I’ll cut to the chase: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was the highlight of Gamescom this year. There, I said it. Not that it’s a big secret, anyway. Most of all, CD Projekt Red know it, but instead of sitting back and just enjoying the warranted attention, they went all-out. Press and trade visitors were received in a lavishly decorated booth, while on the show floor thousands of t-shirts were handed out to the public. All of this despite the fact that there isn’t even a release date yet except “sometime in 2014”. It’s a bit like celebrating your kid’s first Nobel Prize before it is even born, but as I said, they already know they’re building something impressive. I was lucky enough to take part in the presentation of a pre-alpha build and also get some alone time with Producer, Mikołai Szwed, and Studio Lead, Adam Badowski. Here’s what I learned:
CD Projekt Red will accomplish what they have been planning all along ever since the first game in the series: a story-driven game with an open world environment added on top. This wasn’t possible in Geralt’s debut due to technical limitations, Mr. Badowski explained. Assassins of Kings had its own custom engine, and the upcoming game will run on a refined version, the so-called Red Engine 3, which will finally allow for a fully explorable open world.
And what an ambitious world this is, being more than 30 times bigger than the second game’s environments. Even the starting island has more places to explore than The Witcher 2, with the freedom to visit every landmark you can see on your travels, be it the highest mountain peaks or the raging seas. You’ll be able to explore on foot, horseback, or by boat, provided the changing weather conditions allow you to venture out safely. Most RPGs have dry weather, a slight drizzle, and maybe a bit of snow. The Witcher 3 has proper storms that will make you want to run for shelter just by looking at them.
There will also be a fast travel option, which is probably much needed with a game world this huge. Incidentally, the only loading times will occur when you start the game or make use of the fast travel. If you still remember the first game’s awful loading times, this sure sounds like a blessing. The downside, of course, is that you’ll need quite a powerful machine to run The Witcher 3 in the first place. After all, as Mr. Badowski put it, CD Projekt Red wants to extend their game’s lifespan by having it still looking great five years after release.
Wild Hunt is planned as an epic conclusion to the story that was started in the first game. There were some questions left unanswered in Geralt of Rivia’s first two adventures, which The Witcher 3 will address. Slightly contradictory, no knowledge of the previous games is needed to enjoy the third one, as the story stands on its own. CD Projekt Red promises more than a hundred hours of gameplay – which are, according to Mr. Szwed, distributed evenly between the main storyline and side missions. There’s also an open world to explore, but more on that later. Amidst a war-torn country that is once again inspired by Nordic and Celtic mythology, the personal journey of Geralt is the new game’s focus. Tying up loose ends, travelling the land, and actually practicing your job as a Witcher is what you’ll be doing. And then there is of course the Wild Hunt: ghastly spectral warriors that create misery wherever they appear, and with whom Geralt has unfinished business.
From what was shown at the presentation, the side quests you might come across are more than just your average cookie-cutter RPG lollygagging. They are striving to be fully fleshed out stories in their own right which serve as distractions from your main quest and can be engaged in at your own leisure. Even the monster hunting quests aim to be more than “kill big bad creature, claim reward,” with said creatures being given ample time in the spotlight. There is always a story behind those hunts, for instance a village hiring Geralt to investigate a nearby forest after a series of mysterious deaths.
A lot of these stories present you with tough moral choices, where you have to choose the lesser of two evils. With all these shades of grey, the “right” choice might not always be the “good” one. In the previous example, those deaths were indeed caused by an evil wood spirit, a so-called Leshen. Apparently the only way to make the monster vulnerable is to sever its ties to the village, where it has marked one of the villagers. If you choose to fight the Leshen, your actions will cause the death of an innocent person. Not quite the heroic ending you were expecting, right? There is a lot of darkness in The Witcher 3; even more so than in the previous games.
Of course, watching a fully-scripted demo is not the same as playing the game yourself. The finished product will probably have a lot of downtime inbetween quests, as more tedious elements like looting, gathering herbs, and alchemy will be present once again. Filling the whole game world with enough points of interest and fleshing out those encounters is also an especially daunting task, and it is way too early to say if this goal isn’t actually too ambitious. Another miniscule niggle, which was confirmed by other people who saw the presentation, is that the combat was a bit wonky and might just be a bit too much like the flawed fighting in Assassins of Kings. But keep in mind: the demo build was an already outdated pre-alpha version, so stuff like this might get fixed in the months to come.
There were a few other questions I had about game mechanics and the future of the series. The answers, in case you are wondering, were “we don’t know yet” and “it’s too early to tell.” Fair enough, since the game is still in early alpha. We’ll have to wait a little while longer for more details. In any case, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt already looks fantastic. We shall keep a close eye on its development during the coming months. Head over to TheWitcher.com to see more of the game and sign up here to be notified of when the pre-orders start.