CD Projekt Red developers name their favorite PC games of all time

The Witcher 3 bestrides our list of the best PC games to play today, and also ranks high on the best RPGs of all time, so it's always interesting to learn more about its influences. Our colleagues over at TechRadar did just that when they asked the developers at CD Projekt Red to name their favorite PC games of all time. The Witcher 3 was presumably out of the running for this question, or the devs were humble enough to pick different games.

Lead level designer Mateusz Piaskiewicz got nostalgic for Quake, saying that making Quake levels in the '90s helped him get a job in game development. But it's the comments on old RPGs that are especially interesting. 

"Gothic II is one of my all-time-favorites on PC—it's one of my first RPG games, and one of most the immersive RPGs I played," said principal narrative director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz. "I remember that I was very surprised how every NPC had their own place in the world; how they reacted to various player actions like entering their houses, taking their things, or even just unsheathing your weapon in front of them. This, plus the right combination of immersive gameplay systems, made the world feel alive and believable—you wouldn’t just enter a UI-based crafting panel and craft a sword like you do nowadays, you would heat up the metal first, then form it on an anvil, then heat it in bucket of water, and later sharpen it on a grindstone."

Game director Konrad Tomasziewicz, meanwhile, called out Ultima VII: The Black Gate as the game that made him want to develop RPGs. Check out the full article for more insight from the Witcher 3's dev team.

Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

Latest in The Witcher
A close-up of a scared young girl's face as she stumbles through the woods, a crown of twigs and flowers upon her head.
CD Projekt says it's not using generative AI on The Witcher 4 because it's 'quite tricky when it comes to legal IP ownership'
Tub Geralt, just chilling in his tub.
The new Witcher novel is a prequel called Crossroads of Ravens where Geralt is 18 years old, and it'll be available in English in September
The Witcher 3
Geralt will definitely appear in The Witcher 4, Doug Cockle confirms (again): 'I can't wait to see what they do'
bathtub geralt
I regret to inform you that The Witcher 3 is a decade old this year, but you can forget about unceasing mortality for a few hours at the anniversary concerts
Geralt thumbs up
Witcher author reveals that Geralt is 61 years old in The Witcher 3, with even weirder ramifications for Henry Cavill's Netflix performance
A still from the cinematic reveal trailer of The Witcher 4, showing unt Witcher
CD Projekt had to nerf Ciri for The Witcher 4 after she fully unlocked her spacetime teleportation powers in the previous game: 'Something totally happened in-between'
Latest in News
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened