The showrunner of Netflix’s The Witcher , Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, has explained the decisions behind the controversial design of the Nilfgaardian army’s armour.

The Nilfgaardian armor design in Netflix's The Witcher.

Every Monster in Season 1 of Netflix's The Witcher 12 IMAGES

The armour, first spotted in set photographs leaked months ahead of the show’s launch, is oddly shaped and covered in ‘wrinkles’. It became the subject of much online confusion and even ridicule , with many unfavorably comparing it to the designs used for the CD Projekt RED video games.Talking to IGN, Hissrich explained why the armour looks so strange. “What was important for us about the Nilfgaardian army was to bring it away from the Cintran army,” she said. “[Cintra has] an incredibly well-trained army that comes from a kingdom with a lot of money. We wanted to contrast that with Nilfgaard, which obviously is a very powerful army as well, but is moving northward and has been for a while, and conscripting new people into its army.”“[The armour had to] look like they picked it up, they did it quickly, and they put them on them. It’s not meant to have the same look as standard armour.”Producer Tomasz Bagiński noted that the Nilfgaardian army was inspired by huge historical forces, which often used quickly made, poorer-looking armour in order to protect their vast numbers of soldiers.“If the Cintran army has 200 soldiers, then [Nilfgaard] has 20,000,” he explained. “It’s about numbers, about covering other armies with people. And there were armies like that, in the history of the human race, and they were actually quite effective. But they weren’t looking great!”Bagiński also said that they wanted to make Nilfgaard feel like a strange force coming from different lands. “It was quite important to make them look alien, in a way,” he said. “They are different. It’s a huge group of people coming from the south who are almost just aliens.”For more, you can listen to the entire interview with Hissrich and Bagiński on episode 520 of the IGN UK podcast . Unfortunately if you’re looking for even more of the show, you’ll have to wait as The Witcher Season 2 is not due until 2021

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter