The Witcher 3

[LoweGear]

Kotaku: The Witcher 3 Announced, First Artwork Revealed

IGN: The Witcher 3 is Official

Originally Posted by IGN

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has been revealed, appearing on the cover of the next issue of Game Informer.

The issue is available to digital subscribers now, ahead of the expected February 5 announcement CD Projekt RED teased in mid-January.

The head of CD Projekt RED, Adam Badowski, says that The Witcher 3 will release on, as Game Informer puts it, all top of the line consoles and PC in 2014. This seems to suggest The Witcher 3 will be looking beyond the current crop of consoles, especially as the magazine cites it as "a next generation RPG" on the cover.

According to Game Informer the open world in The Witcher 3 is 30 times larger than the previous game, which will make it even bigger than Skyrim.

Free expansion packs will release after the launch of Wild Hunt next year, akin to The Witcher 2's continuous, free post-release support.

Wild Hunt isn't broken up into acts, as the REDengine 3 permits the exploration of a vast, open-world without loading screen interruptions. Enemies won't scale to Geralt's level, though, so you can wander into territory filled with too-tough monsters who will wreck our intrepid hero. Along the way, you can expect to encounter friendlies and enemies in a dynamic world affected by unpredictable weather, including randomly generated storms, and water physics while sailing.

Fast travel is a go, and Geralt can mount horses for both transportation and combat.

Geralt will play the part of monster-hunter and detective throughout his quests, which developer CDP claims will occupy more than 100 hours of players' time. He'll have almost five times the amount of unique character animations, too.

Each new area of the game – Skellige, the metropolis of Novigrad, and "No Man's Land" – has its own story. Non-linear storytelling with branching paths dictates that avoiding the central plot of seeking out Geralt's lost love, Triss Merigold, will have ramifications.

In combat, you can interrupt attack animations to dodge or block, which depletes stamina. Dodging isn't a big somersault anymore, however – Geralt pivots to evade attacks while maintaining the momentum of a fight. Enemy AI has been retooled as well, and quick-time events are out entirely.

On February 1 CD Projekt RED announced it had a new version of the REDengine, unsurprisingly dubbed REDengine3, which was described as being created for, "RPGs set in vast, open worlds with improved tools for spanning truly non-linear stories that are based on real player choices and consequences.”

30 times larger! 30 times more adventure! 30 times more sexcapades-

*SHOT*

And while not a proper trailer per se, we do have a video of CDProjekt talking about the game here:

YouTube

https://youtu.be/8gIsYuPIKco

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[Flying Dagger]

Sounds like dark soul's combat system!
Cannot wait!
Shut up and take my money!

[LoweGear]

More features here:

Gaming Everything: Witcher 3 confirmed, is next-gen, featured in Game Informer.

Originally Posted by Gaming Everything

Update 2: We’re adding in our own details from the magazine as well. Keep checking back for more.

