fantastic win without any trouble at all, a smooth path for me to follow.
Today’s Wordle hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Wednesday, May 28
Anything relating to the top and bottom regions of the planet could have this word attached. Like bears.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
No, there is not a double letter in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
Playing Wordle well is like achieving a small victory every day—who doesn’t like a well-earned winning streak in a game you enjoy? If you’re new to the daily word game, or just want a refresher, I’m going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:
You want a balanced mix of unique consonants and vowels in your opening word.
A solid second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
The answer could contain letters more than once.
There’s no time pressure beyond making sure it’s done by the end of the day. If you’re struggling to find the answer or a tactical word for your next guess, there’s no harm in coming back to it later on.
Today’s Wordle answer
(Image credit: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
The one word you need. The answer to the May 28 (1439) Wordle is POLAR.
Previous Wordle answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
Knowing previous Wordle solutions can be helpful in eliminating current possibilities. It’s unlikely a word will be repeated and you can find inspiration for guesses or starting words that may be eluding you.
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Here are some recent Wordle answers:
May 27: SPORT
May 26: DRONE
May 25: GRIFT
May 24: SUEDE
May 23: SHUCK
May 22: FOLIO
May 21: ALARM
May 20: BORNE
May 19: PITCH
May 18: LIVID
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
Wordle gives you six rows of five boxes each day, and it’s your job to work out which five-letter word is hiding by eliminating or confirming the letters it contains.
Starting with a strong word like LEASH—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters—is a good place to start. Once you hit Enter, the boxes will show you which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.
Your second go should compliment the starting word, using another “good” guess to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used, you can scroll to the relevant section above.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
Star warriors of all shapes and creeds rejoice: Battlefront 2 (2017) is finally getting the love it deserves. The 8-year-old FPS is enjoying a resurgence the likes of which it’s never seen—on Steam, Battlefront 2 broke its concurrent player record multiple times over the weekend, topping out at over 18,600.
That comfortably ranks Battlefront 2 among the most played games on Steam at the moment (it’s also back in the top sellers list despite not going on sale). More impressive is that Steam is likely only a fraction of its total PC players, considering over 19 million people claimed a free copy from the Epic Games Store back in 2021.
Chances are, you remember DICE’s Battlefront 2 as one of EA’s most legendary blunders. It’s inarguably one of the games that helped poison public opinion against an onslaught of loot boxes, sparked by its progression system that revolved entirely around random chance.
The feedback was so universally negative that EA ripped its premium currency out of the game pre-launch, and spent the next year reworking progression around XP and making those loot boxes free. The game’s enjoyed a modest community ever since, though a recent assault by hackers made it completely unplayable for a while.
So why do people suddenly care about Battlefront 2 again? The boost from Andor’s recent finale is undoubtedly a factor as folks look to glom onto anything vaguely Cassian Andor-shaped: Andor himself never made it into Battlefront 2, but the Battle of Scarif as depicted in Rogue One film sure did. Then there’s the renewed fervor for a Battlefront 3, somewhat accelerated by Andor actor Muhannad Ben Amor’s recent Instagram story sharing his 469-hour playtime in Battlefront 2, a game he “grew up with.”
But I reckon this latest surge of enthusiasm has a much simpler explanation: Have you played Battlefront 2 recently? Because it’s really good.
Booting it up for the first time since that controversial launch, Battlefront 2 finally plays like the throwback class shooter that we envisioned in our heads when DICE brought it back. It’s got tons of ridiculously pretty maps, great gunplay (DICE knows how to make shooters, go figure), a great mix of playable heroes and villains spanning every era of Star Wars, and that reworked progression lets you unlock class upgrades just by playing. And that free copy that millions of people claimed on the Epic Store? It includes everything, including all cosmetics.
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EA inadvertently created the perfect storm for a Battlefront 2 resurgence by ripping out all the stuff that sucked and leaving it alone.
Judging by my lobbies full of level 2 accounts, there are tons of new players who either skipped Battlefront 2 or weren’t old enough to play it in 2017. That’s all the better, because in 2025, a new player booting up Battlefront 2 is greeted with a feature-complete casual FPS unmarred by battle passes, pop-up ads, or hideous crossover skins.
It’s also fair to say that some of us are ready to enjoy Battlefront 2 in a way we weren’t at the time. Even if Battlefront 2 had launched inoffensively, I know that 2017 me was too busy grinding ranked in Rainbow Six Siege or Overwatch to pay attention to a casual Star Wars shooter that cost $60. I was live-service pilled—enamored with hyper-competitive games that wanted me to obsess over them. Nowadays, I’m just looking for simple fun with friends. Maybe I’m not the only one?
