The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Interview That Should Blow Our Minds

IGN has published a lengthy interview with CD Projekt joint CEO Marcin IwiÅ„ski about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, that, in their words, should blow our minds. So far my brain doesn’t seem to have gained explosive properties, but that said, I have to admit some of the info is worth highlighting:

In many RPGs today, you can become a demigod after grinding around for a few hours. In Skyrim, for example, I was killing dragons with one arrow after the 50-hour mark. How can you ensure that the game will constantly challenge the player?

I don’t think this was an issue in our previous games, so I don’t see why it should be an issue in Wild Hunt. We’ve made sure the game feels balanced at all times. We love Skyrim and we’re huge fans, but this is a different game. Skyrim was an out-and-out open-world game, while ours is a story-driven game that unfolds in an open-world scenario. The priorities of both games are very different.

You will be able to explore the game world of the The Witcher 3, but in a lot of ways, we’ll be subtly reminding you about the plot. Do all the side-quests you want, but don’t forget there is a story waiting for you – that I personally feel is the most rewarding part of the game.

So I could finish the story and then go back to tackle the side-quests?

At this moment, the answer is (almost.) Currently you have absolute freedom to do what you want up until the last few hours of the game. If we decide to allow players to return to the game after the ending, I imagine that, based on your choices in the game, some quests could be locked because of your previous actions. So, let’s say you kill an entire village off, you won’t be able to access side quests from there. It’s not a particular example from the game, but you catch my drift right?

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Any plans to lease out the REDengine?

Yes, we are looking at that aspect. If people want to make an RPG, there’s lot of tech out there already like the Unreal engine or Crytek’s engine, but there is definitely a place for the REDengine on the market. We would love to see more upcoming RPGs using our engine.

The tech is super solid and it works very well on all three platforms, but having said that, we still have to release a game and that is our highest priority. The REDkit that we plan on launching soon after the game releases is also a good place to start and experiment with.