Eleven Things CD Projekt Needs To Do In The Witcher 3

The editors over at Strategy Informer have cranked out a list of eleven “things” that they feel CD Projekt RED should consider during the development of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in order to get the RPG threequel right. A couple of examples:

8: Have optional companions

This one isn’t quite as vital as the others on this list, hence the (optional), but The Witcher games have been very lonely affairs for the most part. With the increase in space for The Witcher 3 it might make things even lonelier if Geralt’s companionless throughout.

Skyrim can get away with it since writing and characterisation isn’t Bethesda’s strong suit but even that has them optionally, so I’d like the same for Witcher 3. I want a big open-world game with strong companion characters that I care about, and at the moment only Fallout: New Vegas has satisfied me on that front. Optionally though, since I know not everyone cares what I think. Ahem.

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2: Don’t try to be Skyrim

Frankly, I am terrified by the open-world concept. Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz comments in the announcement video, (everyone likes open-world games, we should go this way.) Should they? I’m not so sure. Aside from the tremendous difficulties Point 3 brings up, there’s the fact that while there’s only really been one series that has truly made open-world RPGs work the Elder Scrolls games their exploration value hides a lot of flaws, most notably in storytelling.

While I like the idea that CD Projekt have looked at Skyrim and gone (we want to do that), Bethesda have been perfecting the art of open-world RPGs since 1992 and they still haven’t gotten it perfect. The idea of marrying the incredible openness of Skyrim to the attention to detail of The Witcher is an intoxicating idea, but only as long as CD Projekt know what they’re getting into. In short: don’t make another Skyrim guys, make your own great open-world game.