The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Writing Interview

Gamasutra offers an interview with The Witcher 2 lead gameplay designer Maciej SzczeÅ›nik and gameplay producer Marek Ziemak about the choice and consequence mechanics and writing of the game.  Here’s a bit to start you off:

One of the things I found most interesting about The Witcher 2 was the decision to split the story into two different paths, and literally, probably double the work and content. Some people wouldn’t even necessarily be aware that this even happened unless they talked to other people online. Did that scare you, as a decision to make?

Maciej SzczeÅ›nik: I mean, it was kind of scary, but…

Marek Ziemak: It was risky, for sure.

MS: It was risky, but we were sure that we were on track at least because we were sure that that would be something new.

MZ: And that it will be appreciated sooner or later.

MS: And it turns out it is, so after all, it was a good decision.

MZ: But I think the main reason for this was that we were trying to implement this decision and consequences system in the game.

MS: So if it was present in Witcher 1, obviously it had to be present in The Witcher 2, and we wanted to push it further.

MZ: We wanted to play a little bit with the emotions, and we started thinking, “What can we give to the players? What can we take away from them based on their decisions?” And this seemed like a pretty cool thing — that they will have to make their own decisions, what they want to see, and take the costs of their decisions.

It seems like serious decision-making is becoming more important to games. The first phase of it was morality systems, where you get good points or evil points. That’s not something that you do in The Witcher.

MZ: Actually it’s also one of our more core features. We’re trying to make it as gray as possible. We never have choices between good and evil.

MS: More like shades of gray.

MZ: Exactly. That’s how it was created by Sapkowski in the novels, and that’s what we really liked and appreciated about the books, and we tried to have it still inside of our games.

MS: Yeah obviously it’s more real, but it’s also more interesting. This is the main reason we are using that.