- The team felt it missed the huge freedom of open-world games like Skyrim
- Proper mounted combat still being tested
- Currently not a definite part of the game
- Horses will be in, though, since they’re important for navigation
- Ships float on the water in true physics interactions
- Team has doubled in size
- No chapters, acts, or any artificial break-points
- Geralt can seamlessly cross from one end of the world to the other thanks to REDengine 3
- No loading screens while traveling in the open world
- Can explore on foot, by horseback, and via boat
- Pursue yor long-lost love, play the game of empires on behalf of the northern kingdoms that still claim independence, and thwart the nefarious Wild Hunt
- Fast travel: instantly revisit any discovered location
- Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz: “A huge goal is to keep the high quality o four quests, with all the cinematics and impressive events and moments.”
- Point of interest will always be in sight
- Players will be beckoned to explore dank caves, embattled villages, decaying ruins, etc.
- Over 100 hours of hand-scripted quests
- Quests: help villagers, engineer the succession of the Skellige kings, etc.
- Use monster hunting for adventure, incoming, and unique rewards
- There are mini-games based on the area of the world
- Ex: Skellige has knife-throwing
- Gain exclusive rewards from mini-games
- Don’t have to complete mini-games to proceed in the story
- Monsters, bandits, traders, animals, and more will attack anyone they deem hostile
- Enemies don’t scale to the player’s level
- Slaying monsters, fighting hostile humans in the different forms they come in, collecting items, leveling up are in the game
- World 40 times larger than the last game
- Three different aspects to narration
- Lowest level: free-form activities like monster hunting, crafting, individual standalone quests
- Second step: political situation and Nilfgaardian invasion is resolved through the core plotline of the major areas (Skellige, Novigrad, No Man’s Land)
- Each land has its own storyline
- Can abandon the storyline, but will have repercussions later
- Not doing a plotline is a choice the player has
- Main narrative: search for Geralt’s loved ones and conflict with the Wild Hunt
- Multiple branches of narratives that feed into each other
- Don’t have to do anything outside the main storyline to beat the game
- Could have help in a main-line encounter from an ally you gained in the Skellige archipelago if you’ve completed certain quests in certain ways
- Major events in the main storyline are “gates” for the state of the world
- Ex: village threatened by bandits might be abandoned after certain events if the player doesn’t help
- Weather effects are dynamically generated and fully modeled as real volumetric clouds rather than being simply painted on the skybox
- In contrast to the last game, Geralt encounters communities and individuals with monster-related problems that need solving
- There aren’t contract-like assignments this time
- Press the left trigger to turn on Geralt’s witcher senses
- Can glean information from a crime scene upon discovering it
- Within range of a scene of interest, the mechanic conveys clues to the player through the witcher muttering to himself and/or visual depictions of past events that represent Geralt’s reasoning
- Time of day and other conditions determine where monsters appear and their abilities
- Can strike critical areas in combat based on how much you learn about monster anatomy and tactics
- The team is deciding between using a handful of in-combat special moves for particular attacks and a slow-motion quick-time event style
- Monsters you defeat leave otherwise unobtainable alchemical and crafting ingredients needed for making of unique items, potions, mutagens
- These allow Geralt to gain special powers and upgrades in the new mutation development tree
- These kills serve as the witcher’s primary method of income
- Moving more toward romance and away from shallow sexual encounters
- “We want to treat it maturely like we did in The Witcher 2. We are not bringing sex cards back.”
- Witcher 3 doesn’t have completely different environments based on singular choices due to the open world, but there are similarly impactful decisions
- You’ll be involved with mutually exclusive storylines and situations based on certain momentous choices
- Won’t be on the same level as Witcher 2, however
- Game mechanics based on previous games, but the team is revisiting many details
- Backward difficulty curve being addressed
- Reworking the flow of combat
- 96 animations for Geralt’s combat moves (last game had 20)
- Game has a “weighting” system for the camera to help keep the biggest threats in frame at all times
- Combat system: three big changes to solve the problem of being locked into long animations
- Every button press mapped to a single strike
- Each move takes a roughly equivalent time to perform
- Can always interrupt your current action to immediately dodge or block
- Can block/dodge when out of stamina, but you’ll be staggered
- Team wants to make the combat “more intimate”
- “You don’t run – in the Witcher 2 you were running constantly. You walk, but your attacks are very fast. Your opponents also walk but they have charges and things like that.”
- Geralt’s dodge roll replaced by a pivot move
- It retains its defensive utility without game-breaking mobility
- Attacks faster than in The Witcher 2
- Enemy AI completely rebuilt
- No scripted boss encounters
- One boss: ice giant
- Roughly a dozen types of interactive objects
- Ex: Can irritate a wasp with the telekinetic Aard sign to make a damaging distraction for his foes and disperse the swarm with the fiery Igni sign once the wasp swarm becomes a problem
- Magical signs are retooled
- Each of the five signs has a basic form such as Igni’s new flamethrower effect
- If the player advances down the magic tree as Geralt levels up, can unlock a second form of the sign
- For Igni, would unlock a 360-degree blast that immolates anything close
- Yrdren’s small trap can be changed into a bigger field that slows enemies
- Player retains the use of the basic form
- Other two trees are based on swordsmanship and alchemy
- Swordfighting: can unlock new strikes and boosts such as improved stamina and parrying
- Alchemy: mutation mechanic moved off to a separate development path, independent of the level-up process
- Alchemy specialization is based more on potions
- Improvements available for the horse and boat
- These aspects are still in development
- One idea: players could access their long-term storage stash from their horse as well as from inns
- Team knows about frustrating inventory management in Witcher 2
- Crafting still important for enhancing Geralt’s capabilities
- Can customize crafted items
- Some components are can be substituted for similar things
- Ex: monster scales instead of leather in a piece of armor
- This affects the properties of the final item
- Can find unique components as part of monster hunts or questlines
- Combine these with special recipes to make artifacts of immense power
- Each armor piece has a unique appearance
- Armor has improved presentation and new cloth simulation
- Can visit a barber to change Geralt’s hairstyle

