The creators of massive in-development The Witcher 3 mod The WAR Project are recasting their version of Temerian commander Vernon Roche, citing “a severe incident of gross misconduct” allegedly committed by the person they’d initially given the role. Said person is no longer involved with the mod and those working on it say they don’t think this incident “will impact [their] current schedule significantly”.
The idea behind The WAR Project, as we’ve covered previously, is to restore a plague-themed questline CD Projekt abandoned prior to release. There are some datamined remnants the modders are using to rebuild it, but they’re also having to bring a lot of their own meat to those bones. For example, there’s no voice acting for lines connected to the cut quests, so the modders have had to hold auditions for actors to play base game characters like Geralt and Ves in the new scenes, since getting the game’s original cast of pros back together likely wouldn’t have been possible.
One of the key characters in these restored quests is Witcher 2 stalwart Vernon Roche, played in the base game by Mark Healy. Via an initial round of auditions, The WAR Project modders had picked someone going by the handle Grlt to do their best Healy impression and voice the mod’s Roche lines. Now, however, the modders say Grlt will no longer be taking on the role.
“Grlt, whom you may know as our voice actor for Roche, has had to be removed from the project owing to a severe incident of gross misconduct,” WAR Project developer Ferroxius wrote in an August 11th announcement post on the mod’s Discord. “For the sake of those affected, the details on this incident are confidential so please do not ask us about it.
“What this means is that we will be reopening the Roche audition channel to find a new actor to play our brave Temerian commander. This will only be for a week, as Roche is a significant role and recasting and recording all the lines will take time. If you previously auditioned for Roche, you do not need to re-audition if you were happy with your auditions. We do not believe this will impact our current schedule significantly.
“And finally, in the wake of this incident, I would like to apologise to anyone who was affected by this incident and to emphasise that we have no tolerance for poor behaviour. We believe in an open and friendly server but this is no excuse to act inappropriately and make members feel uncomfortable. If you ever feel that another member in the server is behaving inappropriately either in-server or in DMs, then do not hesitate to contact us.”
Given that, as Ferroxius alluded to, Roche is a central cog in the questline the group are resurrecting, it’s slightly surprising to me that this might not end up impacting their plans for a full release sometime in 2027 too badly. Then again, Grlt’s casting as Roche was only announced in the server on July 7th, so odds are they might not have had a chance to record many or all of their lines prior to their departure.
Here’s hoping that work on the mod, which already has a demo out, can plough on without incident going forwards.