If you’re looking to join the fun and missed the Epic giveaway from 2021, Battlefront 2 is also included in the basic level of PC Game Pass. But honestly, $40 for the Steam version is a fair deal.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Battlefront-2s-huge-Steam-resurgence-isnt-a-mystery-when-you.png10801920Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-27 22:19:182025-05-27 22:19:18Battlefront 2’s huge Steam resurgence isn’t a mystery when you realize it’s just really good
For grumpy old Final Fantasy 14 enjoyers like myself who won’t stop banging on about how the game doesn’t have midcore content—good news! The game has midcore content now, and we can finally shut up until patch 8.0. Released in Patch 7.25 today, the Occult Crescent, a new Bozja-style exploration zone, is now open to the public.
In case you’re unfamiliar with what these are, an exploration zone (officially dubbed a “field operation”) is a piece of large-scale world content, typically accompanied with its own levelling system. You enter them solo, but will be passively thrown into large boss fights and FATEs with other players. In terms of difficulty, they’re often in a sweet spot: You’ll absolutely die if you aren’t paying attention, but you won’t wipe the entire group if you do.
Because of their relative lack of required organisation, but emphasis on personal responsibility, exploration zones are the most midcore of midcore content that FF14 gets, taking the world quest model of a game like WoW and fleshing it out into its own proper progression system—with a few zone-specific grinds to keep you invested.
The Occult Crescent is no different. As the patch notes explain, you’ll be able to grind EXP for both your “knowledge level” and your “phantom jobs” while inside the zone. Knowledge level is your overall power—letting you deal more damage to enemies of higher levels—whereas phantom jobs are their own separate system, giving you access to new abilities and passive effects.
These phantom jobs seem to be the core crux of the zone—we already know we’re getting chemist, ranger, berserker, geomancer, samurai, bard, freelancer, cannoneer, monk, oracle, thief, time mage, and knight. But the patch notes state that there’ll be more available either through purchasing them, or via critical engagements (boss FATEs you can get pulled into on occasion).
One neat element is that, apparently, maxing out a phantom job will give you “the Phantom Mastery status, which grants increased damage dealt and other helpful effects, and remains active even should you change to another phantom job.” In other words, if you want to reach bonkers levels of power while in The Occult Crescent, you’re incentivised to max out every job you can.
Once your knowledge level is 20, you’ll also be able to tackle The Forked Tower—an up-to 48 person raid that’s accessed via offering something called a sanguine cipher at a special reliquary. Given how busy the zone is bound to be at launch, you’ll probably be vying for a spot—you can offer more ciphers for a better chance at entry, and fortunately, if you aren’t picked to go dungeon delving, your ciphers will be returned to you.
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There are other side-activities, as well, including treasure hunts at the behest of little goblin pots—but this all sounds like a jolly good time. My only gripe is that it’s taken this long for us to get something like this from ol’ Square Enix. Four years, in fact—nearly five.
Bozja, the last field operation, came out during Shadowbringers in October 2020. Square Enix skipped over the content type for Endwalker, electing to add variant dungeons instead which, while fun, were also one-and-done gauntlets you could knock out in about eight hours. I had a great time with them, sure, but if you’re playing an MMO? You gotta grease the wheels with a little grind.
(Image credit: Square Enix)
Due to a combination of Dawntrail’s sluggish release schedule and weird prioritisation of raid tiers and extreme fights, The Occult Crescent—the most accessible and longest-lasting type of content the expansion will have to offer, bar none—has taken nearly a full year to arrive after the expansion’s release. Why? I couldn’t tell you.
On the plus side, this is a great expansion for something like this to arrive in. Square Enix has been popping off with its fight design recently, and despite my complaints about how long it’s taken, I can’t wait to get stuck in.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1748345110_After-4-years-Final-Fantasy-14-finally-has-a-new.jpg14402560Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-27 11:42:192025-05-27 11:42:19After 4 years, Final Fantasy 14 finally has a new exploration zone in the Occult Crescent—and even if I’d have liked one sooner, I can’t wait to get stuck in
Byond is an old, free game engine that’s been around since at least the early 2000s in games like Space Station 13, to cite one we’ve talked about recently. It’s also been the subject of a sustained DDoS attack, according to a MassivelyOP report, that’s now into at least it’s third week.
