WWW.WITCHERSITE.PL hands-on impressions translation [very insightful material]
So, after several hours of translation here it is - the most insightful material about the Witcher hands-on impressions I had pleasure reading so far.
It was posted yesterday on www.witchersite.pl and @Lukas77PL was kind enough to agree to this translation. Also, kudos for those guys for the great work they've done!!!
A few disclaimers:
(…)
Just before putting my hands on The Wild Hunt I met Marcin Momot, CDPR Community Manager, for the first time in my life. It was him that invited us to the event. We hastily exchanged a few sentences during which he came off as a really nice person, bringing a family atmosphere into the team. At the end he said something like “each time I play it I’m impressed” while we were leaving to play the game. I left it without a comment and decided to be even more watchful, as I often encountered such marketing talk in my life. How astonished I was several minutes later…After 3 hours spent with the game I can confidently say that it was no cheap marketing talk but an honest reflection regarding the upcoming adventures of the White Wolf
Moving on the topic at hand, I had a pleasure to play the Polish version of The Witcher 3 on PC for the next 3 hours. I tested the prologue. The game starts with the recently released “World of the Witcher” trailer, but instead of a narrator’s voice I heard some gibberish through the headphones. After starting a new game from menu it happened again. After about 10 minutes I reported the problem to one of the REDs reps standing nearby and after exchanging the headphones the issue was gone. I started my adventure with the Witcher anew, quickly forgetting about the negative first impression.
I’ll start with what’s most important in The Witcher 3 – its story. But to avoid spoiling the plot so you can experience it yourself I will describe the emotions that accompanied me during experiencing it while at the same time mentioning that I’m a rather sensitive person.
First, as a fan of Sapkowski’s work that read the whole Witcher saga(including the short stories) 5 times I had been surprised and was ultimately shocked, while being left breathless and enchanted later At one moment I had tears in my eyes while I was looking at the enormity of violence, face of death, after a few seconds the Wild Hunt appeared on the scene. Their emergence can be best described as a horror – I was scared even more than when I watched „Scream” in middle school at night. Without a doubt the story presented in The Witcher 3 is simply unearthly emotive. The effect is intensified by a top class cinematic way of leading the plot that is unprecedented in games so far. Believe me that after plugging your PC to the TV no movie or series will be a match the third part of White Wolf’s adventures.
Apart from the main plot the sidequests are also interesting. Not to give away the story details I will broadly outline one of the side missions I had a chance to play. Geralt enters a hut of one of the main NPCs and sees a wounded young girl lying in the bed. It turns out that she has been attacked by a monster and death is near. White Wolf has a chance to save her with his Swallow potion. He has a chance because it may as well turn out to be deadly for an ordinary human. This trivial but engaging task is a natural tutorial for alchemy. How this medical experiment turns out – that I won’t spoil, of course! Anyway, the most important thing here is that I had the impression of the script being consistent and not farfetched at the same time – everything seems to be entwined naturally.
Both books and games about the White Wolf are famous for interesting characters. After 3 hours of playing The Witcher 3 I am sure that this title will not only avoid being a shame to the brand in this regard but that it can downright surpass everything it has done so far. I saw Yennefer just for a moment…and she looks stunning. When it comes to Geralt my first experience with him was unfortunately tragic because I got the impression that the creators…depilated his legs in Wild Hunt. I know that we live in times that we live in but have mercy! Can you imagine Kmicic, Jacek Soplica or Wokulski(Polish literature heroes) had depilated legs!? I can’t. This has to be absolutely corrected. Luckily, apart from that Geralt is just like we know him – a seemingly cold and brittle cynic, sensitive and tender inside. The witcher veteran Vesemir left really good impression, perfectly fitting the game’s atmosphere. When it comes to vampire Regis being present in the game, the creators neither confirm nor deny. They only say as if some people saw him in the Sword of Destiny trailer.
Aside from the characters known from the books those created by CDPR’s writers are also extraordinary. For example, in one tavern I met Dandelion’s ballads aficionado that was also…Geralt’s fan. The forest ranger, by contrast, considers himself as “different” but he doesn’t want to give away why. Only after our Whitehaired Witcher understandingly says that “he is different too”, that guy turns out to be…gay. I’ll leave that without a comment however as I said – the characters we meet in the game are extraordinary and can surprise us while we get to know the game better.
The storytelling is top notch too. And by that I don’t only mean Dandelion the Bard as a narrator with cutscenes in the background that we come to know from The Witcher 2. I was utterly impressed by the way the political situation is outlined during the horse ride with Vesemir. Together with the hard-to-define Slavic character of the game’s world, ruled by mean people and filled with disdain but also…true love, filling some hearts and able to work wonders, it all makes you teary-eyed while you experience the story. And while we’re talking character of the game – I am pleased to inform that The Witcher 3 is closer to The Witcher 1 in this regard. Getting to know the game makes you think and reflect upon things…At the same time, just like in previous installments, the game is not shy when it comes to humour and pop culture, history and other literary work references. For example, I was really skeptical about the crossbow, but it is introduced in such a way in the game that there’s no way you can bitch about it.
Of course I saw only a small fragment of the whole story during my 3 hours with the game. It says a lot about the size of The Witcher 3, as most probably I would already experience quite a bit of the story if I played another title in such pace.
If I already mentioned the story’s breadth it means it’s time to deal with second strength of the game that makes it better than the others. Of course I mean the open world. I can confirm that the prologue itself is bigger than whole Assasins of Kings! Galloping through it on Roach’s back from one end to another took me quite a few minutes. This is nothing compared to the size of the whole world, which I could imagine while analyzing the game’s map. The Witcher 3 looks like GTA set in Medieval times. I can downright bet that the main quest will easily last for 30-40 hours(CDPR says it’s more). I could test 2 locations – White Orchard, located in No Man’s Land where the prologue takes place and Skellige Islands. However, I became so drawn in that eventually I explored only the first location. The story is really absorbing. Luckily, Lucas also played in jarl’s Crach an Craite’s homeland, so you can read his coverage to find out if it’s as good as the Slavic White Orchard.
Contrary to what has been announced – the game’s world is not open from the very beginning(passages to other locations are closed by war blockades). Instead, access to next fragments will be unlocked along with our progress of the story – like in GTA series. However in any given moment we will be able to get back to all the places we visited previously. Initially it seemed to me as a departure from the open world promise given to the players, but confronting it with the vastness of prologue alone I cannot consider it as anything being lost. For those still anxious about it let me say that the TW3’s initially closed world is bigger than many other title’s open world’s.
Generally the gameplay in The Wild Hunt gets as close as possible to the first 2 games from Gothic series with all its advatanges and disadvantages. When it comes to the former, the game’s world is stunningly natural and believable; it simply lives. All those fields, meadows, forests, hills – in other words, all those bucolic landscapes gracing our eyes are as beautiful as Soplicowo from
Before I go into my specific impressions of playing The Witcher 3 on Sony’s console, where I will relate to every possible area of the game let me get the most disputable thing out of the way – the graphics. For starters it’s worth to straighten out on very important thing. I mean that if someone thinks that the console version of the game will work on minimum specs is deeply wrong, and if on the other hand someone fantasizes about high to ultra, then they’re deeply wrong too. The way things look it is hard to define the graphical option on consoles(from talking to a person playing on Xbox One I found out that it’s identical there). It can be clearly seen that it’s a mixture of many different graphical levels – there are moments where it shows that the developers had to reach a compromise, but there are also those when you want to say – “hats off, dear REDS!”
But enough of that secretiveness – it’s time to put the cards on the table and relate in detail to certain elements of the game’s graphics.
The PS4 version of the game I played was running in 1080p, 30 FPS. First that draws your attention are character models that make your jaw hit the floor. You can notice every detail of the eyes, every single hair on the White Wolf’s face, wrinkles on the faces or very nicely done hair – that of course concerns every character I met in the game unless they didn’t have wrinkles. In this aspect games like Middle Earth:Shadow of Mordor, Dragon Age:Inquisition or even new GTA are being left behind and if I was to make any comparisons it would be Infamous:Second Son or its standalone add-on First Light – the level is very similar. When it comes to armour elements attention to smallest details can be noticed too – light reflexes; small shimmering metal elements; realistic material textures like leather, wood, metal or cloth fabric.
It all looks great during exploration, however not everything works perfect. From time to time – especially during gallop while horse riding – you can see objects being loaded. It’s not instrusive, the draw distance is really huge and it looks good and aforementioned pop-up applies mostly to vegetation elements. I mean bushes appearing several dozen meters ahead or some small trees. Vegetation however is so rich and dense that sometimes we won’t even notice. You can’t deny it happens but I’ll just mention that if we compare this to the really irritating object loading in GTA V on the same console – it’s better in the Witcher 3. Sometimes, especially when we die, the loading screens take a while but that shouldn’t be a problem as they are not present during the actual gameplay.
Going back to vegetation it should be noted that it’s one of the weakest points of the console version, although it depends on circuimstances and another factor. By that I pertain to its(the vegetation) amount, as it is simply everywhere. The locations designer by the REDs teem with numerous woodlets, big and dense forests, orchards, farming fields and even small gardens by the peasants huts where we’ll find some flowers. There’s a lot of this stuff and it doesn’t always go in pair with high level of detail and here I mean mostly grass – the rest turns out pretty good. The overall impression however is made better by weather effects and physics. When vegetation so lush dances in the wind it looks marvelous, intensifies the immersion and makes us experience it differently. As far as physics is concerned, the undergrowth is not indifferent and immovable of course when we scramble through tchem and there’s always something bending or being trampled by a Witcher’s boot.
Another thing are textures, which are a mixed bag. Worry not however, there’s no pixelitis on the screen, unless there are situations when something doesn’t load, mostly while transitioning from a cutscene to quick action. Texture quality is decent and high resolution adds its 2 cents. Of course, it’s not all as sharp as in the PC version that I got to play a dozen or so minutes before the presentation end, but the difference is not as big as one would expect.
Coming slowly to the end of the subject that can cause a mutiny and uprising I would like to mention other aspects of graphics that TW3 boasts on PS4. Everything about the water looks awesome – the river is natural, underwater sights are wonderful and a pleasure to explore; wet surfaces look, well…like wet surfaces. Additionally, when we go out of the water to the shore we can observe Geralt being really wet, as drops and small streams are going down his face and armour elements even reflecting in the sun.
However, there’s another element that - among the overall „mid-to-high” graphical fidelity -evoked a feeling of total wonder and brought back nice memories from a beloved game that I spent a lot of time with a few years ago. It’s about the graphical arrangement of shining sun – the effects simply brings you to your knees. Sun beams literally hit your eyes, go through tree branches and sometimes can even blind you with their intensity. During a chat with Tadek Zielinski in the studio’s cantine Far Cry 2 from 2008 was mentioned when this subject was brought up. I have a lot of fond memories of that game and its upgraded showcase being present in the Witcher 3 gave me a really pleasant feeling. Traveling through wilderness on Roach’s back in the glare of the sunset – that’s right, we finally live to see it and Geralt needed it for a long time.
To end this part of the article I would like to talk about fluidity, playability and overall impression of experiencing the console version of TW3 based on strictly technical issues. The game doesn’t suffer from noticeable frame rate drops, at least ones that would hinder the gameplay filled with moments of dynamic action. When asked, he studio rep that was watching me play for almost the whole presentation admitted that there’s a lot to fix and not everything works as it should. Possibly it’s about the larger locations because in the hub I got to play there were some little drops but in very specific moments – the aforementioned transition from a cutscene to quick action which was accompanied by textured popping in. This area of development needs some specific polishing however those were mostly 1-2 second moments. During combat or exploration almost everything works correctly and you can derive full pleasure from gameplay. From time to time there are bugs – it happened a few times but nothing totally unexpected, as even the devs knew what will happen and reacted immediately, knowing the build well. TW3 on PS4 is fully playable as of now and satisfactorily optimized although it needs a little more time to get it in order. Bugs are obvious but when it comes to graphics – it’s not bad, it can really surprise with quality at times. But due to the fact that it seems to be a mix of different graphical settings it’s a little uneven, so more time is needed to make it even according to the rule: “remove where it can’t be seen, where it can be seen – add”.
