I never stated that I wanted a game with none of the same characters in a completely different universe. I stated that no matter what the end of a fictional story is, that a sequel is always possible. The purpose of saying that was that some people think that The Witcher series is 100% completely over and that a sequel is not even possible. I'm saying that sequels are _always_ possible in science-fiction fantasy.

That does not in any way say that I want or wish to see a random sequel discard the existing story and warp to some parallel universe where everything is different. Rather it says that there are infinite numbers of possibilities for continuing a franchise including continuing the story from where it left off, or a prequel from where things began, or some other middle story that we don't know the details of yet, or even a side story. Any of these are options that could be pursued, and any of them could be very good, or they could be bad.

I think that CDPR has proven their ability to create an amazing franchise and don't see any reason why they could not produce additional games in the series with a compelling story and characters, whether they include some or all of the characters we know and love or otherwise. If they do make another game in the series, whatever approach they take I feel pretty confident that they would rather do something tasteful and worthy of the franchise name and of their fanbase than to just whip up some random crap, throw the name on it and try to cash in on it. CDPR have shown that they themselves are die hard gamers that care about their games and their customers, so if they do a Witcher 4 sequel/prequel/whateverquel, I for one will be excited as shit if and when they announce it, and I wont have even the slightest fear of them doing something stupid with it because they've not done a single thing in the past for me to personally mistrust their judgment.

I will however say one more thing, which is that the more popular a game company becomes or a game franchise, the more difficult it is for the company to make additional sequels because a subset of their customer base gets attached to the game(s) with a religious like zeal almost like a cult, ready to burn buildings down if a pixel is not the right colour, or a blade of grass in the game is turned the wrong way. This makes game companies afraid to even consider doing additional sequels in a given franchise because they end up feeling like they could never please their fan base entirely and anything they could try to do, someone will tear it apart and give them a black eye for it. So they often just throw in the towel, maybe without even officially declaring they're doing so. Half-life 3 and Portal 3 seem to be among the casualties of this phenomenon IMHO.

In my way of thinking though, if a game company has consistently put out consecutive titles in a franchise where each game is better than the previous ones, there is no reason why they should stop doing so if they enjoy creating the games in the series and their fans continue to enjoy them. As long as their hearts are in the right place and they have passion for what they're doing and are not constrained by their publisher owning creative control or other industry nonsense, then I support their continued pursuit of this art form.


Except they've not announced that they're doing that.

One thing is true though, is that there are enough negative dysfunctional people out there in the world of gaming that any existing or new game company could literally announce any new game project at any time and they will universally be met with both positive and negative comments from the peanut gallery no matter what it is. If game companies never released any games because some person on the Internet didn't like the idea, then there would be a complete total dead stop in game production beyond which no video games would ever be produced.

You can see that psychology play out right here in the GOG forums every single day too. Some positive announcement comes out from GOG about a new website feature, or a new Galaxy feature, or a new game release announcement or just about anything. Immediately you'll see some people very happy about the new announcement, and you'll also see people upset or angry about it. It goes something like this:

Announcement: New game release: Star Wars 5 Deluxe Gold Darth Vader Edition!

Inevitable negative bitching: "Yeah, who gives a crap. Wake me up when you get Star Wars 6 Supreme Edition with the Kung-Fu Grip, this is lame ass.", "Yeah, that's nice and all but this version doesn't have the original 8" floppy disk release of the game with CGA graphics so that blows. Disney sucks, and GOG I'm very disappointed.", "You got this game and didn't bother to scan the manual for it and you expect me to pay $4 for it?"

I could go on and on with hypothetical examples like this for days, or even just search the forums and copy and paste links a mile long to reactions like this on every single announcement ever made. It is a sad fact, but the amount of entitlement mentality amongst the gaming community as a whole is massive, and it presents an impenetrable barrier that no game company can ever produce anything ever without receiving a negative piece of entitlement mentality like this in return from some fraction of the gaming community. Just a fact of life.

The point of mentioning this, is that game companies need to both have and pursue their own passions as gamers and developers themselves, both using their own desires and experience as input as well as both positive and negative feedback from their existing fans as well as other potential customers, but they need to move forward with what they think are good ideas that will be received well by as large a portion of the market as possible without expecting everyone to like it or receive it well.

Someone once said something along the lines of... You can please some of the people all of the time, and you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time, and if you try to do so you'll end up pleasing nobody.

Interesting reaction, except they haven't announced that they're doing that, so you're having a highly charged negative reaction to speculation over a hypothetical game scenario that you created yourself which doesn't actually exist. Why would you want to waste time getting upset about something that doesn't exist and which there is no indication of which is likely to exist?

This is why game companies rarely ever talk about what they are working on privately. Because people take words out of context, and in lieu of detailed information about what is actually happening, people's minds create fantasy scenarios of doomsday things they think must be happening, then react negatively to them and get ready to form lynch mobs to go burn the witch that doesn't actually exist.

"If they do ABCD, then I'll be pissed!" becomes "THEY ARE DOING ABCD, SO I AM PISSED!", which makes no sense unless it has been officially announced that they are actually doing ABCD, and ABCD actually does sound like a bad idea.

Is it possible for CDPR to continue The Witcher series? Absolutely. Is it possible that they could continue it tastefully in some way and make an awesome game that everyone enjoys? Absolutely. Are they going to? Nobody outside of CDPR truly knows the answer to that at all. So what is to be gained by fearing a sequel, or fearing their ability to produce something worthy of being a sequel when they've done nothing so far other than demonstrating that they have an incredible ability to make fantastic sequels?

It's like people automatically assume the more successful someone is, the more likely they are to fail next time or something because "you can only climb so high, so you might as well not bother because fear fear fear, tremble, shudder".

I'm setting aside $50 CAD right now for The Witcher 4 sight unseen, whether they ever make the game or not because I trust CDPR and believe if they make the game it will kick my ass with awesomeness. A negative thought about this theoretical game wont even enter my mind until it is produced, released, I own it, it is installed on my hard disk and I've played it. Then and only then will I potentially worry about whether the concept of the game was a good idea or bad idea.