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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
File:TW3 Wild Hunt logo.png
Developer(s)CD Projekt RED
Publisher(s)
Director(s)Konrad Tomaszkiewicz[2]
Writer(s)Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz
Marcin Blacha
Composer(s)Marcin Przybyłowicz
Gene Rozenberg[3]
Mikołaj Stroiński
SeriesThe Witcher
EngineREDengine 3 with Umbra 3, PhysX and SpeedTree
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows
PlayStation 4[4]
Xbox One[5]
Release
  • 24 February 2015
Genre(s)Action role-playing
Mode(s)Single-player

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Template:Lang-pl) is an upcoming action role-playing video game set in an open world environment, that is currently in development by Polish video game developer CD Projekt RED. It is scheduled to be released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on 24 February 2015.[6] The game will be the third in the series, preceded by The Witcher and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, which are based on the series of fantasy novels of the same title by the Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, but take place after them.

Gameplay

The gameplay is similar to that of the previous installment. The Witcher 3 will introduce "a living open world larger than any other in modern RPG history."[7] The setting is more than "30 times larger" than previous Witcher games,[8][9] requiring players to catch a sailboat to some locations and ride by horseback to others. However, fast travelling around the areas of known locations is also possible.[7] The Witcher 3 has been described as "20% bigger than Skyrim,"[10] Each action the player does will affect the world; every quest has a plethora of options on how to complete it, and every outcome is different each time. Combat, like the second game, revolves around an action RPG system combined with the use of magic, and a recent trailer displayed that dismemberment is present in the game. CD Projekt RED anticipates approximately 100 hours for the completion of the game,[11] 50 of them belonging to side quests, and 50 belonging to the main story line.[11] The game also features a dynamic day and night system, realistic AI, responsive and dynamic environments, and much more.

In an interview back in E3 2013, the Gameplay Producer of The Witcher 3, Marek Ziemak, stated that the game will have around 80 monsters. The monsters will be unique and have their own AI, special moves and traits.[12]

The interview goes on to reveal that some monsters’ powers and abilities will also change with the day and night cycle, similarly to how a werewolf would gain powers during the night of a full moon. This is supposed to incorporate deeper gameplay mechanics when monster hunting. During the closed E3 presentation in 2013, a quest was shown to allow you to have the option to hunt a monster that seems to be terrorizing a village on many accounts, while the elder of that village claims the monster is protecting the village. You are then given the choice to hunt this monster and, if you pursue this, you will be tasked to do certain chores to weaken this monster and proceed to hunt it down. Item creation and potion brewing still remains in this iteration of the game, but has been modified drastically from The Witcher 2 to bring a better experience to players.[12]

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt also introduces some new mechanics, such as witcher sense, sea combat and horse fight, swimming underwater, and using crossbow. Additionally, Geralt can now jump, climb, and vault over smaller obstacles. The climbing mechanics have been described as "not exactly" like Assassin's Creed, but more "similar to what we have in Uncharted."[13] There are 10 witcher signs, 5 original ones, each having an alternative form along with the original ones. For traveling around the extensive world, players can use horses and boats. Geralt can even use bombs and witcher Signs when riding horses.

Plot

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt concludes the story of the witcher Geralt of Rivia, the series' protagonist, whose story to date has been covered in the previous versions.[7]

Continuing from The Witcher 2, the ones who sought to use Geralt are now gone. Geralt seeks to embark on a new and personal mission, whilst the world order itself is coming to a change.[12]

Geralt's new mission comes in dark times as the mysterious and otherworldly army known as the Wild Hunt invades the Northern Kingdoms, leaving only blood soaked earth and fiery ruin in its wake; and it seems the Witcher is the key to stopping their cataclysmic rampage

Development

The game was officially announced on 4 February 2013 via Game Informer, with a 2014 release on PC and "all high-end platforms available".[14] The latter was then clarified to mean the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One on 21 February 2013[15] and 10 June 2013[16] respectively. According to the official information from Microsoft, The Witcher 3 was originally not going to be available on the Xbox One in Poland, the country where the game's development process is taking place. However, this has recently changed as regional restrictions have been entirely removed from the Xbox One.[17]

On 11 March 2014 it was announced that the game's release date was delayed from Autumn 2014 to February 2015. According to an official statement released by the development team, they had successfully created "a story that flows naturally, cinematically, rendered it in amazing sound and visuals, while preserving full freedom of choice" - suggesting that the core game and its main story were practically finished. However, the statement then goes on to cite the main reason for the delay was manual fine-tuning of many details and thorough testing of the final product to bring it up to the desired standard of quality.[18]

Game engine

The Witcher 3 will feature the new REDengine 3 game engine, developed by CD Projekt RED and designed specifically for nonlinear role-playing video games set in vast open world environments.[19] It is supposed to help eliminate many of the game development trade-offs previous developers faced, allowing The Witcher 3 developers to create "an open environment with a complex, multi-thread story."[19] CD Projekt RED has integrated the Umbra 3 Visibility Solution into its engine to handle occlusion culling. Engineers from Umbra and CDP demonstrated the use of the technology at the Game Developers Conference 2014.[20] As in the previous two Witcher games, players are presented with a complex story featuring multiple choices bearing associated consequences. But REDengine allows for a complex story line without sacrificing the design of the virtual world.[19] Consequently, The Witcher 3 features no loading screens, providing players a vast visual environment that allows players to freely explore and roam.[19]

Reception

The Witcher 3 has won several awards at E3 in both 2013 and 2014. The title was also voted as 'best role-playing game' at the Best of E3 Awards conducted by IGN consecutively in 2013 and 2014.[21][22] Furthermore, the Witcher 3 won IGN's E3 People's Choice Award in 2013 and 2014, and won Gamespot's E3 People's Choice Award in 2014. [23][24]

References

  1. ^ "NAMCO BANDAI to promote The Witcher 3 in Australia and New Zealand". CD Projekt RED. 16 January 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
  2. ^ MacDonald, Keza (27 March 2013). "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is "The Next Step for RPGs"". IGN. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  3. ^ Hanson, Ben (25 February 2013). "The Music Of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt". Game Informer. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  4. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (21 February 2013). "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt confirmed for PlayStation 4 in 2014". Eurogamer. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
  5. ^ Purchese, Robert (10 June 2013). "The Witcher 3 confirmed for Xbox One, has optional Kinect commands, SmartGlass stuff". Eurogamer. Retrieved 10 June 2013.
  6. ^ Grubb, Jeffrey (5 June 2014). "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt gets official release date". VentureBeat. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
  7. ^ a b c Purchese, Robert (4 February 2013). "Screenshots of next-gen RPG The Witcher 3. Update: It won't be the final Witcher game". Game Informer. Retrieved 15 April 2013.
  8. ^ Biessener, Adam (4 February 2013). "March Cover Revealed: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt". Game Informer. Retrieved 22 February 2013.
  9. ^ Kain, Eric (5 February 2013). "'The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt' Bigger Than Skyrim, 30 Times The Size Of 'The Witcher 2". Forbes. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
  10. ^ "GS News - The Witcher 3 set to be 20% bigger than Skyrim". GameSpot. February 5, 2013. Retrieved April 15, 2013.
  11. ^ a b Karmali, Luke (25 October 2013). "The Witcher 3 to Have Over 100 Hours of Content". IGN. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  12. ^ a b c WaSaBe (15 June 2013). "The Witcher 3 interview with gameplay producer (E3 2013)". GameOverviews. Retrieved 20 March 2014.
  13. ^ http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-12-the-witcher-3-the-skyrim-debate-the-game-on-ps4-nuggets-of-clarification-and-a-whiff-of-multiplayer/>
  14. ^ Biessener, Adam (4 February 2013). "March Cover Revealed: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt". Game Informer. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  15. ^ Kato, Matthew (21 February 2013). "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Confirmed For PlayStation 4". Game Informer. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  16. ^ Marchiafava, Jeff (10 June 2013). "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Coming To Xbox One". Game Informer. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  17. ^ Usher, William (13 June 2013). "The Witcher 3 not on Xbox One in Poland". Cinemablend. Retrieved 13 June 2013.
  18. ^ The Board of CD Projekt SA (11 March 2014). "Release Date of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – An Open Letter". CD Projekt. Retrieved 28 April 2014.
  19. ^ a b c d "Press release posted to IGN forums". Projekt RED. 1 February 2013. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  20. ^ Lillah, Sarmad (11 April 2014). "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is using Umbra 3". SegmentNext. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
  21. ^ http://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/06/11/igns-best-of-e3-2013-awards?page=5
  22. ^ http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/06/12/igns-best-of-e3-2014-awards?page=3
  23. ^ http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/06/16/e3-2014-whats-your-best-game-of-show
  24. ^ http://www.gamespot.com/peopleschoice/
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