And why, exactly, would someone launch a DDoS attack against an obscure game engine, and keep it up for this long? According to a now-deleted Reddit post, available via the Wayback Machine, a group calling itself “the international free and open-source software community” is doing it to pressure Byond creator LummoxJR into making the software open source.
“Attacks on Byond servers are a symptom of your obstinance,” the extremely talking-like-Sephiroth message states. “They will persist as long as you ignore the voices of those who keep your platform afloat. We demand you voluntarily side with progress.
“Choose: Let Byond die as a proprietary relic, or let it rise as a free project. Time is running out.”
Whether or not that’s a legitimate claim, I cannot say. It certainly doesn’t sound like a good reason to throw up a sustained DDoS attack, but I’ve been on the internet long enough to know that ‘this sounds too stupid to be true’ is at best 50/50 when it comes to predicting whether something actually is true.
In a Reddit thread that went up not long after the attack began, appropriately entitled “What kind of maniac DDoSes Byond?” users suggested other possible rationales for the attack, most of them variants on “some guy got mad on the internet.” LummoxJr implied in the thread that they’re not sure about the real reason for the DDoS, but wrote that they’d “heard a rumor as to how this started, and it doesn’t really involve Byond; it was just a grudge between someone and a server that escalated.”
Whatever initially touched it out, the fires are still burning: The Byond website remains inaccessible, and as of the latest update to the DDoS Downtime Megathread, mitigation efforts are ongoing but there’s no ETA for a full restoration. In a separate thread posted May 23, LummoxJR said they’re “still dealing with the thing,” but also took a kind of bright-side view of the ongoing mess.
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“I know the current situation has pushed a lot of us into closer contact than normal, and in many ways that’s a good thing,” they wrote. “But there have been some folks coming into new spaces hot, especially thinking they have a new idea that actually isn’t new. I know it comes from a good place. Let’s just all remember to show each other a little extra leeway and respect.”
And in good news for people who actually use Byond, it’s not out of reach: The website is down but some parts of it, including bug reports and downloads, are now being hosted on Discord.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1748309076_Byond-game-engine-suffers-a-weeks-long-DDoS-attack-apparently-because.jpg10801920Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-26 23:31:272025-05-26 23:31:27Byond game engine suffers a weeks-long DDoS attack, apparently because a wanna-be Bond villain is trying to force it to go open source: ‘Attacks on Byond servers are a symptom of your obstinance’
The longest recorded prison sentence served was just shy of 71 years. Charles Foussard was incarcerated in 1903 after murdering a man and stealing his boots. At the age of 92, he died in prison. Over in Oblivion Remastered, meanwhile, player Scribe_Of_Satire served a sentence of 55,284 years, or 20,178,790 days.
Spotted by our pals at GamesRadar, Scribe_Of_Satire shared this dizzying prison sentence over on the Oblivion subreddit.
Before the cops grabbed them, our heroic thief had amassed a bounty of more than 2 billion gold. And how did they do this? Merely stealing goodies. The most impressive thing about this crime spree is that they never trespassed, never assaulted anyone, never killed anyone, and never once pinched a horse. They hardly even engaged in any pickpocketing. They merely pilfered from someone’s pockets once.
But they also stole over a million items. Which is quite a spree.
To put this in context, 55,000 years ago Earth was in the middle of the last glacial cycle, the last ice age, and neanderthals were still stomping around. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, Bethesda did not choose to model the passage of time to such a degree, so doing a prison stint like this will not see you exit your cell and discover a new world full of new species. Your dreams of seeing 20-metre-tall argonians ruling Tamriel will go unfulfilled.
What Scribe_Of_Satire did discover was that being stuck in prison for so long gives the Tamriel calendar a bit of a stroke. When they were finally freed, it was the 5th of Morning Star, 3E -9,818. Clearly Bethesda just didn’t include enough numbers, and no matter how long you wait, you’ll never be able to leave the third era.
I guess there isn’t much of a downside to this kind of crime spree, then. Apart from the skill loss.
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https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1748272997_Oblivion-Remastered-player-gets-flung-in-jail-for-20-million.jpg8371488Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-26 15:38:492025-05-26 15:38:49Oblivion Remastered player gets flung in jail for 20 million days just for some petty crime
Y’all ever see a chicken try to knife a duck to death? Y’all ever see a seagull try to beat a duck with a police baton? I hadn’t earlier, but now I have thanks to the demo trailer for goofily parodic shooter Escape from Duckov, which is getting a new demo on May 29 that’ll last until July 1.
It is, if you haven’t heard, a kind of singleplayer, top-down, extraction looter-shooter about odd little birds with guns and knives and such. You know, all the trappings of an ultra-serious mega-sweaty mil-sim-lite extraction shooter—no one game in particular I’m thinking of here. Anyway it’s that, but with ducks.
(And pigeons and geese and seagulls and chickens, etc.)
Escape from Duckov’s first limited-time demo shot to fourth place on the most-played Steam demo charts mostly because it’s a very approachable, accessible twist on the greater extraction formula. In between forays into the wide and violently bird-based world you use supplies to improve your basement lair, where you can upgrade and stockpile weapons.
Now developer Team Soda and publisher Bilibili are going to deal out another demo round of Duckov. Which you may be interested in if you missed it last time, for example, because you were playing roughly 83 other game demos at the time.
Or if you prefer to play via the Epic Games Store, which alongside Steam will be an option for this demo period and for Duckov’s launch proper later this year.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1748236932_Escape-from-Duckov-is-coming-back-with-a-new-demo.jpg10801920Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-26 06:00:002025-05-26 06:00:00Escape from Duckov is coming back with a new demo
Frank Azor, AMD’s Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions and Gaming Marketing, shared a post on X (formerly Twitter) last week in response to a gaming account questioning why AMD is still offering GPUs with 8GB of VRAM in 2025.
“Majority of gamers are still playing at 1080p and have no use for more than 8GB of memory,” Azor wrote. “Most played games [worldwide] are mostly esports games. We wouldn’t build it if there wasn’t a market for it. If 8GB isn’t right for you then there’s 16GB. Same GPU, no compromise, just memory options.”
Majority of gamers are still playing at 1080p and have no use for more than 8GB of memory. Most played games WW are mostly esports games. We wouldn’t build it if there wasn’t a market for it. If 8GB isn’t right for you then there’s 16GB. Same GPU, no compromise, just memory…May 22, 2025
There’s data to support Azor’s claims—according to the Steam Hardware Survey, over half of gamers (55.27%) are playing on 1080p monitors. The survey data also suggests plenty of people are holding out for more budget GPUs: One of the top five GPUs among Steam users in 2025 is still somehow the GTX 1650, which only has 4GB of VRAM. The number one GPU as of April is the RTX 4060 laptop version with 8GB of VRAM.
Limited VRAM has become a bit of a sore spot during the current, Nvidia-led GPU doldrums, with 8GB already proving an issue in the biggest, most graphically advanced games.
It’s even an open question whether the 5070’s 12GB of VRAM is sufficiently “future proof,” and the $379 MSRP of the 8GB 5060 Ti is a hard sell before you even get to the endemic price bloat from AIB partners.
But with a $299 MSRP, the 8GB RX 9060 XT is a different beast—that is approaching a truly budget price. With so many gamers sticking to 1080p, and some of the biggest games in the world being less demanding “esports” picks like Marvel Rivals, or otherwise dark horse indie phenoms like Schedule One, REPO, and Palworld, the 9060 XT is shaping up to be an 8GB card that makes a good deal of sense, one on the more expensive side of “budget.”
Azor’s stance is in line with my personal gaming experience, too. I’ve been gaming on an 8GB Radeon RX 6600 for a couple of years now and have yet to run into performance issues, even running most of my games through a compatibility layer on Fedora Linux.
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Most gamers don’t need a top-of-the-line GPU, and for some time now, it’s felt like all the buzz has been around Nvidia’s prohibitively expensive 30, 40, and 5090 cards, while the sub-$350, 1080p set has had to settle for hand-me-downs and mediocrities.
Those budget cards are not meant to be hooked up to high-end monitors, and the people who can afford a 1440p or 4K gaming monitor need to be realistic about the GPU they’ll need to power it.
There’s no harm in offering budget-oriented GPUs for those who need that option. It serves to keep PC gaming more accessible for those who want to play less demanding games like Fortnite or Minecraft, or the treasure trove of fantastic indie and retro games on PC.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1748200870_Majority-of-gamers-are-still-playing-at-1080p-AMD-chief.jpg10801920Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-25 18:55:362025-05-25 18:55:36‘Majority of gamers are still playing at 1080p’: AMD chief claims there’s still a place for 8GB GPUs, and he’s got a point
The Witcher games are one of the clearest examples of improvement over a series in videogame history. No backsliding here: The Witcher was a mess, The Witcher 2 was genuinely quite decent, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was a masterpiece. The Witcher 3’s success put CD Projekt Red on Sony’s speed-dial, but it had other consequences as well.
