The Witcher 3 has quite a bit of sex in it, but the majority of interactions you have with Triss and Yennefer are not played for laughs or simple titillation. Any complaints about the game’s “sexualization” of female characters might better fit the first game in the series and not last year’s best role-playing game.
Speaking to VICE, CD Projekt Red senior writer Karoline Stachyra explained what it took to make complex sexual relationships in a video game.
“Characters come first, no pun intended,” Stachyra told the publication. “Well, maybe a bit. But really, characters are what drive Wild Hunt.”
The writer explained how Geralt and Yennifer have the opportunity to have sex on a stuffed unicorn and how it played towards the chemistry between the two characters.
“They did it on the unicorn because there’s this particular chemistry between them,” Stachyra said. “It’s just a thing they’d do. You don’t need to explain it, for them, and it’s like an inside joke that you as the gamer are privy to. It’s just natural for these characters.”
Stachyra explained that it was vital for the team to create characters that didn’t feel like sexual conquests for either Geralt or the gamer, instead designing each of these individuals as real characters with motivations and personalities.
“I often get asked things like, ‘What’s the key to creating a good strong female character’, as we have our share – think of Cerys, Ciri, Triss, Yen, Keira Metz and many more,” she elaborated. “And my answer is always: I don’t know, because I don’t think that way. When I write, I create a character. A flawed character, a magnificent character, a genuine character, you name it. But it’s never a male or female character. And this applies to sex scenes in Wild Hunt as well.”
