The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

[Gamerlord]

Well, it's been announced. Coming 2014 for PC and “all high-end platforms available”. (http://gematsu.com/2013/02/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-announced)
Not entirely sure how I feel about the open world sandbox and their claims that our choices will still have consequences, those things tend to be mutually exclusive. But if anyone can get it done right, I think it would be CD Projekt RED. It is nice to hear they are planning on fixing the reverse difficulty curve issue though, there was this one section of the final act of number 2 that I had to walk away from my mouse and keyboard in order to lose.

[Morty]

Interesting. I'm not sure how I feel about making the world larger either... the previous two games worked fine in fairly self-contained, small environments.

[DeJan]

What a nice piece of news to start the day with! Ill be upgrading my PC when this gem comes along.

[GolemsVoice]

Hmmmm. On the one hand, CD Project RED certainly has proven that they can do a good Witcher game, and good games in general, so I'm inclined to trust them here. Still, open world, I don't like it. It just tends to ruin the story for me, even if it's well done. You end up hunting for that one secret cave, travelling to unlock this village or dig up that treasure, none of which are very Geralt-y things to do. Geralt doesn't just go out into the wilderness to rescue a village or hunt some monsters, or even dig for treasure.

I'd prefer it, in the end, if they had stuck with a more closed world. Still going to buy it, for sure, though!

[laudatio]

I like the new technologies introduced by the new engine like tracking the whole world without a single loading screen.
Also, mounts for the win, no longer walking is pretty cool, I guess considering the size of the new world that is to be expected.

Anyway, it seems a good game, but I want to see the demo first, I saw so many games going wrong after their first sequel.

[Chen]

Geralt doesn't just go out into the wilderness to rescue a village or hunt some monsters, or even dig for treasure.


Wait what? Maybe not the dig for treasure part, but the going out and killing monsters bit is WHAT he does. Its what Witchers were created for. And there are plenty of random sidequests throughout the games where he's just killing monsters for a random villager.

[GolemsVoice]

Yeah, he's doing it for PAY, not out of sheer adventurous spirit, which is what sandbox games often thrive on. Geralt, in fact, does NOT care what lies around the next corner if it isn't related to his goal.

[The Succubus]

New....Witcher?


SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! <3


...ahem, now that we've got that out of the way. Seeing more of the world of Witcher can only be a positive thing, as long as the strong storylines and moral choices aren't hammered as a result. I wonder if we'll finally get to meet Yennefer. Oh, and if we could also have our results from Witcher 2 carry over, Mass Effect style, to number three that'd be fricking incredible as well. Might also be a trifle difficult depending on what you did in the final act of 2, regarding a certain party member.

[warty goblin]

Yeah, he's doing it for PAY, not out of sheer adventurous spirit, which is what sandbox games often thrive on. Geralt, in fact, does NOT care what lies around the next corner if it isn't related to his goal.

To be fair, a reasonable number of the stories in The Last Wish are basically about weird stuff that happens to Geralt on the way from A to B.


Personally I'd hope they roll with a sort of directed open world. You know, big open spaces with lots of stuff in them, but a clear narrative thrust leading from area to area in a real progression.

[GolemsVoice]

Yeah, and I'm aware that, thanks to Geralt's accursedly soft heart, he can't NOT help people and ends up frequently taking a detour much to his chagrin. That's why, actually, a world like you proposed would be a good thing, and something that CD Project seems to be aiming at.

[warty goblin]

Yeah, and I'm aware that, thanks to Geralt's accursedly soft heart, he can't NOT help people and ends up frequently taking a detour much to his chagrin. That's why, actually, a world like you proposed would be a good thing, and something that CD Project seems to be aiming at.

Directed really is my favorite sort of open world for the most part these days. Getting plunked in the middle of a chunk of geography and set loose aimlessly doesn't do much for me if the game wants to have any sort of guided narrative*, scripted quests and so on. The fact that I can just wander anywhere, do anything means the game can never get a consistent tone and sequence of events going.

So basically I hope they go more Divinity II, less Skyrim. This may be due to my ever-increasing affection for Div2 though.



*If it doesn't, like Mount and Blade, this works fine.