CD Projekt Red Almost Toned Down The Witcher 3—Then Game of Thrones Proved Audiences Crave Dark Fantasy
Game of Thrones’ success flipped the switch — a turning point that revealed massive potential and the cue to think far bigger.
Here is a fun bit of TV-meets-games cross-pollination: CD Projekt Red almost second-guessed going full grimdark with The Witcher 3, and then Game of Thrones steamrolled pop culture and convinced them people were ready for it.
The worry before the win
CD Projekt Red joint CEO Adam Badowski says he was not entirely sure players would embrace The Witcher 3 at the time. Speaking to PC Gamer, he describes the team as smaller back then, building one game at a time, pouring a lot of money and sweat into a project that did not look like what was selling in RPGs. Skyrim, Dragon's Dogma, and World of Warcraft were the mainstream flavor: bright, big high fantasy. Geralt and friends? Not so sunny.
"I had a lot of worries about the game as a business."
Badowski also felt like they were putting a very different kind of role-playing game in front of people. Dark fantasy was still a tougher pitch compared to the crowd-pleasers of the era. The fear was simple: would audiences get it?
Then Thrones happened
Game of Thrones quickly became one of the biggest TV series ever, and suddenly the wider audience was fluent in brutal, morally murky fantasy. That boom flipped the mood inside CDPR. Badowski says once Thrones took over, it was clear the market understood and wanted this kind of world, and that was the moment he realized the concept had real upside.
How it shook out
- The Witcher 3 turned 10 this year, and it did more than just sell: it took a niche game series and turned it into a phenomenon, complete with a massive TV adaptation and a next mainline entry, The Witcher 4, now sitting among the most-wanted games of the generation.
It did not just meet expectations either. According to Badowski, the game blew past the studio's already super ambitious sales targets.
One last thing for modders
If you have been waiting for the so-called 'one more patch' to enable your dream mod setup on consoles, you will be waiting a while longer. That update has been delayed to 2026.