The Witcher 3 at 10
(Image credit: CD Projekt RED)
To celebrate its 10th anniversary, all this week we’re looking back on The Witcher 3—and looking ahead to its upcoming sequel, too. Keep checking back for more features and retrospectives, as well as in-depth interviews with the developers who brought the game to life.
“It gave us confidence that we can deliver a truly ambitious and engrossing RPG of a big scale,” says Michał Nowakowski, joint CEO and member of the board, speaking to PC Gamer’s Joshua Wolens. “And that we can punch above our weight and we can get head to head with the big ones. I remember, I was like, really, really afraid of the standard that Dragon Age: Inquisition’s going to set,” Nowakowski recalls.
While the two did duke it out for RPG of the Year awards (“I thought it was a fantastic game,” Nowakowski says of the competitor), The Witcher 3 was such a smash it changed expectations at CD Projekt Red. “That gave us confidence,” Nowakowski says. “Maybe in many ways even too much confidence looking back, to be honest, because I think that was the beginning of a bit of magical thinking for the company, which only stopped after Cyberpunk.”
Or as Adam Badowski, CD Projekt Red’s other joint CEO and member of the board puts it, “We turn from underdog to the company that is visible in the industry.”
The idea of magical thinking brings to mind BioWare magic, the idea that a troubled videogame will inevitably come together during the final stage of development because that’s what happened last time. And while the concept’s been torn apart repeatedly, it persisted because so many videogames do come together at the last moment. Even a classic like Thief: The Dark Project wasn’t fun to play until it was almost finished.
“I do remember, for The Witcher 3 specifically, seeing a version of the game that was put together, I think it was like February, 2015?” Nowakowski recalls. “I remember I walked up to Adam and said, ‘How are we in a good shape? Because that looks really not that great.’ You know, like, ‘Don’t worry. We’re gonna make the final push with the patch. That’s gonna be a day-zero patch.’ I remember talking to some of the key tech people, and they were tired—exhausted, to be honest—but it’s OK. We’re gonna make it happen. And they did. Of course there were a lot of patches afterwards, but the whole thing was like a force of nature. Lots of chaos, and a lot of final-moment efforts over there, without I think proper planning.”
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)
The fact The Witcher 3 came together in that final push didn’t help the way the studio thought about things. “Everybody felt I think for a few moments that whenever something’s going on, we’re gonna have a magic fairy at the end that’s gonna come down and sprinkle some dust, and things are gonna be OK,” Nowakowski says. “I’m of course exaggerating, but there is some truth in that. So that’s a negative change. The positive change was that confidence, which I think helped us to build the ambition, which I still think is a big value of the company.”
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Cyberpunk 2077’s development demonstrated both the benefits of ambition, and the risks of overconfidence. Even as the studio got bigger, Nowakowski says, “A lot of things were developed in almost isolation, as weird as it may sound, so we sometimes didn’t see the actual effects of how it actually interacts until it was put together.” If those things developed in isolation don’t magically come together, you end up with a game full of disconnected systems, and sidequests that feel like they don’t mesh with the main questline. Which is to say, you end up with Cyberpunk 2077.
The Witcher games were developed in a similar way, Nowakowski says, but the issues that resulted were easier to fix. “It was probably never fine,” he says, “but it worked when the scope of the games were smaller. Like for Witcher 1 and 2. But I think at The Witcher 3, we could already hear the boat is creaking a little bit.”
(Image credit: CD Projekt)
Following the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, the studio worked to tear down that isolation. “I don’t want it to sound like it was all chaos, you know, burning cart on fire, because that would also not be true,” Nowakowski says. “We had great producers, and there was a lot of planning involved that made sense.” But the processes at CD Projekt Red in need of addressing finally were, “and that’s a big change that happened after Cyberpunk.”
When you’re spending $81 million to make a game like The Witcher 3, and $320 million on Cyberpunk 2077’s launch version, you don’t get to be the underdog any more. It can be hard to let go of the idea you’re the upstart rebels disrupting an industry and approach work more responsibly, though. “It was cool to be underdog,” says Michał Platkow-Gilewski, VP of PR and communication. “Yeah, it’s sexier.”
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1748164829_CD-Projekt-Red-reflects-on-its-hubris-following-The-Witcher.jpg10801920Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-25 06:14:262025-05-25 06:14:26CD Projekt Red reflects on its hubris following The Witcher 3’s success, and how that led to Cyberpunk 2077’s problems: ‘I think that was the beginning of a bit of magical thinking for the company’
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