A four minute snippet of gameplay recently surfaced of CD Projekt RED’s upcoming open world RPG The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and illuminates a few key aspects of the games structure in the short window of play provided.
Firstly, it’s clear that The Witcher franchise penchant for taking graphical fidelity to the max has been faithfully kept alive in the latest installment, with gameplay taking place in a dying woodland, thick with foliage and a heavy fog hanging overhead. Character models look crisp and capture a good deal of realism, even the ‘godling’ creature Johnny looks like a small imp of sorts is delivered well visually within the game world. Spell effects environmental factors are rendered beautifully too, with birds erupting from trees ahead, powerful blasts of flame igniting the landscape for a period of time and shock-waves pushing away the water beneath one’s feet. It’s no wonder CD Projekt RED have the audacity to state The Witcher 3 will be the best looking RPG to date when the game looks as brilliant as it does now, with 8 months left before official release.
the UI appear to have been improved a great deal over previous games. Inventory screens in particular were very cumbersome in the past when attempting to evaluate what gear would best suit the situation (an action that becomes very common in a progression based RPG such as the Witcher). CD Projekt RED appear to have gone with a cleaner slot-based system in the build used in the video, allowing for a nice drag & drop approach to switching gear in and out. Outside the inventory, the UI is minimal, with only the minimap and a few choice pieces of information at hand to the player. Taking the ‘monster hunting’ tagline at heart, at thirty seconds in footprints appear within the world to indicate to the player of a nearby creature. As the player enters combat the healthbar and mana appears in the top left corner, only to fade away once all enemies are dispatched.
The video also contains a short but frenetic slice of combat footage as kappa-like creatures assault Geralt in a marshland. Combat appears to be taking ques from the last game Witcher 2, whilst polishing up on the formula and improving the overall flow. Spells are switched via a tactical wheel function, whereby time is paused and you use a control stick to switch between active spells. Animations are fluid and the pace of the fight is very fast; Geralt dispatches of three different enemies in the space of fifteen seconds using a seamless combination of strikes, spell attacks and evasion to outplay the enemies.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is currently slated for a February 24th release on PC, Xbox One and Playstation 4 with a collector’s edition available.