The Witcher (video game series)

In 1996 and 1997, a Witcher video game was being developed by Metropolis Software in Poland, but it was canceled. The game's director was Adrian Chmielarz, former People Can Fly co-owner and creative director, who coined the translation "The Witcher" during its development. According to Chmielarz, the game would have been a 3D action-adventure game with role-playing elements such as moral choices and experience points.[1]

In 2003, Polish video-game developer CD Projekt Red negotiated with Sapkowski for rights to The Witcher, given the languishing work at Metropolis,[2] and released The Witcher, a role-playing game based on the saga in October 2007 for personal computers. It was well-publicized and, although it was the developer's first game, it received critical praise in Europe and North America. The Witcher was published in Poland by CD Projekt and worldwide by Atari. A console version, The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf with the same story and a different engine and combat system, was scheduled for release in fall 2009 but was canceled that spring.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is the sequel to The Witcher, developed by CD Projekt Red. On 16 September 2009, before Assassins of Kings was introduced, a video of the game was leaked;[3] two days later, CD Projekt Red confirmed that it was in development.[4] Assassins of Kings was published in Poland by CD Projekt, by Namco Bandai Games in Europe and by Atari in North America. The game was also distributed digitally through Steam and DRM-free on Good Old Games.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released on 19 May 2015, and has become considered one of the greatest games of all time, shipping over ten million copies by March 2016.[5] Subsequently two expansion packs were released, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Hearts of Stone in 2015 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Blood and Wine in 2016.

The Witcher: Crimson Trail (Polish: Wiedźmin: Krwawy Szlak), also known as The Witcher Mobile is a mobile-phone action game created by Breakpoint on license from CD Projekt in November 2007.[6] It features a young Geralt as a promising student who has completed his training to become a monster-slayer – a witcher.

CD Projekt Red announced Battle Arena, a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game for mobile devices, on 1 July 2014. It shut down at the end of 2015.[7]

In October 2018, CD Projekt Red released Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, a turn-based roleplaying game with similar gameplay to the free-to-play card game Gwent: The Witcher Card Game. In Thronebreaker's thirty-hour-long campaign, the player takes the control of Queen Meve, the ruler of Lyria and Rivia, during the events that precede the first Witcher game. The game world consists of five regions never explored in The Witcher franchise before: Rivia, Lyria, Angren, Mahakam and Lower Aedirn.[8] The title received generally favorable reviews.[9]

The series had sold over 33 millon copies by March 2018,[20] increasing to over 50 million copies by May 2020.[21]