NO SEX CARDS WHY- *is shot*

Well, that scene in TW2 made up for the lack of cards, and I'm not opposed to more romance in the series. Also, if they can properly implement all of these, they'll blow Skyrim outta the water into outer space

[Om Nerabdator]

so triss is kidnapped again god shes useless or the writers are. come up with something original for a change

[Ak3mi]

One boss: ice giant

What does that mean...hmmmmm

Enemy AI completely rebuilt

I thought the AI was pretty smart. I had a lot of trouble at the end of the game.

[RWBladewing]

quick-time events are out entirely

^ There are very few things that make me happier than reading this, in regards to any game.

Really liked Witcher 2 and this seems like it will be addressing the few issues I did have with it so I am definitely on board.

[Tyabann]

Statements like "thirty times bigger" always make me really suspicious since all they end up meaning is that it takes longer to get from place to place, not that there is actually any more content than there would have been otherwise.
Furthermore, I feel that this game would have had to have 5+ years of development behind it to reach the level they're claiming it's at...

[LoweGear]

Not the most informative teaser, but here's one for it:

YouTube

https://youtu.be/fo4KrFO4nN8

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[Edge Meltdown]

Ugh... It looks like I'm gonna need a huge upgrade in my PC to play this game when it comes out... Anyways, I never watched the tv version of this series but if I'm reading it right, it looks like we'll be able to see Yennifer/Jennifer in the third installment since they only mentioned her name couple of time in the game.

A rugged Geralt, eh? he looks kinda dapper with that look

[-Sho-]

*Shed some tear*

Can't wait.. with Cyberpunk , CD Projekt the best !

Well , i'll have the time to upgrade my PC

Damn travel with boat , i want to see it !!

[Alchemist007]

Should be awesome.

[Ak3mi]

Yup upgrade for PC's all around, unless you're gpu is brand new, then you may have a chance to run it on high settings. Will have to see

[LoweGear]

Images

My PC is gonna need some serious UPGRADES

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[Flying Dagger]

oh wow this looks better than skyrim :O

I am not really big into those "30x" bigger world claims. I rather have a smaller, denser, quality world than a wide world with barely any interactions with the citizens.

[LoweGear]

About the screens:

Originally Posted by Dangerman

CD Projekt RED has provided the screenshots you see here from its current in-game assets running on its Internal PC development hardware. However, the renderer - the part of the engine that translates the game files into what you ultimately see on screen - is still in development and will boast significant improvements by the time The Witcher 3 ships. "Right now you see the game in the old renderer, but it's going to be taken to a truly next level," says gameplay producer Marek ZSiemak. In particular, the developers tell us that skin shaders and the dynamic lighting model will be markedly more advanced in the final version.

[DarkSkiper]

Shit just got real! :O

It's thanks to games that computers are improving everyday.

[Ak3mi]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/02/06/th...-witcher-sale/

More information on Witcher 3 by PC Gamer.

[Alchemist007]

Man you guys talk like you've never ran Witcher 2 on your computers before. I doubt it's going to be that much more overkill. If you could run that high-max, you should be fine I would think. The only other great difference I could see being included is draw distance, and that varies.

[SaintessHeart]

The guy in the cape. Is he Vesemir?

Goodness, I hope they bring more insight into the different witcher schools. Would be nice to see non-wolf witchers.

[-Sho-]

Some people said that it might be Ciri.

Anyway , those pics are fabulous ! Specially the sea with the whale !