What PC Gamer Wants to See in The Witcher 3

Given that The Witcher 3 will likely be announced on the 5th of February, PC Gamer has taken some time to write an editorial on what they want to see from the title.

Here’s a snip:

Keeping Perspective. Sorry to start on a slightly boring one, but by far the biggest problem with The Witcher 2 was that its development felt like it had been very insular, with not enough fresh eyes during the process, or those eyes being too guided. The big tell for this is that the initial version had quests with misplaced map markers the kind of thing that’s easily fixed, but only missed if everyone involved simply knows where they’re going. Likewise, elements like the lack of a tutorial and the first big fight in the game expecting players to instantly .et’ the combat system were serious mistakes, no matter how much some of the hardcore players appreciated being dropped in at the deep end.

(Incidentally, my favourite example of this insularity came when the game originally arrived for preview, with stern, genuine instructions not to give away what happened to King Foltest during the prologue. The prologue of a game called ‘˜The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings’. Ahem.)

Many of these issues were subsequently patched on the system side, and hurrah for that. Others though were baked much too deeply into the narrative to be changed post-release the real crash coming with Act 3, which all the branching and untaken paths made very easy to reach without really knowing what was going on and why it actually mattered. Especially coupled with.

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Consequence Over Choice Nobody sane would say that The Witcher 2 lacked for choices to make. The end of Act 1, the entire of Act 2 and most of Act 3 didn’t so much have a critical path as a critical spaghetti pile. Make no mistake, this was seriously impressive and deserves credit.

That said, while choices did have big consequences, the scale of the game and sheer number of paths did have a tendency to trip over its own feet key characters simply disappearing or being shoved into the background, massive events being dismissed, and most painfully of all, much of the plot that Geralt should have been uncovering during the game having to be explained via the final boss actively holding an expositional Q&A. It was also unfortunate that your choices tended to be a step removed from what you were actually choosing the lead-up to Act 2 being the decision to throw your hat in with Roche or Iorveth, not Henselt or Saskia or simply swept under the table with the politics of Act 3.

For The Witcher 3, it would be good to see that willingness to take the tough road put to more focused use the world itself changing as a direct result of decisions, for good and bad, rather than the focus being on altering the path through it. A central city like Vizima wouldn’t hurt for this, with its development over the game altering based on who you kill, and what relationships you form. Kill too many crooked officials, and the entire thing becomes a fascist state out of fear, for instance, or have the monster population of the area directly tied to how much killing you bother to do. Direct responses, with unexpected twists, tend to be what make choices interesting. Especially with.