The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Preview

G4 has put together a quick preview of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, courtesy of the demonstration they received from CD Projekt RED at last week’s GamesCom.

While I don’t want this to turn into a review of the Gamescom presentation, rather than a preview of The Witcher 2 itself, it is important to mention how enthusiastic and entertaining the development team was at the show. People get tired at gaming shows and both developers and journalists can lose interest pretty quickly, but CD Projekt’s energy was infectious. Despite it being the end of the day, the five-or-six strong presentation team ran through their clearly rehearsed, but genuinely funny, performance as if it was the first time.

This sort of passion for their product is made even more obvious when they start describing the improvements made possible by the game’s new engine. On screen is displayed a tangle of lines and nodes, stretching on horizontally seemingly forever. This is a visual representation of the game’s story, showing every choice and consequence the player can make, and it is massive. It’s pulled straight from the game’s engine and demonstrates perfectly how they’ve redefined non-linearity for The Witcher 2.

I can vouch for their enthusiasm during E3, too. CDP is one of those rare companies that truly believes in the PC platform, role-playing games, and the games they’re making.