The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Why RPS is Worried

After checking out The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt firsthand at this week’s E3, the folks at Rock, Paper, Shotgun have editorialized about why they’re “ever-so-slightly worried” that CD Projekt’s threequel might not live up to our lofty expectations. Some quibbles:

The Witcher 3’²s combat looks alright action-y but with a hint of strategy in the form of weapon switches (including a new crossbow for taking out airborne baddies), spells, and Geralt’s trademark mutagen potions but it struck me as relatively simple. Hack, slash, twirl, dodge, rinse, repeat. The encounters we saw didn’t have much to them. A werewolf required a specific potion and well-timed magic shield deployments for brief stuns, but otherwise he was basically a big, furry shishkebab for Geralt’s silver blade. Afterward, an admirably bizarre evil spirit some sort of grotesque cave-dwelling tree heart was easily dispatched as well, requiring a quick clearing out of a few other enemies it summoned and then a swift stab while its guard was down.

So essentially, two very basic action game boss patterns. Nothing particularly inventive or, er, wild. Granted, they could’ve been simplified or sped up for the purposes of the demo. Again, I am just voicing worries based on what I saw not making definitive statements about the quality of the game. Combat wasn’t Witcher 2’²s strongest suit, though, especially in regard to controls. I really would’ve liked the chance to try it for myself, but many of CD Projekt’s developers are bigger than me and well-versed in the art of witching. If I tried to snag the controller, I could’ve been witched. Instead I just ate a sandwich in their booth and everyone was happy.

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This is a small one something indicative of how solid Witcher 3 is looking overall but some of the writing was a little wonky. The godling child spoke in, like, four or five different overwritten fantasy dialects, and all the Game-of-Thrones-style lingo intermingling with (admittedly charming) humor and low-level Shakespeare got distracting after a little while. It just seemed like a little too much, or rather like Witcher’s writers needed to pick one thing and stick with it.

Meanwhile, Geralt’s dialogue was wooden, and he couldn’t maintain a consistent tone. One moment he was grim as all get-out, and then in a conversation with a guy he barely knew mere moments later, he was cracking awkwardly timed jokes about the tiny ramshackle swamp town they were in.