CD Projekt Red’s commitment to realism helped make The Witcher 3 one of the most immersive open-world RPGs of its decade. That commitment also led to some funny problems during development, when the studio was trying to get the NPCs to respond to Geralt in ways that seemed authentic and natural. One of them was mothers repeatedly dropping their babies any time the monster hunter barged into their house.
“Because we were focused on the countryside, it was easier for players to become curious,” quest designer Philipp Weber recently told Edge magazine (via GamesRadar). “If a village only has eight houses, people will want to see if the people truly exist in the world, or if it’s just fakery. Lots of people nowadays are interested in those kinds of details, and it really came to haunt us.”
NPCs in The Witcher 3 didn’t have custom schedules during the day and night, but they did move between distinct activities like chopping wood or eating meals. These cycles led them to move around the world and make it feel more lively, rather than just stand in place like background scenery. But the developers also wanted these minor characters to respond to Geralt if he interrupted their routines by, say, brandishing his weapons inside their little cottage.
“Our NPCs were supposed to have fear reactions,” Weber explained. “They would drop what they’re currently working on, that thing would fall to the ground, and they’d run away, afraid. The problem was that one of the ‘works’ that mothers could do was to hold and cradle a baby. For a few weeks, women were just dropping their babies, left and right.”
Fear reactions are now common in open-world games these days to make them feel more reactive and to try to cut against the break in immersion that comes when you try to interact with the people around you and they just stick to their scripts like, well, NPCs. But it was clearly a bigger challenge back in the early 2010s when The Witcher 3 was in development. Personally, I think they should have kept the fear effect for at least one sidequest. I’m sure the writers could have gotten creative with it. At least we still got the infamous baby oven moment.