The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Interview

French website Dagon’s Lair has interviewed CD Projekt RED’s Maciej Sosnowski on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, with subjects ranging from the story to combat to the game’s inventory (apparently a grid system is back!). Here’s a snippet:

– The Witcher 2 was a little bit more action oriented than the first one. We read TW3 combat will allow to parry blows, and will be more visceral than the previous one. Will CDProjekt continue to depart even more from the RPG side (which, we found, was already a little bit lacking in TW2) and focus on the action side of the game ? Or will you return to a more RPG focused game, like the first game ?

The definitely improve the combat system from the second part of The Witcher. Now you will have more control over Geralt’s blade. All blows and strikes will take the same amount of time and you will be to defend yourself in any moment, how you want by pivots, rolls and parrying.

At the same time we want to expose more the RPG mechanics underneath. Our goal is to show how your stats have a tangible effect on your progress in the game. So in The Witcher 3 you’ll have a mix of both approaches. Players who like hardcore stat testing will be able to experiment at will, while those who want to use their action skills we’ll also be satisfied with the options they have. Generally the combat system will be easy to learn, but hard to master and the number of tactical options will be significantly increased.

– Can you elaborate on game mechanics ? Is there still a skill tree ? What about inventory, weapons, alchemy, .magic ?

Almost every system in the game has been improved. We read fan opinions about the inventory and we decided to change it. The grid is back to give players a more classic RPG feel. We want the inventory to be user friendly and intuitive.

Crafting is also improved. Many ingredients are gathered through Monster Hunting, but they also have less troublesome substitutes, which provide inferior quality. Also not every craftsman will be able to create a specific item don’t think that some peasant blacksmith can forge a legendary weapon.

We altered the alchemy system too. You will still need to drink potions before combat, but our alterations will make this more inntuitive if you gather enough clues about your enemy, you will be able to narrow down the things you need to prepare.