Borrowing, Easter Egg and Centonization: The Case of The Witcher Series

This study examines intertextuality in CD Projekt Red's The Witcher series, arguing that borrowings, Easter eggs, and especially centonization provide a productive framework for understanding how the games are constructed and experienced. The series is densely saturated with allusions to other cultural texts, drawing on Andrzej Sapkowski's literary source material as well as contemporary media such as Assassin's Creed and Game of Thrones. The author contends that these references are decoded differently depending on the player's cultural competence, so that the same element may be experienced superficially, as part of a deeper metagame, or as a full act of interpretive decoding.

The central claim is that centonization, a literary method of composing texts from borrowed quotations, paraphrases, and allusions, is the principal world-building mechanism of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, extending earlier scholarship on the series. Drawing on the literary theory of Teresa Cieślikowska and Ewa Okopień-Sławińska, the analysis argues that the game's borrowings perform functions beyond Gérard Genette's standard account of intertextuality, producing a layered "semantic journey" in which the player's engagement deepens with their cultural knowledge. The expansions Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine are presented as the clearest instances of this method, since they are structured almost entirely around borrowed fairy tales, legends, and genres, positioning the player as an active participant in these inherited narratives rather than a passive observer.

The study frames the series as a turning point for the Polish game industry, situating its narrative and design practices within a broader cultural and commercial context. Its findings are conceptual and illustrative rather than quantitative, and its aim is descriptive: to articulate how intertextual strategies operate in this body of work. The supporting sources, largely dating from 2005 to 2021, combine literary scholarship, media studies, and primary game references, reflecting an interdisciplinary approach to a medium that remains under-theorized in academic criticism.