The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt New Tidbits

User “His Majesty” on gaming forum NeoGAF typed down some highlights from a recent preview on German magazine GameStar for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. These range from curiosities such as the addition of dynamic beard growth for Geralt to actual (and positive to boot) impressions on the game’s landscapes, quest branching and combat:

Gameplay

• There are 4 difficulties (easy, medium, hard and dark) which differ in the skill of the monsters you face. Hitpoints remain the same.
• You can bargain for more money after finishing your monster contract through some sort of minigame.
• The side quests are extremely well made with great writing and branching.
• Potions are a necessity on higher difficulty levels. You only need to craft a potion once and you can refill it if you have enough alcohol present. Potions are upgradeable for stronger effects. Stronger potions will increase your toxicity more
• Novigrad and No Man’s Land are indeed one single map, much bigger than Skyrim. The isles of Skellige form the other big part of the game. Next to that, there are 5-6 other separated locations, including Kaer Morhen.
• No enemy respawning or at the least not very frequently
• Best items in the game must be crafted
• They were very impressed with the story branching and how it is not always obvious.
• Correcting ‘wrong’ choices by saving/reloading will be very difficult if not impossible.
• Contrary to BioWare games dialogue options are not good or bad, this you will have to figure out for yourselves.
• They really liked the in-game card game Gwent, praising its design.
• The game features two really big cities: Novigrad and Oxenfurt, both very lively.
• The are of No Man’s Land features 25 smaller towns, some of which are the size of Flotsam from The Witcher 2.
• Geralt can rob people, although the system is too easy and feels a bit lacking.
• Journalist (level 7) was one shotted by a wyvern (level 24). No level scaling.
• Ciri sequences will be (in total) 5-10h and feel more like an action-adventure game than an RPG
• Extra storage can be made by crafting saddle bags for your horse.
• Many small details such as Roach stopping to eat apples from a basket
• All equipped items are visible in-game on Geralt
• Fist-fighting is back, this time no QTE
• World never felt empty
• Journalist didn’t encounter any simple fetch quests

Technical

• The HUD is fully customizable. Icons and quest markers on the map can also be deactivated. Audiovisual hints (e.g. people screaming for help) will be present if you wish to do so.
• Journalist encountered no clone NPC’s
• Controller feels superior to keyboard+mouse.
• The extremely annoying doors from The Witcher 2 are gone. Doors are now opened automatically, no button pressing. No loading times for entering buildings either.
• Day 1 patch confirmed
• Xbox One resolution will stay at 900p
• Geralts beard will grow over time
• Switching between controller and mouse (for menu’s) is easy and fluid
• Most impressive dynamic weather system in any game he has ever played
• They encountered very few bugs, no crashes of freezes.
• Ultra seems to have a big effect on the quality of vegetation and character models[
• No slider for LOD
• Visual gore more prominent than in The Witcher 2

Another user from the forums transcribed some information from a recent live Q&A from the same journalists, in case you want to read more.