Geralt, the hero of The Witcher series of games, nearly had a considerably different face. He actually did, briefly, but the game's community disliked it so much CD Projekt Red panicked and changed it back. The problem? Anatomical correctness. The community didn't think Geralt was alien-looking or ugly enough. The year was 2010 and CD Projekt Red was ready to debut its brand new Witcher game, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, to the world. A couple of leaked videos preceded the formal announcement but when a clutch of screenshots was eventually released, it debuted a different looking Geralt to the one people were used to from The Witcher 1. Whereas Geralt had previously had the proportions of a triangle, roughly, which angled to a point on his nose and didn't seem to involve a chin of any kind, he now had much easier-on-the-eye proportions and looked like an actual person. He was even, dare I say it, handsome. It simply wouldn't do. Some of this was to be expected. The transition from Witcher 1 to Witcher 2 included a transition for the game's engine, moving from BioWare's Aurora engine, which once powered Neverwinter Nights, to CD Projekt Red's internally made engine Redengine. A facial design that worked well in one engine wouldn't necessarily work in both. Geralt fights a baddie in The Witcher 1. | Image credit: CD Projekt Red "The problem was that The Witcher 1 was heavily stylised," CD Projekt Red art director Pawel Mielniczuk explained to me. "From an art point of view, it was a much simpler visual fidelity than was in The Witcher 2 and Witcher 3. It was based on this Aurora engine from Neverwinter Nights - low poly, you know - so the character looks great there but the face of Geralt in The Witcher 1 wasn't very anatomically correct. It was making a good impression. "When we got to The Witcher 2, we had a better engine - larger budgets for polygons, more artists to sculpt nice faces, and we actually got better at making characters, already being a studio that released one game. And Geralt's [existing] face just did not match the style of the rest of the characters," he said. "It was not realistic human proportions." The solution was clear: redesign Geralt's face. "Let's make Geralt from scratch - nobody will notice that," Mielniczuk said, and laughed at the memory. "So we made it at the very beginning of The Witcher 2 production and we released it with this first bunch of screenshots to see what the response was, and the response was horrible! Our community just smashed us on the forums - there were almost riots there." Geralt's redesigned face, unveiled in the debut screenshots released for The Witcher 2. | Image credit: CD Projekt Red Sadly I can't find those riots on those company forums now; 15 years of chatter has buried it. But Mielniczuk told me the comments there were to the effect of: "True Geralt: he's supposed to be ugly and inhuman!" CD Projekt Red backtracked as a result of the backlash, and it would take a further two years of tinkering, and testing and re-evaluating, to get Geralt's look right for the game. "And was a hybrid of The Witcher 1 Geralt and a real human," Mielniczuk said. By the time The Witcher 3 development came around, in around 2011-2012, the opportunity once again presented itself to tinker with Geralt's face, but this time the studio resisted. "With The Witcher 3, we actually used exactly the same model from Witcher 2, added more polygons, updated textures, but we did not touch it," Mielniczuk said. Geralt as pictured at the beginning of The Witcher 2. | Image credit: Eurogamer / CD Projekt Red That's not to say Mielniczuk didn't want to alter Geralt's face for the third game. He was the lead character artist on The Witcher 3. He hand-sculpted both Ciri and Yennefer's face, and he could see glaring issues with Geralt's. "If you look at the profile of Geralt: he has this incredible profile but the tip of his nose is a completely straight line from his forehead, kind of Greek proportions, and it was not fitting his face, so we wanted to fix that. But we did not," he said. "We made a decision, 'Okay, that's Geralt, he's recognisable, people are loving our character. We pass. We cannot make this mistake once again.'" Which brings us around to The Witcher 4, which is now in full production and we know will include Geralt to some degree. The new game will also move the series to a new engine, Unreal Engine 5, so once again there's an opportunity for a Geralt-face redesign. Will CD Projekt Red take it? Even the box art changed quite considerably over the course of the game's development. | Image credit: CD Projekt Red "It's such a grounded character right now I would really not dare to touch it," Mielniczuk said. "And in general, it's a very successful character because his face is recognisable, probably also because of these features of inhuman proportions in the upper part of the body. So no, I wouldn't update anything, just textures, normal maps, adding more details on the face, make it realistic through the surfaces, but not through the anatomy and proportions." But there is one thing that might tempt Mielniczuk to update Geralt's face, or rather one person, and that's Henry Cavill, the former star of The Witcher Netflix TV show. Mielniczuk is a big fan of his. "Henry was just perfect," he said. Then he added, laughing: "If I would do something to the face, I would be easily convinced to scan Henry and put him in The Witcher 4!" I spoke to Pawel Mielniczuk as part of a series of interviews looking back on The Witcher 3, a decade on, through the eyes of the people who made it. You can find that full piece on Eurogamer now.

