Former God of War combat designer joins The Witcher 4 development team

Both The Witcher and God of War are having quite a week. Sony just revealed God of War: Laufey at its State of Play on June 2, putting Santa Monica Studio back in the spotlight. And over at CD Projekt Red, the studio is gearing up to launch three Witcher games in six years. It turns out the two franchises now share more than just a good week's worth of headlines.

It looks like Jacqueline Kate Salsman, a former senior combat designer at Santa Monica Studio, has joined CDPR as an Expert Gameplay Designer and is currently working on The Witcher 4. The hire was spotted through her LinkedIn profile and is generating buzz for an obvious reason: combat has long been the soft underbelly of the Witcher series.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is rightly considered one of the greatest open-world games ever made. The world, the writing, and the side quests are all legendary and have gathered critical acclaim. However, ask any honest fan about the combat, and you'll get a polite grimace. Geralt's swordplay felt clunky and shallow compared to everything else the game did brilliantly. CDPR clearly knows this, and it looks like they're finally doing something about it.

Salsman worked at Santa Monica Studio for multiple years as a Senior Combat Designer, contributing to God of War (2018), God of War Ragnarok, and The Callisto Protocol. Her tenure at the studio also overlapped with early work on God of War: Laufey, which means she has direct experience with some of the most polished third-person combat in the business.

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CDPR has already been working on polishing the melee combat system for The Witcher 4, with Ciri taking over as the lead protagonist from Geralt. A more agile, acrobatic character like Ciri already opens the door for a more dynamic combat system, and bringing in someone with Salsman's background suggests CDPR is serious about closing that gap.

It's one hire, so expectations should stay grounded. However, it certainly looks like the right kind of hire, and paired with everything else CDPR has been doing to build out The Witcher 4's team, this one is worth paying attention to. That said, despite CDPR's lofty ambitions, The Witcher 4 still does not have an official release date.