The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an action role-playing video game set in an open world environment, developed by Polish video game developer CD Projekt RED. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on 19 May 2015. The game is the third in the series, preceded by The Witcher and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, which are based on the series of fantasy novels of the same title by the Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, but all take place after them.
Gameplay
CD Projekt RED has said that it is not necessary to have played the previous games to fully enjoy Wild Hunt. While similar to the previous Witcher games, Wild Hunt has improved on several aspects from past games. Combat revolves around an action role-playing game system combined with the use of magic. The fighting system has been completely revamped. Wild Hunt introduces some new mechanics, such as witcher-sense, combat on horseback, and at sea, swimming underwater, and using a crossbow. Additionally, Geralt can now jump, climb, and vault over smaller obstacles. The climbing mechanics have been described as "not exactly" like Assassin's Creed, but more "similar to what we have in Uncharted". Item creation and potion brewing still remain as in previous games, but have been modified from The Witcher 2. There are 10 witcher signs, 5 original ones, each having 1 alternative form.
Each action the player does will affect the world; every quest has a plethora of options on how to complete it, and every outcome is different each time. CD Projekt RED anticipates approximately 100 hours for the completion of the game, 50 of them belonging to side quests, and 50 belonging to the main story line.
The game features a dynamic day and night system, realistic AI, responsive and dynamic environments. The day and night cycle will influence some monsters and their powers, similar to how a werewolf would gain powers during the night of a full moon. The game also features a dynamic beard growth system, in which the beard of the playable character Geralt will grow when he travels between regions. According to the developer, the beard will grow "in different states". However, this feature will no longer be available if the player has downloaded the free Beard and Hairstyle DLC.
Ciri, an exceptional swordfighter with mythical powers, will be a playable character in the game.
Synopsis
Setting
The setting is more than "30 times larger" than previous Witcher games, requiring players to sail by boat to some locations and ride by horseback to others. However, fast travelling around the areas of known locations is also possible. The Witcher 3 has been described as "20% bigger than Skyrim".
Plot
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt concludes the story of the witcher Geralt of Rivia, the series' protagonist, whose story to date has been covered in the previous versions. Continuing from The Witcher 2, the ones who sought to use Geralt are now gone. Geralt seeks to move on with his own life, embarking on a new and personal mission whilst the world order itself is coming to a change. Geralt's new mission comes in dark times as the mysterious and otherworldly army known as the Wild Hunt invades the Northern Kingdoms, leaving only blood soaked earth and fiery ruin in its wake; and it seems the Witcher is the key to stopping their cataclysmic rampage.
Development
The game was officially announced on 4 February 2013 via Game Informer, with a 2014 release on PC and "all high-end platforms available". The latter was then clarified to mean the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One on 21 February 2013 and 10 June 2013 respectively. According to the official information from Microsoft, The Witcher 3 was originally not going to be available on the Xbox One in Poland, the country where the game's development process is taking place. However, this has recently changed as regional restrictions have been entirely removed from the Xbox One.
On 11 March 2014, it was announced that the game's release date was delayed from Autumn 2014 to February 2015. According to an official statement released by the development team, they had successfully created "a story that flows naturally, cinematically, rendered it in amazing sound and visuals, while preserving full freedom of choice" - suggesting that the core game and its main story were practically finished. However, the statement then goes on to cite the main reason for the delay was manual fine-tuning of many details and thorough testing of the final product to bring it up to the desired standard of quality. On 8 December 2014, the developer officially informed about postponing the release date to 19 May 2015.
On 7 April 2015, CD Projekt RED announced two expansion packs for the game titled Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. Hearts of Stone is expected to release in October 2015, and Blood and Wine is expected to release in early 2016. On 16 April 2015, CD Projekt RED confirmed that the game had been declared gold, indicating it was being prepared for duplication and release.
On 21 May 2015, CD Projekt RED released patch 1.03 for the PC, bringing a number of changes including new graphics options and general stability and performance improvements.
Game engine
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt features the new REDengine 3 game engine, developed by CD Projekt RED and designed specifically for nonlinear role-playing video games set in vast open world environments. It is supposed to help eliminate many of the game development trade-offs previous developers faced, allowing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt developers to create "an open environment with a complex, multi-thread story". CD Projekt RED has integrated the Umbra 3 Visibility Solution into its engine to handle occlusion culling. Engineers from Umbra and CDP demonstrated the use of the technology at the Game Developers Conference 2014. As in the previous two Witcher games, players are presented with a complex story featuring multiple choices bearing associated consequences. But REDengine allows for a complex story line without sacrificing the design of the virtual world.