The graphics subject is behind us and one would almost want to shout “praise Melitele” as now we can take care of all the rest, and believe me – there’s a lot to write about. Announcing the further part of the article I will allow myself to quote Michael Buffer’s part when he announced the most famous boxing champions before they enter the ring: “Let’s get ready to rumble!”.
If you think you’re gonna go wild and you will just push the story forward – the game will soon show you the ground level and your own place on it. The gameplay material released so far didn’t really showcase the combat system and explain its basic mechanics.
The combat system in The Wild Hunt has been announced as revolutionary, tactical, demanding and offering a broad spectrum of possibilities. I can say with satisfaction that these are just some of its best features as guys at CDPR managed to create something that we haven’t experienced in any game so far. Despite taking inspirations from many renown franchises from other, non-RPG genres, the Witcher 3 offers something unique and so far unprecedented. At the fore there are animations that offer such a range of moves that only well trained swordsmen can pride of. It can be clearly seen that just now the skills of Maciek Kwiatkowski – the stuntman that’s with CDPR from TW1 and records moves for Geralt – has been fully used to reproduce swordsmanship essence in a video game. Each step Geralt takes, each cut, leap, pirouette or dodge are moves recreated with attention to detail and realism, underlined by natural and smooth transitions between subsequent animations.
Let’s dive deeper into the mechanics as there are plenty of topics to cover. I’ll start with a general feeling of combat, which is pleasant but also very specific. In this case we experience a certain paradox, because as we know the combat was supposed to be slower, with more walking and allowing for tactical approach. Sure, that’s how it generally plays out, but on the other hand we’re a Witcher – fast, agile and you could wonder – how can those 2 planes be accommodated in one combat system? The developers had made it. Overall controlling Geralt gives you a feeling of lightness, really big freedom and just simply incredible ease. The White Wolf is a mutant with superhuman efficiency and speed and it shows. You cannot however overdo the dancing moves between your opponents as it’s quite a skill. That’s where tactical aspects come into play which balance the combat system, giving weight and precision to Gwynbleidd’s attacks. I just have one request – do not rely on the video material that you’re about to watch as it won’t explain anything. It’s a system that you need to experience during gameplay before you make any judgements.
Not to slow down a single bit I will move on to more detailed issues. We have 2 types of attacks – fast and heavy(circle and triangle accordingly). Its main feature is obvious from the very beginning – any resemblance of the Witcher 2’s combat system is gone. Total responsiveness – which of course will get us into trouble too if we mindlessly spam the attach button. Thing is that we will experience no more TW2’s moments where even being far away from the opponent we decided to attach…and Geralt flew towards him demonstrating a whole sequence of leaps, spins and a cut in the end. These times are gone. Now Geralt will attack only when he’s in appropriate distance even though he’s a superhuman, agile mutant – because as it has been said before: one push of a button, one animation. If the old habits of TW2 come back – which happened to me, I admit – then it can look like this: Geralt will be too far away and he will cut air instead of his opponent, waiving his blade. While we’re at it I’ll mention that indeed, you can miss and it happens a lot if you don’t focus on fighting. Targeting is not as obvious as in previous installment and now we have to specify who we want to attack and even that doesn’t guarantee a successful attack. It’s still smooth and intuitive though. Of course, we’re then more prone to attacks and if one of the enemies has a ranged weapon – there’s high chance we get hit.
In melee the countering skill is also useful. To do this we hold block and wait until enemy attacks – that’s when we have to time the right moment and hit. On the released gameplay material you can notice this during the swamp fights(right after Geralt’s first meeting with the Three Witches) when Geralt breaks one of the bandit’s block with a kick, knocking his shield out and carrying out a deadly blow – that was a successful counter.
Let’s go further and stop by a sign called “Witcher signs”. If you followed the announcements you probably know that each of them will have 2 versions. Unfortunately we were only able to test those basic ones as Igni for example has its flamethrower form at the end of the Igni development tree. But what we managed to test leads to some interesting conclusions. Namely, you can be sure that every sign has its use, none gets omitted in quests and there will be no situation where you Aaard and Igni your way through the game with a little bit of Quen thrown in for good measure. The game offers such a diversity of quests that we will be downright forced to use each of the signs. Signs are chosed from the quick choice menu opened by L1 and casted by R2. Their various forms are activated by pressing or holding the button.
And then we have the dodges that the Gwynbleidd can perform. We can divide them in 2 categories. First is done by hitting the button responsible for dodging(the same as for jumping – circle) with the direction we want the Witcher to go. It gives us different forms of leaps(to the back or sideways) or pirouettes. Which form of dodge will be performed depends on Geralt actual stance, opponent placement and the overall situation we’re in. Those moves are mostly useful while fighting groups of enemies that surround us, for example one of the quest had me fighting humans, bears and a game at the same time in one of the caves in Skellige. Those moves give us a dancing-like ability to “swirl” between opponents.
Second kind of dodge moves is possible to perform by holding the block button, when Geralt takes a stance of respecting his opponents, moves cautiously, attentively and in full focus. When now a dodge putton is pressed Geralt will perform a roll in any direction given by the player(those are famous TW2 rolls but looking a lot better and incomparably more useful). They are longer, Geralt can simply dart and perform a truly spectacular leap, which together with his cat-like agility expressed by awesome animations looks totally badass. This is exactly the move that you could observe during a few second clip of a Fiend fight at the E3 2013 trailer. This move is useful first and foremost in fighting against large opponents – I used it during the demo when griffon plunged from the sky to avoid his claws, which could hurt real bad and incurred bleeding effect. In this shape the rolling hated by so many has its place – it’s not forced upon a player but has its justification among the complex fighting system. From the design perspective putting this option under the block mode was a really good idea but there’s another way to perform this move – by holding the dodge button in free combat, outside blocking.
Don’t think it’s over. Going back to the subject, now’s the time to mention all the other possibilities the combat gives us. One thing worth mentioning – during skirmishes we are absolutely free and nothing stands in our way. There are no artificial barriers and the duels are not broken down into “pseudo-arenas” without a way out. In other words the combat system is what every sandbox game’s combat system should be. If we fancy(or the situation demands it) we can resort to sprinting at any time to run away a safer distance, judge the odds better, power up the energy bar, prepare a sign(which I did often with Quen) and then start our death dance with the enemy from the beginning. I repeat – everything works as we see fit. We can fight fiercely in close quarters but nothing stops us from keeping our distance, darting in and out to bite and then again circling the opponent – The Witcher 3 really gives us opportunity to display creativity during combat.
When we talk about creativity let’s move on to another hot topic and a departed hit from The Witche forums which is crossbow. Speaking of this small controversy I have to admit that the REDs really got the nerve and know how to troll but to understand exactly what I’m talking about you have to wait until game’s release as I’m not going to spoil your fun. When it comes to this murder tool’s functionality it has to be noted that Gabriel really has its place in game’s mechanics and can save our ass in some moments. I will also mention that this small, wooden contraption gave me the most fun during the whole time with the game but I will share the details while describing the quests.
Coming back to using the crossbow, it has 2 modes of firing. First is activated by hitting the shoot button once(R1) which gives us an automatically aimed shot. Second is activated by holding another button which activates bullet time and free aim. It all works well, although needs a little getting used to, just as other layers of combat system. If you think about if it actually serves its purpose and its existence in the game makes sense, I’ll make a simple conclusion – in certain moments you really need it but of course we have a choice and can give up on it, which in turn can have consequences and make our lives more difficult. To close the issue I will mention that the basic bolts number is infinite but it doesn’t break the balance as they deal very little damage. Special bolts, found in packs of 20, are a different beast – we have to save them as they can weaken the enemy as fast as they can deplete.
I was also able to try mounted combat. Just as everything else in The Witcher 3 this aspect has also received special treatment and it offers a few options. Regarding fighting with sword there’s a slight clunkiness to this system but to be honest about this layer of mounted combat one should master it. It’s just another elaborate system that demands using a few skills at the same time and paying attention to number of factors. The basis is horse movement which offers different speeds, from a majestic walk to a wild gallop. It’s easy to guess that the stamina bar has to be monitored but that’s not all – the game included another factor that – as everything else in this monumental production – affects the gamelay. It’s the horse’s panic level bar. During a fight when the horse feels true danger it can panic and throw Geralt off his back. We can see that Roach has to be really taken care of and our actions need to be planned. I can only add that mounted combat is demanding. For example, aiming our blade during charge with high speed is cumbersome and we need a lot of precision and intuition, while our opponent will not always be positioned conveniently, which makes the matter even more complicated.
Brawling is the layer of combat that has been designed from ground up. In the demo I had a chance to fight some thugs which – as it usually happens – didn’t like the Witcher’s presence in the local tavern. When I left the cosy and atmospheric place there was a whole band already waiting for me. Fist fighting mechanics are simple and pleasant. It’s done the same way as with a sword, targeting is identical. In TW3 we can finally play out a solid and free brawl – not more cutscenes with QTEs. If I was to compare the feeling of fist fighting to another game – I think „a mix of Batman and Uncharted” is a great term.
After this long instructions about handling a blade (and not only a blade) let me make you familiar with the story issues and the whole background of the Witcher 3’s story. Worry not, you won’t find any spoilers here as I wouldn’t dare to let out anything but presenting some general information won’t hurt. Treat this paragraph as a preparation for the world and exploration description.
Let’s start with the part of the story we played at CDPR HQ. The whole prologue of TW3 has been made available to us along with one very complex quest that took place in Skellige archipelago. The prologue was set in a few different locations – each of them unique and unrepeatable – but I will mention only one of them. It’s gonna be a pretty, picturesque village called White Orchard where I spent most of my time. To be clear – we had little over 3 hours to play it all. I will also mention that this time didn’t let me play the prologue till the end, even though I tried to follow the main path. That’s a pity as I had one more location to explore. I will cover the estimations of playtime a little later as the announcements so far (50 hours for main quest and 50 hours for side missions) are not painting the actual picture of the game. Of course what I mean is that TW3 offers a lot, lot more and this is no joke as you will find out later in the article.
First thing that draws your attention and simply pours out of the screen is how cinematic the Witcher 3 is. You were able to witness only a small percent of what the game has to offer right now if you just watched the gameplay footage released so far. Compared to The Witcher 2 this is a gigantic leap and incredible progress. Cutscenes have more careful direction and are lacking the well known schemes(a few kinds of hand gestures, a walk from left to right and that’s it) – this is all past. Now, each scene is unique, appropriate to the location it takes place in; there’s always something happening and the action is packed with proper camera angles, professional role appointment between each character and cinematic tricks – when someone lets loose a mass of tumbling, raven black curls in slow motion you just know stuff like this only happens in The Witcher 3.
Camera angles are most important here – they’re dynamic, changing with action progress and usually just right for the scenery to take our breaths away. Imagine moments when the story becomes nostalgic, brings back memories, evokes reflection.
So, after several hours of translation here it is - the most insightful material about the Witcher hands-on impressions I had pleasure reading so far.
It was posted yesterday on www.witchersite.pl and @Lukas77PL was kind enough to agree to this translation. Also, kudos for those guys for the great work they've done!!!
A few disclaimers:
- I am in no means a professional translator, so sorry if it's not up to native speaker's standards. It was the longest translation I ever did here and after several hours I might have been sloppy with some of the text.
- When PC version is discussed the author says he played the game on Ultra, but that has been already corrected, the Ultra setting wasn't available at the time
- I added some spoiler tags when the article goes in depth in discussing the quests played, but the descriptions are really worth reading as they give some very detailed info about how the game plays
- I ommitted a few paragraphs about stuff not related to the preview itself just to save some time
- It's gonna be a loooong read(17 pages in Word in total) and it's divided into 2 parts as I've passed the limit of characters for post(58863 vs 40000)
REGIS – PC version impressions
(…)
Just before putting my hands on The Wild Hunt I met Marcin Momot, CDPR Community Manager, for the first time in my life. It was him that invited us to the event. We hastily exchanged a few sentences during which he came off as a really nice person, bringing a family atmosphere into the team. At the end he said something like “each time I play it I’m impressed” while we were leaving to play the game. I left it without a comment and decided to be even more watchful, as I often encountered such marketing talk in my life. How astonished I was several minutes later…After 3 hours spent with the game I can confidently say that it was no cheap marketing talk but an honest reflection regarding the upcoming adventures of the White Wolf
Bad beginnings make happy endings
Moving on the topic at hand, I had a pleasure to play the Polish version of The Witcher 3 on PC for the next 3 hours. I tested the prologue. The game starts with the recently released “World of the Witcher” trailer, but instead of a narrator’s voice I heard some gibberish through the headphones. After starting a new game from menu it happened again. After about 10 minutes I reported the problem to one of the REDs reps standing nearby and after exchanging the headphones the issue was gone. I started my adventure with the Witcher anew, quickly forgetting about the negative first impression.
- With a somersault?
- And what do you think?
- And what do you think?
I’ll start with what’s most important in The Witcher 3 – its story. But to avoid spoiling the plot so you can experience it yourself I will describe the emotions that accompanied me during experiencing it while at the same time mentioning that I’m a rather sensitive person.
First, as a fan of Sapkowski’s work that read the whole Witcher saga(including the short stories) 5 times I had been surprised and was ultimately shocked, while being left breathless and enchanted later At one moment I had tears in my eyes while I was looking at the enormity of violence, face of death, after a few seconds the Wild Hunt appeared on the scene. Their emergence can be best described as a horror – I was scared even more than when I watched „Scream” in middle school at night. Without a doubt the story presented in The Witcher 3 is simply unearthly emotive. The effect is intensified by a top class cinematic way of leading the plot that is unprecedented in games so far. Believe me that after plugging your PC to the TV no movie or series will be a match the third part of White Wolf’s adventures.
A new take on sidequests
Apart from the main plot the sidequests are also interesting. Not to give away the story details I will broadly outline one of the side missions I had a chance to play. Geralt enters a hut of one of the main NPCs and sees a wounded young girl lying in the bed. It turns out that she has been attacked by a monster and death is near. White Wolf has a chance to save her with his Swallow potion. He has a chance because it may as well turn out to be deadly for an ordinary human. This trivial but engaging task is a natural tutorial for alchemy. How this medical experiment turns out – that I won’t spoil, of course! Anyway, the most important thing here is that I had the impression of the script being consistent and not farfetched at the same time – everything seems to be entwined naturally.
What’s your story?
Both books and games about the White Wolf are famous for interesting characters. After 3 hours of playing The Witcher 3 I am sure that this title will not only avoid being a shame to the brand in this regard but that it can downright surpass everything it has done so far. I saw Yennefer just for a moment…and she looks stunning. When it comes to Geralt my first experience with him was unfortunately tragic because I got the impression that the creators…depilated his legs in Wild Hunt. I know that we live in times that we live in but have mercy! Can you imagine Kmicic, Jacek Soplica or Wokulski(Polish literature heroes) had depilated legs!? I can’t. This has to be absolutely corrected. Luckily, apart from that Geralt is just like we know him – a seemingly cold and brittle cynic, sensitive and tender inside. The witcher veteran Vesemir left really good impression, perfectly fitting the game’s atmosphere. When it comes to vampire Regis being present in the game, the creators neither confirm nor deny. They only say as if some people saw him in the Sword of Destiny trailer.
- I am looking for a woman…
- Like we all do!
- Like we all do!
Aside from the characters known from the books those created by CDPR’s writers are also extraordinary. For example, in one tavern I met Dandelion’s ballads aficionado that was also…Geralt’s fan. The forest ranger, by contrast, considers himself as “different” but he doesn’t want to give away why. Only after our Whitehaired Witcher understandingly says that “he is different too”, that guy turns out to be…gay. I’ll leave that without a comment however as I said – the characters we meet in the game are extraordinary and can surprise us while we get to know the game better.
- You have to believe in something as it doesn’t feel like living anymore…
The storytelling is top notch too. And by that I don’t only mean Dandelion the Bard as a narrator with cutscenes in the background that we come to know from The Witcher 2. I was utterly impressed by the way the political situation is outlined during the horse ride with Vesemir. Together with the hard-to-define Slavic character of the game’s world, ruled by mean people and filled with disdain but also…true love, filling some hearts and able to work wonders, it all makes you teary-eyed while you experience the story. And while we’re talking character of the game – I am pleased to inform that The Witcher 3 is closer to The Witcher 1 in this regard. Getting to know the game makes you think and reflect upon things…At the same time, just like in previous installments, the game is not shy when it comes to humour and pop culture, history and other literary work references. For example, I was really skeptical about the crossbow, but it is introduced in such a way in the game that there’s no way you can bitch about it.
Of course I saw only a small fragment of the whole story during my 3 hours with the game. It says a lot about the size of The Witcher 3, as most probably I would already experience quite a bit of the story if I played another title in such pace.
If I already mentioned the story’s breadth it means it’s time to deal with second strength of the game that makes it better than the others. Of course I mean the open world. I can confirm that the prologue itself is bigger than whole Assasins of Kings! Galloping through it on Roach’s back from one end to another took me quite a few minutes. This is nothing compared to the size of the whole world, which I could imagine while analyzing the game’s map. The Witcher 3 looks like GTA set in Medieval times. I can downright bet that the main quest will easily last for 30-40 hours(CDPR says it’s more). I could test 2 locations – White Orchard, located in No Man’s Land where the prologue takes place and Skellige Islands. However, I became so drawn in that eventually I explored only the first location. The story is really absorbing. Luckily, Lucas also played in jarl’s Crach an Craite’s homeland, so you can read his coverage to find out if it’s as good as the Slavic White Orchard.
Closed, but bigger than open anyway
Contrary to what has been announced – the game’s world is not open from the very beginning(passages to other locations are closed by war blockades). Instead, access to next fragments will be unlocked along with our progress of the story – like in GTA series. However in any given moment we will be able to get back to all the places we visited previously. Initially it seemed to me as a departure from the open world promise given to the players, but confronting it with the vastness of prologue alone I cannot consider it as anything being lost. For those still anxious about it let me say that the TW3’s initially closed world is bigger than many other title’s open world’s.
A dream game for Gothic fans
Generally the gameplay in The Wild Hunt gets as close as possible to the first 2 games from Gothic series with all its advatanges and disadvantages. When it comes to the former, the game’s world is stunningly natural and believable; it simply lives. All those fields, meadows, forests, hills – in other words, all those bucolic landscapes gracing our eyes are as beautiful as Soplicowo from
LUKAS77PL – PS4 version impressions
[/COLOR]Console version – cards on the table
Before I go into my specific impressions of playing The Witcher 3 on Sony’s console, where I will relate to every possible area of the game let me get the most disputable thing out of the way – the graphics. For starters it’s worth to straighten out on very important thing. I mean that if someone thinks that the console version of the game will work on minimum specs is deeply wrong, and if on the other hand someone fantasizes about high to ultra, then they’re deeply wrong too. The way things look it is hard to define the graphical option on consoles(from talking to a person playing on Xbox One I found out that it’s identical there). It can be clearly seen that it’s a mixture of many different graphical levels – there are moments where it shows that the developers had to reach a compromise, but there are also those when you want to say – “hats off, dear REDS!”
But enough of that secretiveness – it’s time to put the cards on the table and relate in detail to certain elements of the game’s graphics.
The PS4 version of the game I played was running in 1080p, 30 FPS. First that draws your attention are character models that make your jaw hit the floor. You can notice every detail of the eyes, every single hair on the White Wolf’s face, wrinkles on the faces or very nicely done hair – that of course concerns every character I met in the game unless they didn’t have wrinkles. In this aspect games like Middle Earth:Shadow of Mordor, Dragon Age:Inquisition or even new GTA are being left behind and if I was to make any comparisons it would be Infamous:Second Son or its standalone add-on First Light – the level is very similar. When it comes to armour elements attention to smallest details can be noticed too – light reflexes; small shimmering metal elements; realistic material textures like leather, wood, metal or cloth fabric.
It all looks great during exploration, however not everything works perfect. From time to time – especially during gallop while horse riding – you can see objects being loaded. It’s not instrusive, the draw distance is really huge and it looks good and aforementioned pop-up applies mostly to vegetation elements. I mean bushes appearing several dozen meters ahead or some small trees. Vegetation however is so rich and dense that sometimes we won’t even notice. You can’t deny it happens but I’ll just mention that if we compare this to the really irritating object loading in GTA V on the same console – it’s better in the Witcher 3. Sometimes, especially when we die, the loading screens take a while but that shouldn’t be a problem as they are not present during the actual gameplay.
Going back to vegetation it should be noted that it’s one of the weakest points of the console version, although it depends on circuimstances and another factor. By that I pertain to its(the vegetation) amount, as it is simply everywhere. The locations designer by the REDs teem with numerous woodlets, big and dense forests, orchards, farming fields and even small gardens by the peasants huts where we’ll find some flowers. There’s a lot of this stuff and it doesn’t always go in pair with high level of detail and here I mean mostly grass – the rest turns out pretty good. The overall impression however is made better by weather effects and physics. When vegetation so lush dances in the wind it looks marvelous, intensifies the immersion and makes us experience it differently. As far as physics is concerned, the undergrowth is not indifferent and immovable of course when we scramble through tchem and there’s always something bending or being trampled by a Witcher’s boot.
Another thing are textures, which are a mixed bag. Worry not however, there’s no pixelitis on the screen, unless there are situations when something doesn’t load, mostly while transitioning from a cutscene to quick action. Texture quality is decent and high resolution adds its 2 cents. Of course, it’s not all as sharp as in the PC version that I got to play a dozen or so minutes before the presentation end, but the difference is not as big as one would expect.
Coming slowly to the end of the subject that can cause a mutiny and uprising I would like to mention other aspects of graphics that TW3 boasts on PS4. Everything about the water looks awesome – the river is natural, underwater sights are wonderful and a pleasure to explore; wet surfaces look, well…like wet surfaces. Additionally, when we go out of the water to the shore we can observe Geralt being really wet, as drops and small streams are going down his face and armour elements even reflecting in the sun.
However, there’s another element that - among the overall „mid-to-high” graphical fidelity -evoked a feeling of total wonder and brought back nice memories from a beloved game that I spent a lot of time with a few years ago. It’s about the graphical arrangement of shining sun – the effects simply brings you to your knees. Sun beams literally hit your eyes, go through tree branches and sometimes can even blind you with their intensity. During a chat with Tadek Zielinski in the studio’s cantine Far Cry 2 from 2008 was mentioned when this subject was brought up. I have a lot of fond memories of that game and its upgraded showcase being present in the Witcher 3 gave me a really pleasant feeling. Traveling through wilderness on Roach’s back in the glare of the sunset – that’s right, we finally live to see it and Geralt needed it for a long time.
To end this part of the article I would like to talk about fluidity, playability and overall impression of experiencing the console version of TW3 based on strictly technical issues. The game doesn’t suffer from noticeable frame rate drops, at least ones that would hinder the gameplay filled with moments of dynamic action. When asked, he studio rep that was watching me play for almost the whole presentation admitted that there’s a lot to fix and not everything works as it should. Possibly it’s about the larger locations because in the hub I got to play there were some little drops but in very specific moments – the aforementioned transition from a cutscene to quick action which was accompanied by textured popping in. This area of development needs some specific polishing however those were mostly 1-2 second moments. During combat or exploration almost everything works correctly and you can derive full pleasure from gameplay. From time to time there are bugs – it happened a few times but nothing totally unexpected, as even the devs knew what will happen and reacted immediately, knowing the build well. TW3 on PS4 is fully playable as of now and satisfactorily optimized although it needs a little more time to get it in order. Bugs are obvious but when it comes to graphics – it’s not bad, it can really surprise with quality at times. But due to the fact that it seems to be a mix of different graphical settings it’s a little uneven, so more time is needed to make it even according to the rule: “remove where it can’t be seen, where it can be seen – add”.
The graphics subject is behind us and one would almost want to shout “praise Melitele” as now we can take care of all the rest, and believe me – there’s a lot to write about. Announcing the further part of the article I will allow myself to quote Michael Buffer’s part when he announced the most famous boxing champions before they enter the ring: “Let’s get ready to rumble!”.
The combat system
If you think you’re gonna go wild and you will just push the story forward – the game will soon show you the ground level and your own place on it. The gameplay material released so far didn’t really showcase the combat system and explain its basic mechanics.
The combat system in The Wild Hunt has been announced as revolutionary, tactical, demanding and offering a broad spectrum of possibilities. I can say with satisfaction that these are just some of its best features as guys at CDPR managed to create something that we haven’t experienced in any game so far. Despite taking inspirations from many renown franchises from other, non-RPG genres, the Witcher 3 offers something unique and so far unprecedented. At the fore there are animations that offer such a range of moves that only well trained swordsmen can pride of. It can be clearly seen that just now the skills of Maciek Kwiatkowski – the stuntman that’s with CDPR from TW1 and records moves for Geralt – has been fully used to reproduce swordsmanship essence in a video game. Each step Geralt takes, each cut, leap, pirouette or dodge are moves recreated with attention to detail and realism, underlined by natural and smooth transitions between subsequent animations.
Let’s dive deeper into the mechanics as there are plenty of topics to cover. I’ll start with a general feeling of combat, which is pleasant but also very specific. In this case we experience a certain paradox, because as we know the combat was supposed to be slower, with more walking and allowing for tactical approach. Sure, that’s how it generally plays out, but on the other hand we’re a Witcher – fast, agile and you could wonder – how can those 2 planes be accommodated in one combat system? The developers had made it. Overall controlling Geralt gives you a feeling of lightness, really big freedom and just simply incredible ease. The White Wolf is a mutant with superhuman efficiency and speed and it shows. You cannot however overdo the dancing moves between your opponents as it’s quite a skill. That’s where tactical aspects come into play which balance the combat system, giving weight and precision to Gwynbleidd’s attacks. I just have one request – do not rely on the video material that you’re about to watch as it won’t explain anything. It’s a system that you need to experience during gameplay before you make any judgements.
Not to slow down a single bit I will move on to more detailed issues. We have 2 types of attacks – fast and heavy(circle and triangle accordingly). Its main feature is obvious from the very beginning – any resemblance of the Witcher 2’s combat system is gone. Total responsiveness – which of course will get us into trouble too if we mindlessly spam the attach button. Thing is that we will experience no more TW2’s moments where even being far away from the opponent we decided to attach…and Geralt flew towards him demonstrating a whole sequence of leaps, spins and a cut in the end. These times are gone. Now Geralt will attack only when he’s in appropriate distance even though he’s a superhuman, agile mutant – because as it has been said before: one push of a button, one animation. If the old habits of TW2 come back – which happened to me, I admit – then it can look like this: Geralt will be too far away and he will cut air instead of his opponent, waiving his blade. While we’re at it I’ll mention that indeed, you can miss and it happens a lot if you don’t focus on fighting. Targeting is not as obvious as in previous installment and now we have to specify who we want to attack and even that doesn’t guarantee a successful attack. It’s still smooth and intuitive though. Of course, we’re then more prone to attacks and if one of the enemies has a ranged weapon – there’s high chance we get hit.
In melee the countering skill is also useful. To do this we hold block and wait until enemy attacks – that’s when we have to time the right moment and hit. On the released gameplay material you can notice this during the swamp fights(right after Geralt’s first meeting with the Three Witches) when Geralt breaks one of the bandit’s block with a kick, knocking his shield out and carrying out a deadly blow – that was a successful counter.
Let’s go further and stop by a sign called “Witcher signs”. If you followed the announcements you probably know that each of them will have 2 versions. Unfortunately we were only able to test those basic ones as Igni for example has its flamethrower form at the end of the Igni development tree. But what we managed to test leads to some interesting conclusions. Namely, you can be sure that every sign has its use, none gets omitted in quests and there will be no situation where you Aaard and Igni your way through the game with a little bit of Quen thrown in for good measure. The game offers such a diversity of quests that we will be downright forced to use each of the signs. Signs are chosed from the quick choice menu opened by L1 and casted by R2. Their various forms are activated by pressing or holding the button.
And then we have the dodges that the Gwynbleidd can perform. We can divide them in 2 categories. First is done by hitting the button responsible for dodging(the same as for jumping – circle) with the direction we want the Witcher to go. It gives us different forms of leaps(to the back or sideways) or pirouettes. Which form of dodge will be performed depends on Geralt actual stance, opponent placement and the overall situation we’re in. Those moves are mostly useful while fighting groups of enemies that surround us, for example one of the quest had me fighting humans, bears and a game at the same time in one of the caves in Skellige. Those moves give us a dancing-like ability to “swirl” between opponents.