What worked in The Witcher 3 and what didn't: looking back on a landmark RPG with CD Projekt Red "We learned a lot of lessons down the road." Image credit: CD Projekt Red Feature by Robert Purchese Associate Editor Published on May 31, 2025 Do you remember what you were doing when The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released? It came out on 19th May 2015. I remember because I was inside CD Projekt Red at the time, trying to capture the moment for you - a moment I'm unlikely to replicate there or anywhere else. I recall sitting in the studio's canteen in the small hours of the morning, after a midnight launch event in a mall in Warsaw, chewing on a piece of cold pizza and wondering out loud what would come next for the studio, because at the time, who could know? One era was ending and another was about to begin. Would it bring the fame and fortune CD Projekt Red desired? Today, more than 60 million sales of The Witcher 3 later, we know the answer is yes. The Witcher 3 became a role-playing classic. It delivered one of the most touchable medieval worlds we've explored, a rough place of craggy rocks and craggier faces, of wonky morales and grim realities, of mud and dirtiness. And monsters, though not all were monstrous to look at. It was a world of grey, of superstition and folklore, and in it stood we, a legendary monster hunter, facing seemingly impossible odds. The Witcher 3 took fantasy seriously. But the decade since the game's release has been turbulent for CD Projekt Red. The studio launched its big new sci-fi series in 2020 with Cyberpunk 2077, and though the game has now sold more than 30 million copies, making it monetarily a success, it had a nightmarish launch. The PS4 version had to be removed from sale. It brought enormous pressure, growing pains and intense scrutiny to the studio, and CD Projekt Red would spend a further three years patching and updating - and eventually releasing an expansion - before public opinion would mostly turn around. Today the studio returns to safer ground, back to The Witcher world with the new game The Witcher 4, and as we look forward to it we should also look back, to the game that catapulted the studio to fame, and see what has been learnt. The Witcher 3 is at version 4.04 today, a number that represents an enormously long period of post-release support.Watch on YouTube It all began with naivety, as perhaps any ambitious project should. It's easy to forget that 14 years ago, when The Witcher 3 was being conceived, CD Projekt Red had never made an open-world game before. The Witcher 1 and The Witcher 2 were linear in their approaches. It's also easy to forget that the people making the game were 14 years younger and less experienced. Back then, this was the studio's chance at recognition, so it aimed high in order to be seen. "The Witcher 3 was supposed to be this game that will end all other games," Marcin Blacha, the lead writer of the game, tells me. Simply make an open-world game that's also a story-driven game and release it on all platforms at the same time. How hard could it be? "When I'm thinking about our state of mind back in those days, the only word that comes to my mind is enthusiastic," Blacha says. "It was fantastic because we were so enthusiastic that we were full of courage. We were trying to experiment with stuff and we were not afraid. We were convinced that when we work with passion and love, it will pay off eventually." Every project has to begin somewhere and for Blacha, the person tasked with imagining the story, The Witcher 3 could only begin with Ciri, the daughter-of-sorts to The Witcher's central monster hunter character Geralt. As Blacha says, "The most important thing about Geralt and the most important thing about the books is the relationship between Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer. I already did two games with no sign of Ciri, no sign of Yennefer, and then we finally had a budget and proper time for pre-production, so for me, it was time to introduce both characters." It's a decision that would have major repercussions for the rest of The Witcher series at CD Projekt Red. Blacha didn't know it then, but Ciri would go on to become the protagonist of The Witcher 4. Had she not been the co-protagonist of The Witcher 3 - for you play as her in several sections during the game - who knows if things would have worked out the same way. It's an understandable progression as it is, though there is still some uncertainty among the audience about Ciri's starring role. But Ciri's inclusion came with complications, because the Ciri we see in the game is not the Ciri described in the books. That Ciri is much closer to the Ciri in the Netflix Witcher TV show, younger and more rebellious in a typical teenager way. She might be an important part of the fiction, then, but that doesn't mean she was especially well liked. "People were thinking that she's annoying," says Blacha, who grew up reading The Witcher books. CD Projekt Red, then, decided to make a Ciri of its own, aging her and making her more "flesh and bone", as Blacha puts it. He fondly recalls a moment in the game's development when reviewing the Ciri sections of the game, and saying aloud to studio director Adam Badowski how much he liked her. "I didn't know that she's going to be the protagonist of the next game," he says, "but I said to Adam Badowski, she's going to be very popular." Once Ciri had been earmarked for inclusion in The Witcher 3, the idea to have her pursued by the phantom-like force of the Wild Hunt - the members of which literally ride horses in the night sky, like Santa Claus' cursed reindeer - came shortly after. CD Projekt Red had introduced the Wild Hunt in The Witcher 2 so it made sense. The outline of the main story was then laid down as a one-page narrative treatment. Then it was expanded to a two-page treatment, a four page treatment, an eight page treatment and so on. At around 10 pages, it already had the White Orchard prologue, almost the entirety of the No Man's Land zone, and a hint of what would happen on Skellige and in Novigrad. When it was around 40 pages long, the quest design team was invited in. CD Projekt Red made their Ciri older than she is in the books. | Image credit: CD Projekt Red The quest design team's job is to turn a story into a game, and this was a newly created department for The Witcher 3, created because the old way of writers designing the quests wasn't working any more. "We were struggling a bit with making sure that every written story that we have prepared is also a story that we can play well," Paweł Sasko says. He joined CD Projekt Red to be a part of that quest design team. The quest design team carves up a narrative treatment, paragraph by paragraph, and expands those into playable questlines for the game. "It's basically something between game design and a movie scenario," Sasko says. There's no dialogue, just a description of what will happen, and even a one-paragraph prompt can balloon into a 20-30 page design. Among the paragraphs Sasko was given to adapt was a storyline in No Man's Land concerning a character known as the Bloody Baron. The Bloody Baron storyline is widely acclaimed and has become synonymous with everything Sasko and CD Projekt Red were trying to do with the game. It's a storyline that probes into mature themes like domestic abuse, fatherhood, and love and loss and grief. More importantly, it presents us with a flawed character and allows us time and space to perhaps change our opinion of them. It gives us layers many other games don't go anywhere near. When Sasko first encountered the storyline, there was only an outline. "It said that Geralt meets the Bloody Baron who asks Geralt to hunt a monster and look for his wife and daughter, and for that, he is going to share information about Ciri and tell Geralt where she went. That was pretty much it." And Sasko already knew a few things about what he wanted to do. He knew he wanted to show No Man's Land as a Slavic region bathed in superstitions and complex religious beliefs, one that had been ravaged by famine and war. He also knew the tone of the area was horror because this had been outlined by Blacha and the leaders of The Witcher 3 team. Says Blacha: "My opinion is that a successful Witcher game is a mix of everything, so you have a horror line, you have a romance, you have adventure, you have exploration. When we started to think about our hubs, we thought about them in terms of a show, so No Man's Land, the hub with the Bloody Baron, was horror; Skellige was supposed to be an adventure; and Novigrad was supposed to be a big city investigation." But there were key missing pieces then from the Bloody Baron sequence we know today. The botchling, for instance - the monstrous baby the quest revolves around. It didn't exist. It was an idea that came from Sasko after he read a Slavic bestiary. "Yes," he says, "the botchling idea came from me." The Bloody Baron. | Image credit: Eurogamer / CD Projekt Red He wanted the botchling to be the conduit through which more mature themes of the story could be approached - something overt to keep you busy while deeper themes sunk in. It's an approach Sasko says he pinched from Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski, after deconstructing his work. "What he's doing is he's trying to find universal truths about human beings and struggles, but he doesn't tell those stories directly," Sasko says. "So for instance racism: he doesn't talk about that directly but he finds an interesting way how, in his world, he can package that and talk about it. I followed his method and mimicked it." This way the botchling becomes your focus in the quest, as the Baron carries it back to the manor house and you defend him from wraiths, but while you're doing that, you're also talking and learning more about who the Bloody Baron - who Phillip Strenger - is. "I wanted you to feel almost like you're in the shoes of that Bloody Baron," Sasko says. "Peregrination is this path in Christianity you go through when you want to remove your sins, and that's what this is meant to be. He's just trying to do it, and he's going through all of those things to do something good. And I wanted the player to start feeling like, 'Wow, maybe this dude is not so bad.'" It's a quest that leaves a big impression. An email was forwarded to Sasko after the game's release, written by a player who had lost their wife and child as the Baron once had. "And for him," he says, "that moment when Baron was carrying the child was almost like a catharsis, when he was trying so badly to walk that path. And the moment he managed to: he wrote in his letter that he broke down in tears." There's one other very significant moment in The Witcher 3 that Sasko had a large hand in, and it's the Battle of Kaer Morhern, where the 'goodies' - the witchers and the sorceresses, and Ciri - make a stand against the titular menace of the Wild Hunt. Sasko designed this section specifically to emotionally tenderise you, through a series of fast-paced and fraught battles, so that by the time the climactic moment came, you were aptly primed to receive it. The moment being Vesemir's death - the leader of the wolf school of witchers and father figure to Geralt. This, too, was Sasko's idea. "We needed to transition Ciri from being a hunted animal to becoming a hunter," he tells me, and the only event big enough and with enough inherent propulsion was Vesemir's death. Eredin, the leader of the Wild Hunt, breaks Vesemir's neck. | Image credit: Eurogamer / CD Projekt Red But for all of the successful moments in the game there are those that didn't work. To the team that made the game, and to the players, there are things that clearly stand out. Such as Geralt's witcher senses, which allow him to see scent trails and footsteps and clues in the world around him. Geralt's detective mode, in other words. Sasko laughs as he cringes about it now. "We've overdone the witcher senses so much, oh my god," he says. "At the time when we were starting this, we were like, 'We don't have it in the game; we have to use it to make you feel like a witcher.' But then at the end, especially in the expansions, we tried to decrease it so it doesn't feel so overloaded." He'd even turn it down by a further 10 to 20 per cent, he says. There were all of the question marks dotted across the map, luring us to places to find meagre hidden treasure rewards. "I think we all scratch our heads about what we were thinking when trying to build this," Sasko tells me. "I guess it just came from fear - from fear that the player will feel that the world is empty." This was the first time CD Projekt Red had really the player's hand go, remember, and not controlled where in the world you would be. Shallow gameplay is a criticism many people have, especially in the game's repetitive combat, and again, this is something Sasko and the team are well aware of. "We don't feel that the gameplay in Witcher 3 was deep enough," he says. "It was for the times okay, but nowadays when you play it, even though the story still holds really well, you can see that the gameplay is a bit rusty." Also, the cutscenes could have been paced better and had less exposition in them, and the game in general could have dumped fewer concepts on you at once. Cognitive overload, Sasko calls it. "In every second sentence you have a new concept introduced, a new country mentioned, a new politician..." It was too much. More broadly, he would also have liked the open-world to be more closely connected to the game's story, rather than be, mostly, a pretty backdrop. "It's like in the theatre when you have beautiful decorations at the back made of cardboard and paper, and not much happens to them except an actor pulls a rope and it starts to rain or something." he says. It's to do with how the main story influences the world and vice versa, and he thinks the studio can be better at it. Ciri and Geralt look at a coin purse in The Witcher 3. This is, coincidentally, the same tavern you begin the game in, with Vesemir, and the same tavern you meet Master Mirror in. | Image credit: Eurogamer / CD Projekt Red One conversation that surprises me, when looking back on The Witcher 3, is a conversation about popularity, because it's easy to forget now - with the intense scrutiny the studio seems always to be under - that when development began, not many people knew about CD Projekt Red. The combined sales of both Witcher games in 2013 were only 5 million. Poland knew about it - the Witcher fiction originated there and CD Projekt Red is Polish - and Germany knew about it, and some of the rest of Europe knew about it. But in North America, it was relatively unknown. That's a large part of the reason why the Xbox 360 version of The Witcher 2 was made at all, to begin knocking on that door. And The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red hoped, would kick that door open. "We knew that we wanted to play in the major league," says Michał Platkow-Gilewski, vice president of communications and PR, stealing a quote from Cyberpunk character Jackie. That's why The Witcher 3 was revealed via a Game Informer cover story in early 2013, because that was deemed the way to do things there - the way to win US hearts, Platkow-Gilewski tells me. And it didn't take long for interest to swell. When Platkow-Gilewski joined CD Projekt Red to help launch the Xbox 360 version of The Witcher 2 in 2012, he was handing out flyers at Gamescom with company co-founder Michał Kicinski, just to fill presentations for the game. By the time The Witcher 3 was being shown at Gamescom, a few years later, queues were three to four hours long. People would wait all day to play. "We had to learn how to deal with popularity during the campaign," Platkow-Gilewski says. Those game shows were crucial for spreading the word about The Witcher 3 and seeing first-hand the impact the game was having on players and press. "Nothing can beat a good show where you meet with people who are there to see their favourite games just slightly before the rest of the world," he says. "They're investing their time, money, effort, and you feel this support, sometimes love, to the IP you're working on, and it boosts energy the way which you can't compare with anything else. These human to human interactions are unique." He says the studio's leader Adam Badowski would refer to these showings as fuel that would propel development for the next year or so, which is why CD Projekt Red always tried to gather as many developers as possible for them, to feel the energy. It was precisely these in-person events that Platkow-Gilewski says CD Projekt Red lacked in the lead up to Cyberpunk's launch, after Covid shut the world down. The company did what it could by pivoting to online events instead - the world-first playtest of Cyberpunk was done online via stream-play software called Parsec; I was a part of it - and talked to fans through trailers, but it was much harder to gauge feedback this way. "It's easy to just go with the flow and way harder to manage expectations," Platkow-Gilewski says, so expectations spiralled. "For me the biggest lesson learned is to always check reality versus expectations, and with Cyberpunk, it was really hard to control and we didn't know how to do it." It makes me wonder what the studio will do now with The Witcher 4, because the game show sector of the industry still hasn't bounced back, and I doubt - having seen the effect Covid has had on shows from the inside of an events company - whether it ever will. "Gamescom is growing," Platkow-Gilewski says somewhat optimistically. "Gamescom is back on track." But I don't know if it really is. Michał Platkow-Gilewski cites this moment as one of his favourite from the Witcher 3 journey. The crew were at the game show PAX in front of a huge live audience and the dialogue audio wouldn't play. Thankfully, they had Doug Cockle, the English language voice actor of Geralt, with them on the panel, so he live improvised the lines. Watch on YouTube Something else I'm surprised to hear from him is mention of The Witcher 3's rocky launch, because 10 years later - and in comparison to Cyberpunk's - that's not how I remember it. But Platkow-Gilewski remembers it differently. "When we released Witcher 3, the reception was not great," he says. "Reviews were amazing but there was, at least in my memories, no common consensus that this is a huge game which will maybe define some, to some extent, the genre." I do remember the strain on some faces around the studio at launch, though. I also remember a tense conversation about the perceived graphics downgrade in the game, where people unfavourably compared footage of Witcher 3 at launch, with footage from a marketing gameplay trailer released years before it. There were also a number of bugs in the game's code and its performance was unoptimised. "We knew things were far from being perfect," Platkow-Gilewski says. But the studio worked hard in the years after launch to patch and update the game - The Witcher 3 is now on version 4.04, which is extraordinary for a single-player game - and they released showcase expansions for it. Some of Marcin Blacha's favourite work is in those expansions, he tells me, especially the horror storylines of Hearts of Stone, many of which he wrote. That expansion's villain, Master Mirror, is also widely regarded as one of the best in the game, disguised as he is as a plain-looking and unassuming person who happens to have incredible and undefinable power. It's not until deep into the expansion you begin to uncover his devilish identity, and it's this subtle way of presenting a villain, and never over explaining his threat, that makes Master Mirror so memorable. He's gathered such a following that some people have concocted elaborate theories about him. Lead character artist Pawel Mielniczuk tells me about one theory whereby someone discovered you can see Master Mirror's face on many other background characters in the game, which you can, and that they believed it was a deliberate tactic used by CD Projekt Red to underline Master Mirror's devilish power. Remember, there was a neat trick with Master Mirror in that you had already met him at the beginning of The Witcher 3 base game, long before the expansion was ever developed, in a tavern in White Orchard. If CD Projekt Red could foreshadow him as far back as that, the theory went, then it could easily put his face on other characters in the game to achieve a similar 'did you see it?' effect. The real villain in the Hearts of Stone expansion, Gaunter O'Dimm. Better known to many as Master Mirror. There's a reason why he has such a plain-looking face... | Image credit: CD Projekt Red The truth is far more mundane. Other characters in the game do have Master Mirror's face, but only because his face is duplicated across the game in order to fill it out. CD Projekt Red didn't know when it made the original Witcher 3 game that this villager would turn into anyone special. There was a tentative plan but it was very tentative, so this villager got a very villager face. "We just got a request for a tertiary unimportant character," says Mileniczuk. "We had like 30-40 faces for the entire game so we just slapped a random face on him." He laughs. And by the time Hearts of Stone development came around, the face - the identity - had stuck. Expansions were an important part of cementing public opinion around The Witcher 3, then, as they were for cementing public opinion around Cyberpunk. They've become something of a golden bullet for the studio, a way to creatively unleash an already trained team and leave a much more positive memory in our heads. Exactly what went wrong with Cyberpunk and how CD Projekt Red set about correcting it is a whole other story Chris Tapsell told recently on the site, so I don't want to delve into specifics here. Suffice to say it was a hard time for the studio and many hard lessons had to be learned. "The pressure was huge," Platkow-Gilewski says, "because from underdogs we went to a company which will, for sure, deliver the best experience in the world." But while much of the rhetoric around Cyberpunk concerns the launch, there's a lot about the game itself that highlights how much progress the studio made, in terms of making open-world role-playing games. One of my favourite examples is how characters in Cyberpunk walk and talk rather than speak to you while rooted to the spot. It might seem like a small thing but it has a transformative and freeing effect on conversations, allowing the game to walk you places while you talk, and stage dialogue in a variety of cool ways. There's a lot to admire about the density of detail in the world, too, and in the greater variety of body shapes and diversity. Plus let's not forget, this is an actual open world rather than a segmented one as The Witcher 3 was. In many ways, the game was a huge step forward for the studio. Cyberpunk wasn't the only very notable thing to happen to the Witcher studio in those 10 years, either. During that time, The Witcher brand changed. Netflix piggybacked the game's popularity and developed a TV series starring Henry Cavill, and with it propelled The Witcher to the wider world. Curiously, CD Projekt Red wasn't invited to help, which was odd given executive producer Tomek Baginski was well known to CD Projekt Red, having directed the intro cinematics for all three Witcher video games. But beyond minor pieces of crossover content, no meaningful collaboration ever occurred. "We had no part in the shows," Pawel Mileniczuk says. "But it's Hollywood: different words. I know how hard it was for Tomek to get in there, to convince them to do the show, and then how limited influence is when the production house sits on something. It's many people, many decision makers, high stakes, big money. Nobody there was thinking about, Hey, let's talk to those dudes from Poland making games. It's a missed opportunity to me but what can I say?" The debut trailer for The Witcher 4.Watch on YouTube Nevertheless, the Netflix show had a surprisingly positive effect on the studio, with sales of The Witcher 3 spiking in 2019 and 2020 when the first season aired. "It was a really amazing year for us sales wise," Platkow-Gilewski says. This not only means more revenue for the studio but also wider understanding; more people are more familiar with The Witcher world now than ever before, which bodes very well for The Witcher 4. Not that it influenced or affected the studio's plans to return to that world, by the way. "We knew already that we wanted to come back to The Witcher," Platkow-Gilewski says. "Some knew that they wanted to tell a Ciri story while we were still working on Witcher 3." But, again, with popularity also comes pressure. "We'll have hopefully millions of people already hooked in from the get-go but with some expectations and visions and dreams which we have to, or may not be able to, fulfil," Platkow-Gilewski adds. You can already sense this pressure in comments threads about the new game. Many people already have their ideas about what a new Witcher game should be. The Witcher 4 might seem like a return to safer ground, then, but the relationship with the audience has changed in the intervening 10 years. "I think people are again with us," Platkow-Gilewski says. "There are some who are way more careful than they used to be; I don't see the hype train. We also learned how to talk about our game, what to show, when to show. But I think people believe again. Not everyone, and maybe it's slightly harder to talk with the whole internet. It's impossible now. It's way more polarised than it used to be. But I believe that we'll have something special for those who love The Witcher." Here we are a decade later, then, looking forward to another Witcher game by CD Projekt Red. But many things have changed. The studio has grown and shuffled people around and the roles of the people I speak to have changed. Marcin Blacha and Pawel Mielniczuk aren't working on The Witcher 4, but on new IP Project Hadar, in addition to their managerial responsibilities, and Pawel Sasko is full-time on Cyberpunk 2. It's only really Michał Platkow-Gilewski who'll do a similar job for The Witcher 4 as on The Witcher 3, although this time with dozens more people to help. But they will all still consult and they're confident in the abilities of The Witcher 4 team. "They really know what they're doing," says Sasko, "they are a very seasoned team." "We learned a lot of lessons down the road," Platkow-Gilewski says, in closing. "I started this interview saying that we had this bliss of ignorance; now we know more, but hopefully we can still be brave. Before, we were launching a rocket and figuring out how to land on the moon. Now, we know the dangers but we are way more experienced, so we'll find a way to navigate through these uncharted territories. We have a map already so hopefully it won't be such a hard trip."

Cyberpunk 2077's sequel is now in pre-production, and it's got a new name that's unlikely to surprise anyone – here's all we know, including the latest sales figures for Witcher 3Tech12:03, 29 May 2025More Cyberpunk is comingCyberpunk 2077's redemption arc from buggy mess to incredible RPG is well documented, but with CD Projekt working on a sequel, it appears things are progressing nicely.With suggestions that a sequel could introduce a second city to explore, and the original coming to Switch 2, we're getting pretty jazzed about being reunited with the series.‌The next game in the franchise had been dubbed Project Orion as a codename, but it's now got a fresh new title that's not entirely surprising to anyone–Cyberpunk 2.‌The name has been updated as the studio has confirmed the project has left the conceptual phase and moved into pre-production.Phantom Liberty is a fantastic expansionIt's still years away, with the news being revealed as part of the CD Projekt's investor update.‌"Several weeks ago the CD PROJEKT RED team responsible for the next big game set in the Cyberpunk universe completed the project’s conceptual phase," the company explains."As a result, Cyberpunk 2 – previously known under the codename Project Orion – has progressed to preproduction."‌There's more good news for the series, too, as the developer confirmed the Phantom Liberty expansion for Cyberpunk 2077 has sold more than 10 million copies."This result fills us with great satisfaction," Michael Nowakowski, Joint CEO explained, "especially given that a new addition is about to join our Cyberpunk portfolio – on 5 June the game’s Ultimate Edition will be coming to the new Nintendo Switch 2 console."Positive reactions from gamers and media representatives who have had the opportunity to play the game at a series of global Nintendo events fill us with optimism. It’s worth noting that for the first time ever one of our games will become a launch title for a brand new platform."‌The Witcher 3 has sold more than 60 million copies(Image: Steam)The studio also looked back at The Witcher 3, which celebrated its ten-year anniversary earlier this month."Without a doubt, the third part of Geralt’s adventures marks a pivotal point in our history," Adam Badowski, Joint CEO revealed.‌"The game earned hundreds of awards and solidified our studio’s standing, but more importantly, it brought untold hours of adventures and emotions to millions of gamers the world over."I am proud to announce that since its release The Witcher 3 has sold over 60 million copies, securing a place among the bestselling video games in all history, and motivating us to carry on with intensive work on the next trilogy set in this universe."The studio debuted a trailer for The Witcher 4 at The Game Awards in December of last year, starring Ciri as a new protagonist.Article continues belowFor the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.‌‌‌

CD Projekt has teamed up with Microsoft to create some fancy new Witcher 3-themed Xbox controllers to celebrate the game's 10th anniversary - which I really can't quite believe because I personally haven't aged a day. The controllers - officially known as the 'Xbox Wireless Controller - The Witcher 3 10th Anniversary Special Edition' and the 'Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 - Core The Witcher 3 10th Anniversary Special Edition' - are described as being "tempered and battle-ready", and promise "intricately crafted details". They feature The Witcher 3's wolf medallion iconography, as well as Glagolitic script. I personally don't know what the script says, but apparently it can be translated and those symbols "are not random". If you work out what it means, please let me know. Away from the cosmetic sides of things, these chaps also boast all the features you'd expect from an Xbox controller. So, rubberised back grips, remappable controller inputs, Bluetooth support and so on. You can check how they look in the video above. They've been created by CD Projekt's own designers, with Gabriela Pešková from CD Projekt and Mekias Bekalu from Xbox calling this "such a special moment for both" teams. "We explored a lot of directions when creating this controller, but from the beginning we knew we wanted to tell a story," added CD Projekt design lead Joshua Flowers. "We wanted it to feel like something that has been with you on the path, something worn and personal. As we developed concepts, we began crafting the story of this controller - and how it might exist in The Witcher 3's world. This narrative is what we fell in love with. It had to feel like it belonged in The Witcher 3 universe - like it had lived through battles and carried stories of its own." The Xbox Wireless Controller variant is available now for £74.99 while the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller costs £149.99. Both are exclusive to the Microsoft Store. As for the future of the series, The Witcher 4 won't be out until after 2026, but we got a first trailer at the end of last year. Earlier this week, Geralt voice actor Doug Cockle called out so-called fans as "stupid" for describing The Witcher 4 as "woke" for having Ciri as the protagonist. Read more

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt celebrated ten years of monster slaying on May 19, and publisher CD Projekt honored the milestone with an anniversary stream starring Geralt voice actor Doug Cockle, a stunning new trailer, and The Witcher 3 price drops across platforms for those who aren’t one of the 50 million who’ve already purchased it. Yet, while you may want to celebrate by booting up The Witcher 3 for one more hunt, consider instead diving into the books that provided the foundation for CD Projekt Red to build the games upon.I bought The Witcher 3 five years ago, but to avoid another Game of Thrones situation (where silly me watched the show before reading the books), I committed to reading the entire book series before installing the game. And I’m so glad I did! Andrzej Sapkowski’s two short story collections and six novels all tell an amazing story, as well as provide so much context and depth for the events of The Witcher 3.If you start The Witcher 3 without the knowledge of the books, you’ll be unknowingly hindering the emotional impact of so many characters and quests in The Witcher 3. Take Geralt and Yen, for example. Their fates are literally tied together due to the events of the short story “The Last Wish,” and Geralt’s wish ensures they never stray from the other’s orbit for long. Yet The Witcher 3’s quest of the same name explores the wish’s impact from Yen’s point of view; it’s left her with an uneasy feeling regarding what the two truly mean to one another, leading to one of the best quests in the entire game — one that I don’t think can emotionally resonate with the same impact if you hadn’t read about these two from their from first meeting onward. They’ve both loved and hurt each other over the years, but are meant to be together, djinn or no djinn.Reading the short story collections and novels will also introduce you to some of the best supporting characters found in Witcher canon. The later books mostly concern Geralt’s pursuit of a missing and fleeing Ciri, and along the way he’s joined by his Hansa, a Fellowship of The Ring-like group of excellent supporting characters. While you certainly know Dandelion from the games, the Hansa also includes the heroic Nilfgaardian soldier