The Witcher 3 Announced, Hinted for Next-Gen Consoles
Fans of the Witcher book series will probably find Wild Hunt more to their liking.
Fans of Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher book series may find CD Projekt RED's latest entry into their videogame adaptations The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt more to their tastes than the game's predecessors. Wild Hunt will deal with a Geralt with his memory restored and much more interested in journeying The Continent rather than getting caught up in political intrigue.
To match the shift in Geralt's hobbies, CD Projekt's changed up gameplay significantly. Unlike the linear, story-driven experiences that were the original two games, Wild Hunt will be an open world affair. The map of the world is expansive: CD Projekt claims it to be 20% larger than Skyrim's. More impressively, the game will feature no loading screens, as it's running on CD Projekt's new CDRED Engine 3.
Though Wild Hunt will be less story-driven, CD Projekt is still devoting work to generating over 100 hours of scripted quests. Completing major plotlines will have consequences on the game, though they won't be quite as drastic as in The Witcher 2. Areas may be left abandoned or allies may join you, depending on your choices.
Apparently, upon retaining his memory, Geralt is leaving behind his womanizing ways. The main "storyline", if you will, of Wild Hunt will be to pursue a romance. Chasing Geralt's lady love is the only way to "finish" the game, so the sexually explicit trading cards indicating each of Geralt's sexual trysts will not be featured in this game.
Combat in Wild Hunt has been drastically improved. As would be expected of a witcher, should Geralt know more about a monster, he'll better be able to identify the monster's weak points. To keep combat animations fresh, CD Projekt has given Geralt over 96 different of them—compared toThe Witcher 2's 20—making it difficult for players to see the same animation twice in succession. Unfortunately, the one worrying part about the combination of combat and open world gameplay with Wild Hunt is that enemies don’t scale with the player, meaning that certain areas will be left unexplored until late game stages.
CD Projekt's made no announcements as to platforms Wild Hunt will release on. Both The Witcher and The Witcher 2 touched down on PC, so it's hard to imagine that the developer won't go for a three-peat. The developer also mentioned that it would be hitting "all top-of-the-line" consoles, which could indicate next-generation consoles.
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Catherine Cai was a freelance news writer for Tom's Hardware. She covered a variety of tech industry news, ranging from PC components to PC and console gaming.
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wanderer11 I'm glad the enemies won't scale to my level. That makes exploring exciting knowing I could run into something that will one hit me.Reply -
dkjedi ReplyUnfortunately, the one worrying part about the combination of combat and open world gameplay with Wild Hunt is that enemies don’t scale with the player, meaning that certain areas will be left unexplored until late game stages.
I will buy this game just because of this. I love the fell of danger when you know you can't kill everything. -
namtrooper I agree with wanderer11. Since Oblivion I've never enjoyed it when enemies scale with you. It made all your hard earned equipment feel rubbish. Besides I love exploring areas which might be extremely dangerous. Makes you actually remember the location to explore it later in search for.... treasure or whatever. As for extremely large open worlds? If they could keep the environment as beautiful and detailed as in Witcher 2 I don't mind. But I hope it doesn't water down the story.Reply -
I agree about no auto-scaling enemies, it's terrible to do that.Reply
Add to this, please:
-Don't obsess over making it "mature" (read: "immature") and super hard-boiled to the point where the storyline is a complete turnoff, particularly when it comes to violence against women - I get it: it's ugly, and as such it is Not Entertaining In My Games, even if you give it proper treatment and emphasis in the story. Being in my early 30s, the increasing presence of these themes in games makes me uncomfortable and want to stop playing altogether.
-Don't let the console world ruin the gameplay and open-world feel (invisible barriers, over-scripted interactions, poor and unresponsive controls that cannot be configured, inbalanced gameplay, poor menus and cumbersome interfaces with zero feedback).
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fulle I'm also of the opinion that an open world that does NOT scale with the player's level is superior to one that does. Although I liked Skyrim's balanced approach to the problem, there's many games where no scaling works well, like Monster Hunter, as a random example. I'm confident that CD Projekt will get it right for their game.Reply
What I am disappointed about, though, is... No more womanizing?! *sigh* Really?! -
tech4 Reply10433273 said:Unfortunately, the one worrying part about the combination of combat and open world gameplay with Wild Hunt is that enemies don’t scale with the player, meaning that certain areas will be left unexplored until late game stages.
I will buy this game just because of this. I love the fell of danger when you know you can't kill everything.
Agreed. This is a problem with scaling both ways too, I don't want the strongest creatures roaming right outside of every town just because I gained a few levels and I don't want some Undead Wasteland to be filled with deer and bunnies just because I decide to go exploring early in the game. -
blackjackcf BigMack70Why would it be? Both TW1 and TW2 were PC games first, and I can't imagine TW3 turning into a crappy console port...Reply
I can't see that happening. CD Projekt RED's been PC-first about its games in the past. And with The Witcher 2's port to Xbox 360, the developer took months to retool the entire game to be fit for consoles. I don't see them getting sloppy here. :)
- Catherine Cai