Second kind of dodge moves is possible to perform by holding the block button, when Geralt takes a stance of respecting his opponents, moves cautiously, attentively and in full focus. When now a dodge putton is pressed Geralt will perform a roll in any direction given by the player(those are famous TW2 rolls but looking a lot better and incomparably more useful). They are longer, Geralt can simply dart and perform a truly spectacular leap, which together with his cat-like agility expressed by awesome animations looks totally badass. This is exactly the move that you could observe during a few second clip of a Fiend fight at the E3 2013 trailer. This move is useful first and foremost in fighting against large opponents – I used it during the demo when griffon plunged from the sky to avoid his claws, which could hurt real bad and incurred bleeding effect. In this shape the rolling hated by so many has its place – it’s not forced upon a player but has its justification among the complex fighting system. From the design perspective putting this option under the block mode was a really good idea but there’s another way to perform this move – by holding the dodge button in free combat, outside blocking.
Don’t think it’s over. Going back to the subject, now’s the time to mention all the other possibilities the combat gives us. One thing worth mentioning – during skirmishes we are absolutely free and nothing stands in our way. There are no artificial barriers and the duels are not broken down into “pseudo-arenas” without a way out. In other words the combat system is what every sandbox game’s combat system should be. If we fancy(or the situation demands it) we can resort to sprinting at any time to run away a safer distance, judge the odds better, power up the energy bar, prepare a sign(which I did often with Quen) and then start our death dance with the enemy from the beginning. I repeat – everything works as we see fit. We can fight fiercely in close quarters but nothing stops us from keeping our distance, darting in and out to bite and then again circling the opponent – The Witcher 3 really gives us opportunity to display creativity during combat.
When we talk about creativity let’s move on to another hot topic and a departed hit from The Witche forums which is crossbow. Speaking of this small controversy I have to admit that the REDs really got the nerve and know how to troll but to understand exactly what I’m talking about you have to wait until game’s release as I’m not going to spoil your fun. When it comes to this murder tool’s functionality it has to be noted that Gabriel really has its place in game’s mechanics and can save our ass in some moments. I will also mention that this small, wooden contraption gave me the most fun during the whole time with the game but I will share the details while describing the quests.
Coming back to using the crossbow, it has 2 modes of firing. First is activated by hitting the shoot button once(R1) which gives us an automatically aimed shot. Second is activated by holding another button which activates bullet time and free aim. It all works well, although needs a little getting used to, just as other layers of combat system. If you think about if it actually serves its purpose and its existence in the game makes sense, I’ll make a simple conclusion – in certain moments you really need it but of course we have a choice and can give up on it, which in turn can have consequences and make our lives more difficult. To close the issue I will mention that the basic bolts number is infinite but it doesn’t break the balance as they deal very little damage. Special bolts, found in packs of 20, are a different beast – we have to save them as they can weaken the enemy as fast as they can deplete.
I was also able to try mounted combat. Just as everything else in The Witcher 3 this aspect has also received special treatment and it offers a few options. Regarding fighting with sword there’s a slight clunkiness to this system but to be honest about this layer of mounted combat one should master it. It’s just another elaborate system that demands using a few skills at the same time and paying attention to number of factors. The basis is horse movement which offers different speeds, from a majestic walk to a wild gallop. It’s easy to guess that the stamina bar has to be monitored but that’s not all – the game included another factor that – as everything else in this monumental production – affects the gamelay. It’s the horse’s panic level bar. During a fight when the horse feels true danger it can panic and throw Geralt off his back. We can see that Roach has to be really taken care of and our actions need to be planned. I can only add that mounted combat is demanding. For example, aiming our blade during charge with high speed is cumbersome and we need a lot of precision and intuition, while our opponent will not always be positioned conveniently, which makes the matter even more complicated.
Brawling is the layer of combat that has been designed from ground up. In the demo I had a chance to fight some thugs which – as it usually happens – didn’t like the Witcher’s presence in the local tavern. When I left the cosy and atmospheric place there was a whole band already waiting for me. Fist fighting mechanics are simple and pleasant. It’s done the same way as with a sword, targeting is identical. In TW3 we can finally play out a solid and free brawl – not more cutscenes with QTEs. If I was to compare the feeling of fist fighting to another game – I think „a mix of Batman and Uncharted” is a great term.
Storyline and narrative
After this long instructions about handling a blade (and not only a blade) let me make you familiar with the story issues and the whole background of the Witcher 3’s story. Worry not, you won’t find any spoilers here as I wouldn’t dare to let out anything but presenting some general information won’t hurt. Treat this paragraph as a preparation for the world and exploration description.
Let’s start with the part of the story we played at CDPR HQ. The whole prologue of TW3 has been made available to us along with one very complex quest that took place in Skellige archipelago. The prologue was set in a few different locations – each of them unique and unrepeatable – but I will mention only one of them. It’s gonna be a pretty, picturesque village called White Orchard where I spent most of my time. To be clear – we had little over 3 hours to play it all. I will also mention that this time didn’t let me play the prologue till the end, even though I tried to follow the main path. That’s a pity as I had one more location to explore. I will cover the estimations of playtime a little later as the announcements so far (50 hours for main quest and 50 hours for side missions) are not painting the actual picture of the game. Of course what I mean is that TW3 offers a lot, lot more and this is no joke as you will find out later in the article.
First thing that draws your attention and simply pours out of the screen is how cinematic the Witcher 3 is. You were able to witness only a small percent of what the game has to offer right now if you just watched the gameplay footage released so far. Compared to The Witcher 2 this is a gigantic leap and incredible progress. Cutscenes have more careful direction and are lacking the well known schemes(a few kinds of hand gestures, a walk from left to right and that’s it) – this is all past. Now, each scene is unique, appropriate to the location it takes place in; there’s always something happening and the action is packed with proper camera angles, professional role appointment between each character and cinematic tricks – when someone lets loose a mass of tumbling, raven black curls in slow motion you just know stuff like this only happens in The Witcher 3.
Camera angles are most important here – they’re dynamic, changing with action progress and usually just right for the scenery to take our breaths away. Imagine moments when the story becomes nostalgic, brings back memories, evokes reflection.
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