The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Interviews

We have rounded up a few The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt-themed interviews that have been published since Comic-Con, from a variety of people involved in the project. To get things started, here’s Game-Debate’s chat with senior art producer MichaÅ‚ KrzemiÅ„ski:

GD – The Witcher 3’s open world setting remains on the unnamed continent taken from the Witcher novel author Andrzej Sapkowski’s imaginings. How much communication does the team have with Andrzej Sapkowski these days? Has he given you creative free rein within The Witcher world, or are there strict boundaries you legally have to follow?

MK – Mr. Sapkowski created the world but we have full creative control over the game and how it plays. We really appreciate that we can build our own stuff within the world and fill in the blanks which he left in his novels.

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GD – Speaking of player choices, the outcome of the last game was heavily influenced by these. Does the Witcher 3 deliver content based on player decisions from the previous titles? How has the character of Geralt changed since the last game? Has he matured, or changed in any way?

MK – The Witcher 3 takes place roughly six months after the events of The Witcher 2, so Geralt has only had the chance to grow a beard. As for the choices from the previous games, yes, to a certain degree the game relies on them, but it’s nothing that should deter gamers new to the series. What’s important, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is written in such a way that it’s a natural continuation of events for fans of the series, but it’s also a standalone story for newcomers. We’ve made sure that everyone will get the most out of the game.

GD – So Geralt might not have physically changed much but, from what we have seen so far, some areas of gameplay have had a significant overhaul. In earlier interviews you have said that you’ve made some pretty huge changes to the combat system since The Witcher 2. What are the biggest changes we’ll notice when fighting?

MK – First of all, there’s no more QTEs [Quick Time Events] in the game, so players have total control over what’s going on at all times. Now each button press corresponds to a swing of the sword so players can create their own combos and fluidly chain them with other attacks like the new witcher Signs we also introduced. What’s more, there’s no more rolling around the enemy to avoid being hit – Geralt’s a master swordsman after all, so he’ll be able to dance around his enemies, dodge them and parry attacks (even to the point of deflecting projectiles with his sword). And talking about projectiles, since there are some flying monster around, Geralt has also gained the ability to shoot a crossbow.

Krzemiński elaborated on crossbows (and a variety of other subjects) in this interview with Analog Addiction:

Does The Witcher 3 feature different types of horses and boats? Are there other modes of transportation? Maybe teleporting?

No, unfortunately no teleporting for Geralt. As for the horses and boats, we’re continuing the tradition of Roach (the fish, not the bug!), which is a name Geralt gave to each of his horses. Regarding the boats, we’re still tweaking and finalizing that part so I’ll remain silent for now.

Speaking of sailing, will gamers engage in combat while at sea? Maybe against different kinds of sea-monsters? Sirens, perhaps?

Yes, Geralt will engage in combat with sea-monsters. This is another reason why we decided to introduce the Gabriel crossbow, a weapon able to deal ranged damage to enemies out of sword range (flying creatures, too!).

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Will Gerat make use of other ranged weapons, besides the crossbow that we’d seen during your E3 gameplay?

No, we have only one ranged weapon type in the game. But don’t worry, there will be plenty of diversity connected with it, i.e. you’ll be able to craft an array of bolts with different effects on monsters (you could have seen an example of this in our E3 stage gameplay where we shot the griffin with bolts that cause it to bleed so we can track it better). Come to think of it, it’s not a weapon per se, but there are witcher Signs you could use to deal ranged damage. There’s ten of them (an alternative for every classical Sign known from the previous game).

Finally, GamerHub TV has three video interviews, one with Geralt’s voice actor Doug Cockle, one with franchise director RafaÅ‚ Jaki, and one with senior gameplay designer Damien Monhier which I’ll also embed: