CDPR's response over The Witcher 3's lack of diversity rings more hollow after the Netflix series

[chaobreaker]

Remember how folks at CD Projekt Red responded when articles and reviews pointed out The Witcher 3's lack of diversity back when the game came out?

Let's take a little trip to 2015 for a quick refresher.

"Fifty shades of white": Witcher 3 devs talk race and adapting literature

During PAX Prime, members of The Witcher 3's narrative design team held a panel to discuss the challenges of adapting the source material, but they also addressed the issue.

"There are 16 different language versions of the Witcher 3," said Jakub Szmalek, a senior writer for The Witcher 3. "And we wanted each of these versions to feel like it was aimed at this very [specific] market. We don't want you to feel like you are playing a lesser translated version of the game."

"If we achieve this goal, the problem arises that you forget that you are playing a translated version of the game."

"If we achieve this goal, the problem arises that you forget that you are playing a translated version of the game."

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Szmalek went on to address the controversy surrounding the lack of racial diversity in the game, saying that some people assumed that it was some form of omission or a statement that the studio was trying to make.

"It is definitely not," Szmalek said. "It's just that we tackled certain issues from a different perspective."

Travis Currit, who was one of the team responsible for translating The Witcher 3 to English, suggested that for those living in more racially diverse areas, the lack of representation feels far more pronounced. He went on to say that while Poland is relatively "homogeneous" in terms of race, CD Projekt Red drew inspiration from the tensions that existed between the various cultures coexisting in the country.

"It's fifty shades of white," Szmalek said.

"Every day you read the papers there's a new controversy," Currit said. "That is a huge aspect of the reality in which the games and the books were created, and we feel like we make very direct references to those in-game. We had become so absorbed with hitting these issues that are absolutely at the forefront of Polish consciousness, that we didn't have time to address the issues that are bigger in other countries."

"That's the issue of making a game that releases to so many peoples and cultures," Szmalek added.

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Still rings hollow to me in 2020.

But hey it's not like there's a hot new Witcher adaptation out there that managed to become a mega hit all while featuring PoC in its slavic-mythology-inspired setting.

oh wait.

 

[YaBish]

I did feel that the show was a direct response to the lack of diversity in the game. Not that it was the intention, but the contrast is significant enough to warrant the comparison.

 

[Ombala]

Are the books diverse? Haven't read them.

 

[Deleted member 58846]

Yeah, mad props to the show for having as much diversity as it did. Helps to have a woman show runner who's likelier to include more voices.

 

[Y2Kev]

It's not a big deal to me because I prioritize historical accuracy in my dark fantasy tales about monster hunting and sorcery.

(I thought the show did a great job.)

 

[Deleted member 49611]

it never really bothered me playing the game but i wish Yennefer in game looked more like Yennefer in the show. also i really like the actress for Triss in the show too.

it will never happen but i'd like CDPR to get the TV cast (at least Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, Triss) in for Witcher 4 to model them and have them record voices.

 

[Messofanego]

Yeah, we all knew it was bullshit but CDPR has never been great at inclusivisity, from Witcher's whiteness to Cyberpunk's transphobia. I'm glad the show is better in this aspect and the female characterisation, thanks to female showrunners and writers. Once CDPR gets better diversity in their own teams like the show was, you'll see the benefits. But this is still one of their blindspots.

 

[ciddative]

CDPR made choices, the Netflix crew made different choices.

But hey it's not like there's a hot new Witcher adaptation out there that managed to become a mega hit all while featuring PoC in its slavic-mythology-inspired setting.

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If you're implying that CDPR chose to not diversify out of fear it would be less of a hit, I disagree. They could have gone a similar route as the show and added diversity to mostly secondary characters, but your quote mentioned time as a factor

 

[Messofanego]

I wonder if the conservative Witcher game fans are triggered by the show.

 

[Guaraná]

Let's hope, five years later, they've learned a little.

 

[rashbeep]

didn't mind it in the witcher games, but the netflix casting has been refreshing. also i do enjoy the saltiness that came with it.

 

[Exede]

I´m a ginger and i´m still processing a non ginger Triss. The actress did a good job on portraing her though. Overall i really enjoyed the series and can´t wait for season 2.

 

[TechnicPuppet]

It's far easier to follow shows as well when everyone isn't a dark haired white male.

 

[Deleted member 8861]

It's OK with me if Slavic peoples want to make a game about Slavic peoples, honestly. It's also OK with me if this is a significant enough issue for other people to turn them away from the game.

But also, that's not to say that the show's any worse off for being diverse, either. Diversity is practically never something that makes a work worse off.

 

[Spedfrom]

The Witcher 3 is a straight white male game's wet dream come true and I'm convinced that's a huge reason for it's success. Because that gameplay is fucking atrocious and the characters interactions are often ridiculous and immensely cringe worthy, especially when the long cast of perfectly beautiful women *hint hint* is involved.

 

[Deleted member 8196]

Let's hope, five years later, they've learned a little.

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They learned, Cyberpunk 2077 is pretty diverse and by having the creator working closely with the team (cp creator is a black man) helped as well.

 

[DaciaJC]

Seems strange that there's been no mention of CDPR's efforts to diversify their game's cast of characters with the Ofieri in their first DLC.

 

[chaobreaker]

Are the books diverse? Haven't read them.

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Can't speak on the books but the author personally didn't mind the casting decisions of the show.

 

[TrueSloth]

I wonder if the conservative Witcher game fans are triggered by the show.

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They are. Some call it "pandering to the SJWs"

 

[Hawkster]

The Witcher 3 is a straight white male game's wet dream come true and I'm convinced that's a huge reason for it's success. Because that gameplay is fucking atrocious and the characters interactions are often ridiculous and immensely cringe worthy, especially when the long cast of perfectly beautiful women *hint hint* is involved.

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That's a bit insulting especially when there's people who are not even straight that adore Geralt

 

[formasymphonic]

I wonder if the conservative Witcher game fans are triggered by the show.

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Oh, absolutely — skim a couple of the negative user reviews https://www.metacritic.com/tv/the-witcher/season-1/user-reviews

 

[Deleted member 58846]

The Witcher 3 is a straight white male game's wet dream come true and I'm convinced that's a huge reason for it's success. Because that gameplay is fucking atrocious and the characters interactions are often ridiculous and immensely cringe worthy, especially when the long cast of perfectly beautiful women *hint hint* is involved.

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So you don't like the game, which means that the reason it's successful is that it's a patriarchal fantasy?

 

[Deleted member 8861]

I wonder if the conservative Witcher game fans are triggered by the show.

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At this point right-wing chuds shitting their pants about diverse media is practically a new internet law.

 

[Deleted member 46489]

Are the books diverse? Haven't read them.

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The books aren't diverse at all, far as I know.

I think the main reason you don't see diversity in the game is that it's made by a bunch of white polish people, from source material with white polish characters, and racial diversity was probably not on their mind at all. I know this sounds very weird to Americans, but Poland was, and remains, almost completely white.

Not that CDPR is a bastion of progressive values, of course. But considering the prominence of characters of various races in Cyberpunk 2077, I'd argue that their omission from Witcher 3 can be better explained by ignorance and thoughtlessness rather than active racism.

 

[His Majesty]

The Witcher 3 is a straight white male game's wet dream come true and I'm convinced that's a huge reason for it's success. Because that gameplay is fucking atrocious and the characters interactions are often ridiculous and immensely cringe worthy, especially when the long cast of perfectly beautiful women *hint hint* is involved.

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The Witcher 3 has an excellent cast of female characters, actually. They've come a long way from sex cards in The Witcher 1.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/06/08/women-of-the-witcher-3/

 

[Deleted member 8196]

The Witcher 3 is a straight white male game's wet dream come true and I'm convinced that's a huge reason for it's success. Because that gameplay is fucking atrocious and the characters interactions are often ridiculous and immensely cringe worthy, especially when the long cast of perfectly beautiful women *hint hint* is involved.

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You should play The Witcher, the first and come back, because women in The Witcher 3 are way better and the interactions are nowhere neat cringe worthy like you are trying to imply lol

 

[chaobreaker]

I wonder if the conservative Witcher game fans are triggered by the show.

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I have seen one too many colleges of just the cast of the show played by PoC posted side-by-side with their white game counterparts.

 

[Spedfrom]

That's a bit insulting especially when there's people who are not even straight that adore Geralt

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LGBT people finding him attractive does not invalidate my argument. I find him physically attractive as well, but he has the personality of a boulder on steroids. Not to mention that he controls like a tank with the input lag of an interstellar journey.

 

[Nooblet]

Yea, plus the games are full of creative liberties as they are set after the books. Meanwhile the show is meant to be a faithful adaption of the books, and it achieves so.

 

[rras1994]

You should play The Witcher, the first and come back, because women in The Witcher 3 are way better and the interactions are nowhere neat cringe worthy like you are trying to imply lol

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The Witcher 1 is a really really low bar to be better than for representation of women.

 

[Command & Conker]

If CDPR did a faithful adaptation of the books then you can't blame them, you have to blame the author.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

The Witcher 3 is a straight white male game's wet dream come true and I'm convinced that's a huge reason for it's success. Because that gameplay is fucking atrocious and the characters interactions are often ridiculous and immensely cringe worthy, especially when the long cast of perfectly beautiful women *hint hint* is involved.

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Is this straight white male bait?

 

[His Majesty]

but he has the personality of a boulder on steroids.

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yeah, no

 

[Spedfrom]

You should play The Witcher, the first and come back, because women in The Witcher 3 are way better and the interactions are nowhere neat cringe worthy like you are trying to imply lol

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I'm not implying, they are. I played TW3 to completion and that was enough for me, thanks. Strongly dislike the game, even though I quite enjoyed the first season of the Netflix series. They're light and day when it comes to how they present themselves in the context of the age we're living.

 

[Deleted member 58846]

LGBT people finding him attractive does not invalidate my argument. I find him physically attractive as well, but he has the personality of a boulder on steroids. Not to mention that he controls like a tank with the input lag of an interstellar journey.

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So like have you actually played the game, or

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

The Witcher 3 is a straight white male game's wet dream come true and I'm convinced that's a huge reason for it's success. Because that gameplay is fucking atrocious and the characters interactions are often ridiculous and immensely cringe worthy, especially when the long cast of perfectly beautiful women *hint hint* is involved.

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Of course we were going to have a super hot take.

 

[Deleted member 8196]

The Witcher 1 is a really really low bar to be better than for representation of women.

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I just gave an example that makes sense since we are talking about The Witcher.

The way women are potrayed in the third game is totally different from the first entry

I'm not implying, they are. I played TW3 to completion and that was enough for me, thanks. Strongly dislike the game, even though I quite enjoyed the first season of the Netflix series. They're light and day when it comes to how they present themselves in the context of the age we're living.

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Can you give me some examples then?

 

[Lentic]

They learned, Cyberpunk 2077 is pretty diverse and by having the creator working closely with the team (cp creator is a black man) helped as well.

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Yeah... I'm still apprehensive about that. That game seems like a minefield of racial stereotypes.

 

[Edgar]

Yea, plus the games are full of creative liberties as they are set after the books. Meanwhile the show is meant to be a faithful adaption of the books, and it achieves so.

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the show is not a faithful adaptations , nor it needs to be

 

[AshenOne]

Iam not a fan of swaying away from the books tbh if the tv series did that just for the sake of diversity but if not then iam totally fine with this.I like if adaptions stay true when it comes to character traits and personalities also how the character looks but personally speaking i wasn't a fan of cavil's acting and the the casted actresses for yen and triss. I haven't read the books though so idk if the game swayed away from the base canon that are the books.

 

[Deleted member 62028]

"Past statements are more concerning because of new events that happened - we need to revisit"
Can't wait to get 2020 standards judged by 2070 society.

 

[misho8723]

Yeah, but the show is made by British and American people.. the games are made by Polish people.. Is this another way to bash Slavic people ?

 

[Deleted member 46489]

Yeah, we all knew it was bullshit but CDPR has never been great at inclusivisity, from Witcher's whiteness to Cyberpunk's transphobia. I'm glad the show is better in this aspect and the female characterisation, thanks to female showrunners and writers. Once CDPR gets better diversity in their own teams like the show was, you'll see the benefits. But this is still one of their blindspots.

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You know, I believe Cyberpunk's transphobia (which as of now is limited to a single image, I think) is more a case of non-trans devs trying to go for trans rep and botching it rather than people who're actually transphobic. I'd reckon they might be better thought of as trans-ignorant. That said, I'm glad there was public criticism about the whole thing, and hope they learn from it and hire some consultants (who share the marginalized identities represented in the game) to do a better job at representation.

 

[FF Seraphim]

They learned, Cyberpunk 2077 is pretty diverse and by having the creator working closely with the team (cp creator is a black man) helped as well.

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Also to their credit the source material isn't very diverse if at all plus Poland is also pretty damn white. So you have a Polish developer making a game based of a Polish book series. Each game they get better and better. I think people are being way too hard on CDPR.

 

[Obsonet]

I wonder if the conservative Witcher game fans are triggered by the show.

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I used to follow a youtuber who did a lot of cool witcher 3 videos but stopped when they put out a dumb video about how bad it is that fringilla isn't white.
And of course all the comments were agreeing with them, so there are a lot.

 

[The Turbanator]

Asking Polish devs why their adaptation of a Polish book based on Western mythology why there aren't many PoC in their game seems like an effort in futility. Of course they wouldn't think about that when making the game, they're going to make it based on how they interpreted the books, which is unlikely to include many PoC if they haven't interacted with many in their lives.

it never really bothered me playing the game but i wish Yennefer in game looked more like Yennefer in the show. also i really like the actress for Triss in the show too.

it will never happen but i'd like CDPR to get the TV cast (at least Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, Triss) in for Witcher 4 to model them and have them record voices.

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Oh God please no. Keep the two interpretations of the books divorced please. I like the freedom that being a dev has, allowing you to model based on any face you see and like, as opposed to being limited to a pool of interested actors.

That and i vastly prefer CDPR's Yennefer's model to the show's actress.

Seems strange that there's been no mention of CDPR's efforts to diversify their game's cast of characters with the Ofieri in their first DLC.

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There's a narrative here and that is an exception to the rule, that's why it's not being mentioned. It was also more of a response to the complaints that CDPR couldn't really forsee until their game became hugely anticipated.

 

[tuxfool]

I'm not implying, they are. I played TW3 to completion and that was enough for me, thanks. Strongly dislike the game, even though I quite enjoyed the first season of the Netflix series. They're light and day when it comes to how they present themselves in the context of the age we're living.

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Wrong.

Sorry. There isn't much point going into it, because any reasonable person wouldn't actually be making this argument.

Which isn't to say one is good and one is bad, but they both have their issues, in different areas. So to say it is night and day, is a foolish argument.

 

[Nooblet]

the show is not a faithful adaptations , nor it needs to be

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Eh it's pretty faithful when the turn of events happen in a similar way. It doesn't need to be exactly like the books 1:1 to be faithful.
It's not doing a GoT with completely separate interactions and plot threads. Last Wish happens pretty much the same way, with Geralt fishing and Dandelion getting injured, which then leads to his meeting with Yen.

 

[Spedfrom]

I just gave an example that makes sense since we are talking about The Witcher.

The way women are potrayed in the third game is totally different from the first entry



Can you give me some examples then?

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Are the many interactions between Geralt and Ciri, who is supposed to be like a daughter to him, but always lean on flirting, not enough? Even Philippa makes a comment about it ingame for crying out loud.

 

[His Majesty]

The Witcher 1 is a really really low bar to be better than for representation of women.

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I can't think of many games this generation with a better cast of female characters than The Witcher 3: Yennefer, Shani, Triss, Keira, Cerys, Ciri, Iris, Anna-Henrietta, Priscilla, Syanna, ... all of them excellently written characters who manage to shine through in their own way in the oppressive world of The Witcher.