Despite unjust hostility from certain quarters of the PCG staff, I maintain that the first Witcher was a very good game indeed. But if we're going to remake it anyway, it'd be a good idea to sand down its rougher edges, not least of which is its infamously wonky voice acting.
But in a recent chat with Eurogamer, Geralt's voice actor in all three Witcher games, Doug Cockle, said that neither CD Projekt nor Fool's Theory (the studio behind the remake) have gotten in touch with him about re-recording the first game's dialogue for the remake. "I know as much as you do about this at the moment," said Cockle, "I don't know if they're going to bring me back in to do re-recording of the dialogue, I don't know if they're going to use dialogue from Witcher 1 as it exists. I don't know".
As the original report rightly points out, a lot has changed since the first Witcher released in 2007. Not only did The Witcher 2 swap out a few of the first game's actors, but Cockle himself has come a long way since his first few tentative steps in Geralt's shoes. Plus, CD Projekt refined how it recorded voice acting after the first game: The studio brought in a professional director for the voice performances from Witcher 2 onwards, and Cockle says "The director's impact on the quality of the recording cannot be overstated".
So while I'll die on the hill of The Witcher 1 being a damn fine videogame, I admit that its performances lend the whole thing an air of a budget, B-movie recreation of a prestige TV series at this point. I have to imagine the reason Cockle's phone hasn't rung yet is that the remake is still in very early development. If the new game's sleek and gleaming UE5 models still use the same recordings that the original game did, it's going to be utterly bizarre.
And let's not even countenance the idea of Cockle being replaced. People got upset enough when Netflix traded out Henry Cavill's Geralt for Liam Hemsworth, can you imagine how angry they'd be if CD Projekt tried to replace Doug Cockle? There'd be riots in the streets.
