Michal Platkow-Gilewski, the Vice President of Communication and PR at CD Projekt RED, revealed that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt almost had a very different title than the one we know today.
“I liked Northern Lights,” Platkow-Gilewski said. “For a moment there was The Witcher 3: Northern Lights. It never made it into even a logo design but on the whiteboard, for a while, it was there.”
Michal Platkow-Gilewski also revealed that A Time of Axe and Sword was considered as the title for a while. However, he mentioned that it was a bit of a mouthful to say, and the name didn’t stick.
“So we were toying with the name but the moment we found Wild Hunt,” Platkow-Gilewski explained. The title referred to the main threat in the game while also evoking creepy, legendary atmospheres that intrigued even those who hadn’t read Sapkowski’s books.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has sold over 60 million copies, but during its development, the series wasn’t the global phenomenon it is today, and the first two games had sold just five million copies combined. A title like that could have been a big boost.
However, there was a problem with this strategy: the “3” in the title could have made new players think they needed to play the first two games before jumping into the third. To avoid this, CD Projekt RED decided to change the logo and turn the number into three claw marks.
