From Long Shot to Legend: The Witcher Turns 18 as CDPR Co-CEO Teases More Adventures Ahead

Feeling old yet? The first Witcher game just hit 18. Geralt, our favorite grumpy monster slayer, officially arrived in October 2007. One minute you are clicking through swamp drowners on PC, the next it is almost two decades later and you are wondering where the time went.

Back then, this was CD Projekt Red's first-ever release. And while Andrzej Sapkowski's novels already had a life in Poland (plus earlier comics and a TV show made primarily for Polish audiences), the 2007 game is what really pushed the world of The Continent into wider English-speaking pop culture. It was a big swing for a studio nobody knew yet, and it did not exactly launch like a juggernaut.

'More adventures ahead!'

That is CDPR co-CEO Michal Nowakowski, marking the milestone on Twitter on October 26, 2025. He also looked back on the uphill battle to get the first game noticed at all and how much has changed for both the franchise and the studio since then. Fair.

It did not start as a phenomenon

The original Witcher had some cool swing-for-the-fences ideas, including an option to play in either an isometric view or a third-person camera, complete with different control schemes. But timing is everything. It launched the same year Mass Effect debuted, just one year after The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and it was PC-only. That is a lot of oxygen in the room already taken.

CDPR kept at it. The second game built momentum. The third one blew the doors off and made Geralt mainstream. Fast forward to now and the IP is everywhere, including a Netflix series that became one of the biggest TV shows of the last two decades. Henry Cavill led the charge before handing the sword to Liam Hemsworth.

Where it is headed

There is a full remake of the 2007 game in the works at Fool's Theory with CDPR supervising, and development on The Witcher 4 is ongoing. In a neat behind-the-scenes wrinkle, series creator Andrzej Sapkowski recently said the new game's biggest mystery came from a happy accident — an idea he originally dismissed as not worth developing and not right for the story, which somehow found new life.

• 2007: The Witcher arrives on PC, CDPR's first release, and starts pushing the saga beyond Poland.
• Early days: Cool design swings (isometric/third-person options) but overshadowed by Mass Effect and The Elder Scrolls, plus that PC-only barrier.
• Then: The Witcher 2 builds the base; The Witcher 3 turns it into a phenomenon.
• Now: Netflix series went huge — Henry Cavill out, Liam Hemsworth in.
• Next: Original game remake by Fool's Theory under CDPR's eye; The Witcher 4 in active development.

Eighteen years later, the White Wolf is still working — and apparently, so is everyone making games and TV about him.