The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Interview

CD Projekt RED’s Tomasz Gop and Marek Ziemak have been cornered for another interview about The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, and this time the questions were posed by Games On Net. A couple of notable entries:

games.on.net: Is there any advantage, story or otherwise, to using stealth rather than just blasting your way through?

Tomasz: Spoiling it for you: yes, experience wise.

Marek: Sometimes you won’t be able to get into some story or gameplay options without going quietly, because you sound an alarm, or doors get locked. You don’t have to go stealth, but it modifies your gameplay how the quest moves forward. A couple of times it’s a good idea to go stealth in one play through, and go hardcore in another.

…

games.on.net: Can you give any specific examples of limitations of BioWare’s Aurora engine, which you used for the previous game?

Tomasz: You will notice, for example, dialogues, which are way different from The Witcher 1. They were really typical for RPGs: camera one on the first one, camera two on the second one, and so on and so on. In The Witcher 2, we’ve got really lively animations. Characters can interact (with) each other during the dialogues. Sometimes they even start fighting, and it doesn’t break the dialogue. And you can have a lot of participants, our bunch versus your bunch. People can join in, or drop out. It was not possible on Aurora.

Marek: And streaming is a good technical example of what changed. Now we can use streaming to have no loading screens. And exploration! Moving through different dimensions. That wasn’t possible in Aurora.

Tomasz: Logically, for Aurora, a location has to be flat. You cannot have overlapping layers in one location. Here, it’s not a problem.