The Witcher developers (CD Projekt Red) had a 70 minute interview session recently, and one dedicated Witcher fan has translated some of the most important points from Polish to English:
- there are many different types of additional weapons that you can pick up. What’s interesting, you need a higher level in order to be able to use it
- weapons (including swords) will not last forever and can be destroyed if used too much. You need to regularly pay a visit to a craftsman to maintain it
- HUD is very customizable. There are several options available, including turning off minimap and all sorts of notifications if you so desire
- all graphical settings are present in the in-game menu
- enemies will parry crossbow’s bolts with a shields
- skill tree is really massive. There are 5 trees (according to witchersite there was 4, so I’m not sure who is closer to the truth), each has 5 tiers and each tier contains 5 skills. Every skill has 3 or 4 levels to unlock. Even though later Geralt will gain more skill points per level it’s still will be impossible to unlock all of it
- after unlocking the skill it needs to be activated. You do that by putting it into separate tree, which contains a limited number of slots (it will increase with character’s progress). Activated skills affects Geralt’s fighting style. Activating set of skills from the same category will increase it’s effects. It adds another layer to preparations and tactical planning, as you have to choose an appropriate set of active skills depending on what kind of opponent you going to face (for example, if you going to fight with heavily armored knights, you can activate Igni upgrade that allows you to melt armors)
- there are also four slots for mutagens, which also affects your abilities
- temporary companions are quite helpful and even use different fighting styles. For example, one woman that accompany them waited for a right moment while enemies were focused on Geralt to backstab them for massive damage
- game is pretty difficult, as you can die even on easy if you’re not careful
- some details about dynamic weather: there will be snow, different phases of day/night, different stages of cloudiness, storms, a few types of rain and even a morning mist
- enemy AI is really good. Wolves and bandits spread to cut off all of Geralt’s escape routes. If you kill their respective leaders, they end up completely disorganized. One enemy can use himself as a living bait to give the rest of his squad a chance to put Geralt in a corner If you set up a trap or Yrden sign in front of the enemy, he will avoid it
- NPC’s models are very diverse and interior of every hut looks different, so there will be no feeling of deja vu
Personally I’m excited about all of this. A lot of the things pointed out, like enemy AI, complex skill trees, and customizable HUD are exactly the kind of thing that so many games have failed at recently, so it is nice to see Projekt Red pay attention to these areas. More importantly, they’re not just “doing more” for the sake of more content; they’re actually polishing that content so it’s good.
Gleb has been playing PC games since the late 1990s and has always enjoyed RPGs the most (Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls, WoW, Dark Souls, etc.). He had tons of fun playing Witcher 3, so he made this website for discussion, guides, and other info related to the Witcher game, books, and cinematic universe. He travels the world as a digital nomad and spends his time working on website projects, practicing kickboxing, and telling people how awesome intermittent fasting is.