If you’re a fan of CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher, oh man. You are in for a treat with the sheer amount of content on the way. There are at least six new Witcher titles in development. Admittedly, these will be spread out across a number of years but hey, they’re coming and that’s what matters.

We’ve got Polaris – the sequel to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – that will kickstart a new AAA trilogy. There’s the multiplayer title, the new Canis Majoris standalone project, plus a remake of the original The Witcher. If rumours are to be believed though, the first of these projects, Polaris, won’t land until 2025. With that in mind, many fans are revisiting the newly-updated The Witcher 3. If that’s you, you may have recently experienced one particularly heartbreaking death, but one developer is defending the narrative decision.

Warning: The Witcher 3 spoilers lie ahead. As reported by IGN, developers are defending Vesemir’s death, explaining that his demise was necessary. If you’ve played the title, you’ll know that Vesemir is Geralt’s mentor and trainer. Unfortunately for him, he meets his death pretty early on while fighting the Wild Hunt, urging Ciri to retreat to safety. Quest director Pawel Sasko admitted that while he knew Vesemir was a beloved character, the death was crucial in motivating both Ciri and Geralt.

At the Game Developers Conference, he said, “Ciri [needed] to actually make a decision that she’s not going to be hunted anymore. She’s going to be a hunter. She’s going to go after the Wild Hunt. But to do that, I needed an actual event that would break her inside, and that was the moment when I proposed to our writer’s team that we kill Vesemir.” This, of course, also prompts Geralt to seek Ciri out.

It’s not difficult to find out how much the character meant to fans. Reddit user sassywitcher wrote, “Through all my playthroughs, Vesemir’s death impacts me the most every time. I cry like a baby, no shame.” Same, my friend, same.