The Witcher 4’s New Director Promises No Crunch ‘On My Watch’ [IGN]

Game director Jason Slama – who was a UI programmer on The Witcher 3 and most recently directed Gwent: The Witcher Card Game – said crunch won’t happen “on my watch” when replying to a Twitter user who commented that CD Projekt Red employees have been subjected to poor working conditions in the past.

Crunch refers to employees having to work long hours and extra days in order to finish a game on time, something CD Projekt Red made mandatory as Cyberpunk 2077 approached its release date. The studio has previously promised that crunch wouldn’t be an issue on the game.

I am super thrilled to announce that I have humbly been working to ensure the success of the next big AAA The Witcher game as its Game Director! Think you could join the team? We have tons of roles open with the possibility of remote work we could discuss! https://t.co/bBbxs0JMmq

— Jason Slama (@SlamaTwoFlags) March 21, 2022

Slama does seemingly have some precedent in avoiding crunch, saying he was able to lead Gwent to success without relying on controversial working practices.

In an interview with IGN for an upcoming piece about Gwent, he said: “When it was time for me to move on to my new challenges the team was so supportive and so ready to exist without me. People just managed to grow and learn and do so much under the project.

“And again, in an environment where I achieved my ultimate goal of saying, ‘Hey, look, you can make a high quality CCG without murdering the people who work on it with whips and chains,’ especially considering all the controversies that happened with crunch and everything.

“The fact that we managed to achieve all that with really awesome working conditions, and people thanking me for the support and what they taught me, it’s a very humbling, but also inspiring, moment and day for me.”

CD Projekt Red said the upcoming Witcher game will be the beginning of a new saga and fans are already theorising who the main character will be. The developer announced the game on March 21, just a few hours after a fan potentially found The Witcher 3’s final secret, and didn’t say much else except that the game will run in Unreal Engine 5.

CD Projekt Red last released a mainline Witcher game with Wild Hunt’s release in 2015, but has since released Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher Tales: Thronebreaker, and Gwent. IGN recently gave The Witcher 3 a top spot on our best open world games of all time and in our 9/10 review said “massive in size and meticulously detailed, The Witcher 3 ends Geralt’s story on a high note.”

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.