Why was Witcher 1's atmosphere so special?

[Phinnway]

TW1 was also a darker game than the sequels in its own way. Straight from Act: I we are dealing with a town being haunted by a ghost that is punishing them for their crimes, a city that is quarantined because of a plague, a mysterious cult that is kidnapping children, terrorists kidnapping and killing innocent people. Etc, etc, etc. The Witcher 1 was a truly dark game in its subject matter. Whereas I'd say TW2 was superficially dark most of the time. The sequels are very over-dramatic.

Also, in TW1 you felt the prejudice against Witchers much stronger than you did in the sequels. In TW3 it's like NPCs don't even care that you're a mutant.

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(but i'm not worried, its now modders time to make things W1 style, making it harsher experience, i have no doubt such mod will come..)

It's coming. I'm waiting to replay TW3 until this mod comes out.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

@Phinnway: I think Geralt is called a freak in TW2 a few times. No idea about TW3.

 

[gregski]

@Phinnway: I think Geralt is called a freak in TW2 a few times. No idea about TW3.

Among NPC chatter you can hear city guards saying "Crawl back under your rock" with total disdain(just one example).

 

[rivian-peasant]

It was a labor of love and not catering to the biggest buyers market on the planet.

After becoming popular and GOG took off all that changed and CDP had to grow up fast.

I think they still do a good balancing act in trying to hold on to own originality/creativity compared to other competers but yes they are becoming more mainstream.

Eventually the bigger they become the more mainstream and it is all about money.

Are you sure you're talking about CDPR??? the one who released 10 free dlcs and 2 expansions among them 1 as big as a AAA rpg let alone its price "20$"....this is just a stupid statement I'm pretty sure you didn't know all that

 

[KlimV]

Are you sure you're talking about CDPR??? the one who released 10 free dlcs and 2 expansions among them 1 as big as a AAA rpg let alone its price "20$"....this is just a stupid statement I'm pretty sure you didn't know all that

He is correct. They luckily still hd a big focus on writing and sidequests, but on top of that they had to add a completely pointless open world where you check off samey locations, just to be able to draw enough casuals in to pay for their vastly oversized dev team.
I expect them to go full Skyrim with Cyberpunk 2077

 

[Riven-Twain]

Practising necromancy on an old thread for a thoroughly off-topic conversation? Hmmm. Nay, sorry, the gates are shut, and the bolts are drawn fast. Closed.