NB: while the leaked files do contain spoilers, this article will not.
The Witcher 3's release was recently pushed back into early next year , drastically reducing 2014's tally of mammoth RPGs. Perhaps it's that unbearable delay that has led to this: the leaking of design documents covering many aspects of the game. The files were taken from a CD Projekt Red employee's hacked Google Drive account, and now various details are being shared among sites such as Reddit . [ Edit: it seems as if said files were accidentally made public, rather than hacked.]
CD Projekt Red have now confirmed the leak as real, with marketing boss Michal Platkow-Gilewski telling Eurogamer , "it has come to our attention that some of the production files for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt have emerged on the internet."
"A portion of the files contains information about the story of the game so we strongly advise against accessing them, as this may heavily impact and spoil your future gaming experience," Platkow-Gilewski warned. "We also like to reassure everyone that the disclosure of said documents does not affect the development cycle in any way."
I've browsed through some of the files, finding information on everything from quests and monster design, to bug lists and a guide for creating Geralt's hair. There are spoilers, to be sure, but mostly there's a set of spreadsheets and documents that reveal the size and scope of what CD Projekt Red are creating. The quest list is huge, the maps are expansive, and, yes, the hair is extremely nice.
In a file called "W3 Alpha", CD Projekt Red summarise a mid-February build of the game. "Fully functioning, full-featured core version of the game," the document states, "with main path story and plot quests for all characters completed and implemented." Here, the game is listed as feature-locked, meaning the rest of the development time will be geared towards content creation.
Of course, it wouldn't be an internal leak without some classic careless wording. In a document mapping the contents of an E3 demo, the second bullet point reads: "We talk to Keira Metz and she gives us a task: remove the curse from the tower in the swamps. (Boob physics eye candy, appropriately prepared dialogue)." Sigh...
It's an interesting look at development progress, but my advice, like CD Projekt's, is to avoid tracking down these files for yourself.
