You may have heard this week that CD Projekt Red were the subject of a cyberattack. I don’t know the intricate details of it all, but from what has been said, it seems like a voice actor allowed an outside hacker access to CD Projetk Red’s systems. From there, they took a load of files, and encrypted what they could before leaving. Luckily for the publisher, they’ve got backups of all the important stuff, so they’re just going to recover it and act as if nothing has happened. They’re not bothered about stuff getting out to the public, which the hacker has said they’ll do. Here’s the thing though, one of the files is an unreleased version of The Witcher 3.
Important Update pic.twitter.com/PCEuhAJosR
— CD PROJEKT RED (@CDPROJEKTRED) February 9, 2021
This is what piqued my interest in the situation more than anything else. I personally believe that CD Projekt Red is doing the right thing by ignoring the issue and allowing this hacker to share what details they want. They can always be taken down. This unreleased version of The Witcher 3 is intriguing though.
I can’t help but think about what this version of the game could be. As far as I can think, there are two likely options. The first is that it’s the demo or prototype version of the game. This would have been used as a test version to show investors. I imagine that the company needed to get approval to spend five years working on the game, and with this demo they probably achieved it.
The second thing this might be is a version of the game that’s simply too large to fit on a disk. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is massive, and it barely got onto disks when it launched. Since then, the publisher has gotten the file sizes down and put the game on Switch. There were always rumors about the content being cut though. In a game this big, there has to be stuff that didn’t make the final cut because of deadlines and file sizes. Maybe we’ll get to look at this version when it’s dumped, if it ever is, but for now I’m quietly surprised that there’s still a secret about this game that we’ve yet to uncover.