Cahir and my personal favorite Milva, human ally to the majority-elven guerilla fighters Scoia’tael. Each member of Geralt’s Hansa has a captivating arc, and the books are perhaps worth reading for them alone.With The Witcher 4 too many years away, now is the perfect time to dive into Sapkowski’s eight-book series (with a ninth on the way!). Not only will the books enrich your experience playing The Witcher 3, but they’ll also provide context on why this saga was Ciri’s story all along. Yes, the books are told mostly from Geralt’s perspective and you embody him in the games, but his role in the novels is in part to advance Ciri’s plot, to save her from falling in the machinations of evil men like Emhyr and Vilgefortz who want to use her and her Elder Blood gene to advance their own schemes.Having Ciri star as a Witcher in CDPR’s next game and follow in her father figure’s footsteps is a natural continuation of her story. Yes, this may essentially canonize one of the multiple endings of The Witcher 3, but the other two — her dying, or her becoming empress of Nilfgaard — either cut her journey short or don’t quite fit the character.There’s a vocal minority on the internet that tends to cry out when *gasp* a woman stars as the playable character in a game, and that group has let their thoughts be known about Ciri. To them, I say listen to Geralt himself (well, his voice actor) and “read the damn books” — anyone who does will soon realize this saga has always been about Ciri.See More:

Crossing Eden Member Oct 26, 2017 58,491 Doug Cockle had some words to say to people who think Ciri being the protag of the Witcher is some "woke" sin or affront to the material of the Witcher. The Witcher 4 was officially announced at the 2024 Game Awards, and it kicked the hornet's nest by daring to have Ciri star as its protagonist. Geralt's voice actor, Doug Cockle, strongly defends the choice. "It's a cool character from the Witcher, and they're gonna focus on that character," he says during a Fall Damage video, responding to a post regarding people calling Ciri's newfound spotlight "woke." "I think that's awesome. You can't just have Geralt for every single game for The Witcher ad nauseam through eternity." Click to expand... Click to shrink... To avoid any doubt on where he stands, he continues: "Celebrate Ciri, I celebrate her being the protagonist. So all you people who think it's 'woke' [blows raspberry]... If you read the books, then you understand why CD Projekt went down this avenue. Click to expand... Click to shrink... As the years have gone by, the books have become more about Ciri. Geralt may be a witcher, but he's getting old, so passing the torch was inevitable. It's either that, or no more Witcher. Click to expand... Click to shrink... More at the source. "You can't just have Geralt for every single game" says his voice actor, and if you think The Witcher 4 making Ciri the protagonist is "woke," then "read the damn books" The story was always going in this direction www.gamesradar.com Highkey tho, And yes that applies to the people who wrote entire essays about how women can't be witchers because A)that's fucking stupid B)CDPR already reinforced that retcon by including the School of The Cat in TW3  Last edited: 17 minutes ago closer Member Oct 25, 2017 5,592 Asking ppl who call it woke to read is sort of a large ask   Zukkoyaki Member Oct 25, 2017 14,290 Jokes on him because reading is woke   Catchphrase Member Nov 28, 2023 2,329 if those chuds could read they'd be very upset   MarcosBrXD Member Aug 28, 2024 1,701 9/11 for chuds   Kadzork Has got mad skills!! Member Oct 27, 2017 24,158   Jedi2016 Member Oct 27, 2017 20,058 Just got my lynx medallion a few days ago, it's hanging right next to my wolf medallion. I'll be there day one.   SomeOneInaHat Member Nov 9, 2017 1,135 Edit: Beaten by better version  Xterrian Member Apr 20, 2018 3,552 Any female protagonist is "woke" to these people. It's just that some were too engrained in pop culture/their franchises before the whole chud movement got started, so they're seen as "female protags done right." If Lord of the Rings was done today, there'd be endless rage over Eowyn being the one to kill the Witch King. Same with Leia's role in Star Wars.  OP OP Crossing Eden Member Oct 26, 2017 58,491 Xterrian said: Any female protagonist is "woke" to these people. It's just that some were too engrained in pop culture/their franchises before the whole chud movement got started, so they're seen as "female protags done right." If Lord of the Rings was done today, there'd be endless rage over Eowyn being the one to kill the Witch King. Same with Leia's role in Star Wars. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Hard ditto on Leia, this shit would break people's minds if only because so many characters who're inspired by Leia break their minds.   Lotus One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 124,050   bitcloudrzr Member May 31, 2018 20,757 MarcosBrXD said: 9/11 for chuds Click to expand... Click to shrink... That was KCD2.   ClickyCal' Member Oct 25, 2017 65,480 Xterrian said: Any female protagonist is "woke" to these people. It's just that some were too engrained in pop culture/their franchises before the whole chud movement got started, so they're seen as "female protags done right." If Lord of the Rings was done today, there'd be endless rage over Eowyn being the one to kill the Witch King. Same with Leia's role in Star Wars. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yeah. Like to them, Jill Valentine, Samus, Lara Croft and some others are grandfathered in, but would break them.   jmood88 Member Oct 28, 2017 1,726 It's not going to change much, but it's always nice to see someone explicitly push back against the disingenuous conservative bullshit.   Lotus One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 124,050 bitcloudrzr said: That was KCD2. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Or Stellar Blade  DoradoWinston Member Apr 9, 2019 8,387 idk how you play witcher 3 and not think Ciri (who everyone also LOVED btw) wasnt going to be the protag for 4 lol   Yerffej Prophet of Regret Member Oct 25, 2017 29,455 I just wish every answer about these creeps and their likes and dislikes was met with "who fucking cares about them or what they want?" Every time. And that's all. Because they do not matter.   Dark Fairy Princess Member Feb 5, 2025 338 Dracula’s Castle Hate these sexist losers that calls everything woke. I tried not to pay attention to them but it's frustrating to see how stupid and hateful some people could be. Hope Witcher 4 becomes even more successful than 3 just to piss them off more. Witcher 3 is one of the best games I've played. Most of the characters were well made. I like Geralt but always liked Ciri more and wanted more parts with her so I'm glad they went with her as the main character.  OP OP Crossing Eden Member Oct 26, 2017 58,491 ClickyCal' said: Yeah. Like to them, Jill Valentine, Samus, Lara Croft and some others are grandfathered in, but would break them. Click to expand... Click to shrink... They unironically argued that these are woke ugly versions of Jill and Lara, so yes they did get broken by them.   NHarmonic. ▲ Legend ▲ The Fallen Oct 27, 2017 10,778 Catchphrase said: if those chuds could read they'd be very upset Click to expand... Click to shrink... Instant reminder of that "reading is gay" tweet from mastermind turd Tate. 

Samsung is Helping Manufacture Nintendo Switch 2 Chips on 8nm Node – Rumour Nintendo is seemingly ramping up production of the Switch 2 by partnering with Samsung to fabricate more chips for the console. Posted By Joelle Daniels | On 21st, May. 2025 It should come as no surprise that the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 is one of the most hotly-anticipated events in gaming to happen this year. Nintendo has likely foreseen the incredible demand for the console, as a report now indicates that the company will be working with Samsung to manufacture more Switch 2 units. According to Bloomberg, Samsung will reportedly make chips for the Switch 2 using its 8-nanometer node. While neither company has confirmed this as of yet, according to the report, anonymous sources have indicated that with Samsung’s help in making more chips for the Switch 2, Nintendo will be able to stock 20 million units of the console by March 2026. The report also points out that, with this deal with Nintendo, Samsung will be able to better invest in its chip making divisions in order to compete with TSMC – the company that has been largely behind the fabrication of most major chips in the world – on a larger scale. Going by the report, chip manufacturing may not be where the partnership between Samsung and Nintendo ends. While the Korean company has also made memory modules for Nintendo, another source has said that Samsung is trying to convince Nintendo to go with OLED displays when it decides to release a refresh of the Switch 2 down the line. During a recent earnings report, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa stated that the forecast for Switch 2 unit sales was set at 15 million. During a Q&A session with investors, Furukawa also spoke about how the company might decide to raise the console’s price later on depending on how the situation with the US tariffs on imported goods plays out. The priority for now, however, will be to popularise the console. “At this time, the top priority is to quickly popularize the Switch 2 hardware,” said Furukawa. “If the assumptions regarding tariffs change significantly, we would like to consider what price adjustments we should make and implement them after considering various factors.” Furukawa also noted that the relatively conservative sales forecast for the Switch 2 happened because the company is aware that its higher price tag over its predecessor might end up being an obstacle to wider adoption during the console’s first year in the market. “Since the Switch 2 is priced higher than the original Switch, we recognize that there will be considerable hurdles in achieving the console’s widespread adoption in the early stages,” he said. When it comes to production runs causing stock shortages, however, Furukawa said that it was essentially a non-issue. “We’ve set projected sales for the Nintendo Switch 2 in the ongoing fiscal year at 15 million units,” he said. “This figure is based on a target comparable to sales of the original Nintendo Switch during the 10-month period from its launch in March 2017 to the end of December the same year.” The Nintendo Switch 2 will be coming out on June 5. Industry analysis firm DFC Intelligence has gone as far as to say that it might be the most important console launch ever. Tagged With: Elden Ring: Nightreign Publisher:Bandai Namco Developer:FromSoftware Platforms:PS5, Xbox Series X, PS4, Xbox One, PCView More Borderlands 4 Publisher:2K Developer:Gearbox Entertainment Platforms:PS5, Xbox Series X, PCView More Death Stranding 2: On the Beach Publisher:Sony Developer:Kojima Productions Platforms:PS5View More Amazing Articles You Might Want To Check Out! Samsung is Helping Manufacture Nintendo Switch 2 Chips on 8nm Node – Rumour Nintendo is seemingly ramping up production of the Switch 2 by partnering with Samsung to fabricate more chips... Metaphor: ReFantazio and The Division 2 are Coming to Game Pass in May Monster Train 2, Tales of Kenzera: Zau, to a T, Symphonia, and Spray Paint Simulator will also roll out in the... Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is Coming to PS5 This Summer Ninja Theory's action-adventure will support PS5 Pro and includes "exciting new features" that are also coming... RoadCraft is Out Now on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S RoadCraft, newest off-road driving game by Saber Interactive, is out now on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Simil... Read More The Witcher 4 – Geralt Voice Actor Says Fans Complaining About Ciri Should “Read the Damn Books” Voice actor Doug Cockle spoke about how the journey of Geralt was meant to end with The Witcher 3's Blood and ... Kojima Productions CTO Believes Efficiency of PS5 Allows For More Artistic Freedom Over PS4 According to Akio Sakamoto, along with the reduction of loading times, the new consoles have allowed artists t... View More

Buildner Announces Winners of the 5th Annual Last Nuclear Bomb Memorial CompetitionSponsored ContentSave this picture!Courtesy of BuildnerBuildner has announced the results of its competition, the In recognition of this treaty, Buildner invites conceptual designs for a memorial to be located on any known decommissioned nuclear weapon testing site. The conceptual memorial is intended to reflect the history and ongoing threat of nuclear weapons, aiming to promote public awareness of nuclear disarmament. The challenge is intended to bring attention to the history and dangers of nuclear weapons. Participants are tasked with designing a space that commemorates nuclear warfare victims and conveys the need for a nuclear-free future. As a 'silent' competition, submissions are not allowed to include any text, titles, or annotations.The next edition of this competition, the , has been launched with an early bird registration deadline of June 12, 2025.The briefThis competition invites designers to conceive a memorial that meaningfully engages the public with the critical issue of nuclear disarmament. Memorials play a crucial role in capturing history and facilitating collective reflection, shaping how future generations understand and respond to global challenges. The proposed memorial will specifically address the legacy of nuclear warfare, emphasizing the urgency of diplomatic solutions and international solidarity in preventing nuclear conflict.Design proposals are encouraged to consider the following core principles: Vision of Peace: Proposals should embody the aspiration for a world free of nuclear threats, incorporating symbolic or abstract representations that inspire unity and harmony. Reflection and Remembrance: Designs must foster a thoughtful and enduring dialogue, offering visitors a contemplative environment where they can reflect upon the consequences of nuclear weaponry. Educational Impact: The memorial should provide visitors with accessible insights into the historical realities and ongoing dangers of nuclear arms, actively promoting public knowledge and awareness. Emotional Engagement: Successful memorials will create a powerful emotional connection, provoking personal and collective introspection on peace, responsibility, and the human cost of nuclear conflict. Sustainable Stewardship: Designs must embrace environmental sustainability, reinforcing the memorial's overarching message of responsible stewardship and enduring peace. Save this picture!Jury PanelThis year's submissions were reviewed by a distinguished jury panel featuring experts from architecture, urbanism, and the arts:  Olha Kleytman, founder of Ukraine-based SBM Studio, brings expertise in architecture and urban design, alongside her humanitarian work through the NGO "Through the War."  Flora Lee, Associate Partner at MAD Architects, has contributed to major international projects including the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.  Peter Newman, a London-based artist, explores humanity's relationship with space and modernity, with exhibitions spanning Trafalgar Square, the Hayward Gallery, and the Guggenheim Museum in Venice.  Vincent Panhuysen, co-founder of KAAN Architecten, integrates contextual sensitivity into large-scale projects, such as the Netherlands American Cemetery Visitor Center.  James Whitaker, founder of Whitaker Studio, is an architect known for his widely published Joshua Tree Residence.  