The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings FAQ

With less than a month to go until release, CD Projekt RED just sent us over an updated FAQ for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, which we’ve mirrored below for your viewing pleasure. Details on the SecuROM DRM in non-GOG versions, save game importing, performance capabilities, and more to follow:

WHAT DRM WILL THE WITCHER 2 HAVE?

The primary reason for including copy protection with internet activation is to address the biggest concern of our publishing and distribution partners, which is potential piracy before release. To do so, we must implement at least a minimal form of protection.

The Witcher 2 will be delivered to external manufacturing plants weeks before release. It is virtually impossible to guarantee absolute security for this entire time. Any leak of the code can gravely compromise the commercialization of the game, and we want to be sure that the first people to play it will be the fans and customers who are waiting for their official copies.

That’s why, together with our publishing and distributing partners, we decided to use copy protection. The Digital Premium Edition available from GOG.com will be the sole exception. Since it is our sister company, located in the same building, we are completely confident the code will be absolutely secure.

As a company and also as gamers ourselves, we’d like to stress that we are against any kind of copy protection that might affect the game experience or limit the usability of legally purchased copies. For this reason, we decided to implement the lightest and least intrusive form possible. During installation, it will be necessary to connect to the Internet one time but NEVER while playing.

We have chosen to use the least intrusive version of SecuROM. While we are aware of some players’ associations with this technology, the server infrastructure of its provider, SONY, gives us the highest level of confidence that registering legal copies will be problem-free. Every legal copy can be installed and played on up to five machines at a time, and registrations  can even be revoked at any time if necessary. It will also be possible to make backups. Furthermore, we will make every effort to cooperate with our publishing and distribution partners to remove the DRM in a post-release update.

WHY SHOULD I REGISTER MY COPY?

Registration of legally purchased copies is completely optional. To make the process as user-friendly as possible, the same key is used for both activation and registration.

Anyone who chooses to register will receive various bonuses (English and Polish language packs, free future DLC and more), and additional promotional materials such as bonus songs.

Registered users will also receive automatic notifications of updates via the game launcher.

WHY AND HOW SHOULD I USE MY SAVEGAMES FROM THE WITCHER?

The Witcher 2 will provide a complete story and game experience. It is not necessary to have played the original. As a bonus, those who did will have the option of importing their saved games. The opening of The Witcher 2 is, however, the same for everyone. Events and decisions from imported saves may be reflected later on, but only in ways that can happen anyway.
 
If The Witcher is still installed on your hard drive, The Witcher 2 will automatically detect all saves after the last critical choice point, and either suggest the file to import, or allow you to choose from all the possible ones.

Note: The preview build sent at the beginning of April 2011 did not include the full save game system. The release version will let players save at any time PC gamers expect.

WHAT KIND OF PERFORMANCE  AND HARDWARE  ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?

The Witcher 2 is being developed for one platform, the PC. What this basically means, especially together with our proprietary REDengine, is that we take advantage of the most advanced performance hardware. Our game doesn’t compromise its performance, gameplay, the interface or anything else to accommodate other platforms.

The REDengine is built so players with two-core processors and min-spec machines will receive a fully enjoyable experience. Even more importantly, anyone with the recommended 4 cores and/or hyperthreading will see a visible improvement. 6 cores? 8? Cool! The Witcher 2 will make good use of them all. The game will also scale exceptionally well. It has not only low, medium and high graphical settings, but also an ultra detail level. and even an (uber sampling) mode.

Note: The release version of the game will have an advanced graphical settings menu. It will also support the 16:9 aspect ratio and be playable in 16:10 (non-native) as well as 4:3 (letterbox).

WILL THERE BE DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE WITCHER 2?

The Witcher 2 will have the same content worldwide. There will be no regional differences aside from the languages. And no censored versions so no wondering about importing the game, nudity
patches, etc.

HOW MANY LANGUAGE VERSIONS WILL THERE BE?

The Witcher 2 will be released in 11 languages worldwide.
Full voice and text: English, French, German, Polish, Russian
Subtitled: Italian, Spanish, Czech, Hungarian, Japanese, Chinese

Thanks to our in-house localization team and professional interpreters, we are completely confident in the quality of the dubbed versions. In addition, we are closely supervising and coordinating the others.

As previously stated, English and Polish language packs will be available to all registered users. That’s especially important for users who buy the version of the game without English language built-in (Polish retail version only), and others, who would like to hear Polish voiceovers.