Without a decision made years before the original game's development, The Witcher as we know it today might not exist, and during a developer presentation at WitcherCon, CD Projekt Red quest designers Phillipp Weber and Błażej Augustynek revealed that Geralt was never intended to be the main character of the series from the beginning.

Early in The Witcher's development, CD Projekt Red designed the game around player-created characters, which was close to the standard for RPGs of the time. Geralt is a central character in the book series on which the game is based, but with so many distant lands and complex histories, it was not unreasonable to represent the game from a new perspective.

"For the first few years, we tried to make it so that you could basically create your own personal Witcher and explore new lands. This game is called The Witcher. I think at some point people realized, yes, we want to be Geralt of Rivia, we want to be the Witcher."

This discussion was accompanied by early footage of "The Witcher" featuring what appeared to be custom characters. See below.

This decision was quickly dismissed as an interesting anecdote, but my mind immediately conjured up an entirely different reality in which "The Witcher 2," "The Witcher 3," the TV show, and everything else that blossomed due to Geralt's unique charm, did not exist.

Most frightening of all, there might not have been a tub of Geralt. What would PC Gamer be without Geralt's Tub? Would it still be in existence? I shudder to think of having to find a header image instead of a bath time bud.

But it turns out we're on a good timeline: the Netflix adaptation of The Witcher has a release date for Season 2, and the actual trailer is expected to be released later today. We will be watching WitcherCon throughout the day for further news, revelations, and trivia.