The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – A Game for Hardcore Players and Newcomers
Developer: CD Projekt RED
Publisher: Bandai Namco Games
Format: PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One
Release Date: 24th Feb, 2015
At a recent press event, Bone-idle were lucky enough to get a sneak peak at some of the gameplay of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
And surprise, surprise, it looks gorgeous!
The footage we saw was a slight variation of the gameplay video on display at E3 (see above), which shows Geralt on the hunt for a wild Griffin. One aspect that was focused on here was the Witcher’s abilities and how exactly a Witcher goes about hunting dangerous creatures. Our attention was drawn towards the fact that, if we shoot the Griffin with a crossbow bolt, it will bleed, thus making it easier to track through the woods. Strategy isn’t shoe-horned in here, it clearly matters how you approach each encounter, either through stealth or all-out offensives.
The combat itself looks as fluid and responsive as it did in the E3 demo, balancing swordplay and archery with some very impressive spell casting.
There’s always the danger of overloading a player with abilities in action RPGs, but that doesn’t look to be the case here. Switching from a crossbow, to a fire spell, and finally to the broadsword to perform the killing blow looks like a totally organic and free-flowing experience.
It also looks incredibly satisfying, as exhibited by the gleeful way Geralt dismembers the arm of lecherous bandit.
The actual fight with the Griffin played out slightly differently from the E3 video, with a stronger focus on spells rather than physical combat. Namco casually talks us through the spells they are using while the Griffin attempts to turn Geralt into a white-haired chew toy. They make practical use of the Quen spell (protection) before casting a visually impressive Igni spell (fire), which all but finishes off the mythical beast. It was with an adrenaline pumping finish that they decapitate the beast and bring the exciting demo to a close.
At this point, our attention was drawn to a very slight change that had been made to the game’s logo, where the ‘3’ in the title has been changed to a ‘III’, in between the words ‘Wild Hunt’. When asked to comment on this, Namco stated that it was because they wanted to stress that “Wild Hunt is very much its own game.”
They informed us that there were no plans to port the original game to consoles, or to bring The Witcher 2 to PS3, but that should not discourage newcomers. “There will be nods [to the previous games] for the fans in Wild Hunt,” we were told “but this is a singular game that can be enjoyed by anyone”.
It’s unfortunate that we still haven’t had to the opportunity to enjoy the game ourselves, and we really are trying to reserve any sort of judgement until we get a controller in our hands. It rarely pays to get overexcited about a game that hasn’t been released yet.
But the truth is, it gets harder and harder to be cynical the more we see of this game. At one point, Namco took a moment to pan the camera over the gameworld, letting us breath in the visual splendor. And while it might lack the family-friendly warmth of, say, Zelda’s Hyrule, you can’t say it isn’t beautiful.
Namco made a point of stressing that The Witcher 3 is “the most exciting game for next-gen”, that this is where you really begin to notice the difference between the last generation of games and the next. From what we’ve seen so far, we have to agree with them on this, especially if it lives up to all the promises that have been made.
20% bigger than Skyrim? Yes please.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be released on the 24th of February, 2015.
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