CD Projekt Red Marks The Witcher’s 19th Anniversary by Crediting BioWare
BioWare lent the first game its Aurora Engine, shared development knowledge and gave the team space at E3.
CD Projekt Red is marking 19 years since the original The Witcher with a tribute to BioWare, whose Aurora Engine, shared development knowledge and E3 support helped the Polish studio make its first RPG. Released for PC in 2007, the game began a partnership that grew from CD Projekt’s earlier work as a publisher. The tribute also came the week after EA shut down BioWare.
19 years ago, an ambitious dream to bring an iconic book series into the world of video games came to life with the release of The Witcher.It was the start of an unforgettable path, which wouldn't have been possible without our friends at BioWare.
CD Projekt began by distributing PC games in Poland, then expanded into localization and publishing, including BioWare’s Baldur’s Gate. In a 2017 NoClip interview, co-founder Marcin Iwiński recalled that the initial order of 3,000 copies carried serious financial risk for the young company. The Polish release featured professional voice acting and a collector’s box. Orders reached 18,000 before release, and sales reached 50,000 in the first year.
After building its publishing business, the company moved into game development and formed CD Projekt Red. The team licensed BioWare’s Aurora Engine, which BioWare had created for Neverwinter Nights, and used it to build an early version of The Witcher.
About a year later, CD Projekt Red brought a demo to BioWare’s leaders in Edmonton. The presentation impressed them, and BioWare invited the team to share its E3 booth, where The Witcher appeared alongside Jade Empire. For a studio few people outside Poland knew, the engine and showcase offered a direct bridge from its publishing roots to its first original RPG.
CD Projekt later moved away from Aurora and created REDengine for 2011’s The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. The studio went on to use REDengine for The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, carrying the story from BioWare’s early support into CD Projekt’s later games.
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