Wu Ziye, co-founder of China's Mix Architecture, has received international acclaim for his studio's exploration of spatial consciousness, materiality, and integration with nature. Buildner's other ongoing competitions include: the 10th edition of MICROHOME competition, in collaboration with Kingspan and Hapi Homes; the Mujassam Watan Urban Sculpture Challenge aimed at finding innovative sculptures reflecting Saudi Arabia's heritage, modern achievements, and future ambitions; and the Howard Waterfall Retreatcompetition, which invites architects to propose designs for a multi-generational family retreat at the scenic and historically significant Howard Falls in Pennsylvania, USA. Each of these competitions aims to build the winning designs.Projects:First Prize Winner + Buildner Student AwardProject title: Urbs AeternaAuthors: Alessia Angela Sanchez, Erminia Cirillo and Adele Maria Saita, from ItalyThe project presents a memorial using sand and metal to depict a post-apocalyptic vision of what appears to be Rome reduced to an archaeological remnant. The design evokes the destruction and preservation paradox, allowing viewers to observe the site from above or navigate its fractured streets leading to a central void. A ghostly wireframe reconstruction of a vanished temple stands as the focal point, symbolizing loss and memory. The restrained material palette reinforces themes of impermanence and time. While conceptually strong and visually compelling, its cost and environmental impact raise questions. The experience unfolds gradually, inviting contemplation.Save this picture!Save this picture!Second Prize WinnerProject title: The Rainbow Of RenewalAuthors: Chen Yang, Ruijing Sun and Chao Li, from the United StatesThe project envisions a memorial for the last nuclear bomb through a landscape intervention that transforms destruction into renewal. A circular water installation generates mist, evoking the image of an explosion while simultaneously creating rainbows, symbolizing hope. The design's ephemeral quality enhances its poetic impact, making it a striking presence on the horizon. The intervention integrates with the natural environment, fostering an evolving atmospheric experience.Save this picture!Save this picture!3rd Prize Winner + Buildner Student AwardProject title: Projected DestructionAuthors: Marco Moreno Donohoe of Washington University in St. Louis , WUSTL, the United StatesThis project envisions a memorial set within a cratered landscape. A striking linear structure cuts through the void, acting as both a bridge and a viewing platform, inviting visitors to experience the vastness of destruction. The interplay of light and shadow within the perforated walls creates dynamic spatial effects, offering different perspectives from above and within. The scale and placement evoke a sense of isolation and reflection.Save this picture!Save this picture!Highlighted ProjectsProject title: Mycelial Rebirth: Fungi Restoring Nuclear Wounds Authors: Shengfeng Gao, Zhuohan Zhou and Shengnan Gao from the United StatesThis project envisions a memorial landscape where fungi serve as agents of ecological healing in a post-nuclear context. A dense forest setting is activated by a grid of ultraviolet lights that stimulate mycelial growth, enhancing the fungi's capacity to absorb and break down radioactive contaminants. As the soil regenerates, the design allows for gradual ecological succession, beginning with mushrooms and pioneering vegetation. The illuminated ground plane forms a quiet, immersive field that marks both decay and recovery. Over time, the site transforms into a living testament to resilience, where nature's unseen networks remediate and renew.Save this picture!Save this picture!Project title: Nuclear Living ForceAuthors: Luis Manuel Carcamo Cura of company LUIS CARCAMO ARQUITECTOS, from MexicoThis project responds to the atomic age by offering a message of harmony over despair, using the human eye as a central metaphor for awareness and reflection. A series of monumental, petal-like structures rise from a crater-shaped void, recalling both the iris and the bomb site in Santa Fe. Surrounding this core, the Flower of Life geometry guides the masterplan, symbolizing universal patterns and organic regeneration. The design emphasizes nature's resilience, referencing ecosystems like Chernobyl where life has returned unaided. Rather than mourning destruction, the project celebrates life, order, and the potential for collective transformation.Save this picture!Project title: The Illusion of ChoicesAuthors: Ruiqi Yao, University of Edinburgh from the United KingdomThis project explores the illusion of choice within the existential tension between nuclear war and peace. Set inside a vast crater, visitors begin their journey in a monumental spherical chamber, where a singular path ends abruptly, symbolizing unreachable goals and the false promise of nuclear power. Descending into a subterranean network, seven red-lit paths depict ruin and inevitability, while one blue-lit path offers a narrow route toward peace and introspection. The final space contrasts confinement with openness, guiding visitors through mirrored walls toward a hopeful exit. Through spatial transitions and stark lighting contrasts, the project stages a powerful moral journey.Save this picture!Save this picture!Project title: Möbius Elegy: Red Warning and Green ReturnAuthors: Daii Shimada, Mai Nakano and Midori Watanabe, from JapanThis project imagines a regenerative forest emerging from the scars of nuclear devastation. Set within a vast desert crater, a radial pattern of multicolored vegetation radiates outward, suggesting seasonal cycles and ecological diversity. The planting strategy appears gradual and deliberate, with craters used as microclimates for reforestation—each acting as a node in a larger ecological system. A lone figure stands before the transformed landscape, underscoring the scale and ambition of the intervention. Through time-lapse-like sequences, the imagery suggests the forest's steady expansion, turning the desert into a sanctuary of life. The memorial becomes a living archive of resilience and renewal.Save this picture!Project title: Soft FalloutAuthors: Louis Bourdages and Cedric Harvey, from the Université Laval School of Architecture, CanadaThis project proposes an immersive memorial defined by a luminous, amorphous structure suspended over a crater. From the outside, the glowing yellow form evokes a captured sun or lingering explosion, radiating both warmth and unease. Inside, visitors enter a soft, undulating landscape of quilted fabric that molds to the human body, allowing for stillness, reflection, or playful interaction. Light filters through the translucent skin, creating a surreal atmosphere suspended between comfort and disquiet. The form's biomorphic geometry contrasts the rationality of war, transforming the site into a sensorial space of pause and presence.Save this picture!Project title: "Used to be there"Authors: Hữu Nhân Hoàng, Hoàng Kỳ Lê and Anh Khoa Huỳnh, VietnamThis project constructs a memorial as a collective reflection on memory, identity, and everyday life disrupted by nuclear war. Set in a radial formation across a barren landscape, semi-transparent glass panels display ghosted historical photographs—scenes of people, architecture, and ordinary moments—layered over the present. Visitors navigate between these life-sized images, encountering echoes of the past embedded in space. The transparent surfaces blend time periods and dissolve boundaries, inviting viewers to see themselves within the continuity of human experience. Rather than focusing on devastation, the project quietly honors what stands to be lost: ordinary lives, familiar places, and shared memories.Save this picture!Visit the website for the recently launched , to take part and learn more, before the early bird registration deadline of June 12, 2025. Image gallerySee allShow less Cite: "Buildner Announces Winners of the 5th Annual Last Nuclear Bomb Memorial Competition" 21 May 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1030195/buildner-announces-winners-of-the-5th-annual-last-nuclear-bomb-memorial-competition&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream