The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt is Really, Really Big

If The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt truly is the last Witcher game, the series is going out with a bang.

The latest entry was formally announced this morning, and promises to expand the series’ scope far beyond the previous games. The Witcher already played with non-linear storytelling by giving players agency over certain pivots in the story that drastically changed the outcome, but The Witcher 3 moves that a step further with a completely open world, a la The Elder Scrolls.

In terms of nuts and bolts, developer CD Projekt RED claims The Witcher 3 is 30 times the size of The Witcher 2, and is powered by the studio’s brand-new REDengine 3 technology.

As previously mentioned, CD Projekt RED is also claiming this will be the last Witcher game.

“We believe that we should end the series on a high note,” said studio head Adam Badowski. “Technology has progressed to where we can finally tell the story the way we want, with the visuals we want, in the world we imagined.”

We won’t be playing The Witcher 3 until sometime in 2014, and it’s being developed for both PCs and other “high-end platforms,” which is a not-so-subtle nod to the upcoming set of new consoles.

In case you haven’t played the other games, CD Projekt RED said it’s designing The Witcher 3 to be newcomer friendly. I found The Witcher 2 easy enough to get into, having not played the original. If you haven’t played either, The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director's Cut and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition are 50% off on both Good Old Games and Steam for the next 72 hours. The Xbox 360 version is also now permanently $29.99.

Sussex

awesome!

Can't wait to see what this looks like. CDProjekt have the best looking game out right now with an engine that runs fantastic on such a wide range of hardware.

I'm looking forward to this. The Witcher 2 is one of my favorite games.

Dam now I really do need to play the first two.

"with the visuals we want"

Are they saying that the Witcher 2 fell below expectations visually? Holy shit

I am all for a bigger Witcher game, It seems like a world that's worth exploring.

aw crap, i still haven't finished Witcher 1 yet.

Good. Much as I love them, Bethesda really needs some big competition in the open world fantasy RPG genre and this'll bring that in spades.

I cannot wait for this game! SO EXCITED!

While I'm an immensely rabid fan of the series, I always found quantitative pitches like this a bit wonky. 30 times larger doesn't mean or tell me anything other than "boy I hope they pull this off" which I'm sure is more relevant and close to home for them than for anyone.

They've got two amazing games under their belt and two new opportunities with Cyberpunk 2077 and now this, I'm really hoping they can nail the Witcher as a trilogy and show they can branch out of that aesthetic all at the same time.

"Witcher 3 is 30 times the size of The Witcher 2"

And that game was damn near 20gb.

Oh god. I know he probably wasn't talking about raw size, but still, that's going to be a big ass game.

2014 is so far away...

Time to get past chapter 4 in the witcher 1 so I can finally install 2 and get ready for 3! I should have a proper gaming rig by the time I'm ready for 2.

@patrickklepek You're the man, man, but please never use ala before the word the ever again. Just hurts to read. Doesn't it mean like the already? Ala Elder Scrolls rolls much nicer. :)

With that out of the way...

FUCK. YES.

Witchers.

CDPR is a phenomenal developer in terms of accomplishment, GOG, treatment of customers and all-around transparency and the Witcher 1 & 2 are two of the best RPGs of the last decade. So many good reasons to be excited for the Wild Hunt. That said, like Patrick's ala-the combo, I wish I never had to hear the words "finally technology has reached the moment when we can do _____".

Interesting that this and Cyberpunk are in development at the same time. Hope CDPR's best talent isn't spread too thin.

I..I think I need cigarette right about now.

I really loved The Witcher 2 but when they say The Witcher 3 is x30 bigger, I really hope that also means it's a little more open. The one problem I had with The Witcher 2 was that the majority of areas were a very narrow path or a series of narrow paths. I hope that's what they mean and not just x30 the number or narrow paths.

Sweet holy godfuckshityes. I can't wait.

@GERALTITUDE said:

@patrickklepek You're the man, man, but please never use ala before the word the ever again. Just hurts to read. Doesn't it mean like the already? Ala Elder Scrolls rolls much nicer. :)

"The" is part of "The Elder Scrolls." It's a proper noun, so he has to use it. Alternate wording on 'ala' could make it out to mean "in the style of" or "similar to," so he's not making a grammatical oopsie.

So The Witcher 3 and Star Citizen in a foreseeable future. Common graphics card, you can do this... no you really can't

Psyched. I'm playing through The Witcher 2 just now & loving it. A sequel is something I'm absolutely excited for.

The Witcher 3 you say? Sounds AWESOME Patrick!! Thanks for the update and everything you do!!

Just played through Witcher 2 for the second time. What an incredible accomplishment that game is. In terms of visuals, narrative, and themes, it is way ahead of its time. This is no "chosen one" story, the morality of the game is extremely grey and full of compromises. Not only that, the choices you make drastically impact both the story and the gameplay.

For example, a major decision you make at the end of chapter one majorly alters the story, location and quests of chapter two, and changes the story, quests and context of chapter 3.

Witcher 2 had a good amount of "free roam", but fell short of being an "open world". I can't wait to see what they do with Witcher 3 in a fully open world.

Man, I get ending a series on a high note, but still...

Learn from The Elder Scrolls, learn to pace yourself, and I'm sure a new Witcher will be made after this.

@GERALTITUDE: also, "ala" is a french derivative, and should be written as "à la".

I want it based on that subtitle alone

I just wanna make love to every single person at cd projekt

Do fans dig the Witcher 2 combat system? Or perhaps we can see them make a change to something more Dark/Demon's Soul-ish or even Amalur?

Fuck YES

Also, they confirmed that the enemies in the game will not level with you which is FANTASTIC for me cause I always hate that.

Witcher 2 is a very pretty game, but it didn't really grab me. I'm much more excited for Cyberpunk 2077.

I want to love the Witcher but I cannot understand the combat for the life of me, finishing the tutorial in The Witcher 2 was one of the hardest things I did that year.

WTF does 30x bigger mean? Is it suddenly a 600GB game? Does it last for 600 hours? Both of those things seems impossible.

I still have the Witcher 2 installed after having stalled out over a year ago. I guess I'll need to find the motivation to do it eventually, but I restarted the game and still am stuck in the 'unforgiving' stage of combat progression.

I bought The Witcher 2 during the holiday sale on GOG. It's installed and ready but i haven't gotten around to it yet.

played through the witcher in January/February this year and bought the witcher two in March , didnt get round to playing it until the summer but damn both games are great and i really need to finish that last chapter in 2 before 3 comes out which doesnt seem like it should be a problem but its been so long since i played i might have to restart.

@AuthenticM True! But many Englishers use ala, to the point where that may be the common usage? I don't know honestly, but Wikipedia seems to think so.

It's like all the accents that get dropped from French words. No one can be bothered!

@White said:

Do fans dig the Witcher 2 combat system? Or perhaps we can see them make a change to something more Dark/Demon's Soul-ish or even Amalur?

Witcher 2 combat system is brilliant, no real need for changes. Skyrim on the other hand...ick.

I enjoyed TW2 but I'm not really prepared for a game thats 30x bigger. Even Skyrim got old after awhile.

FWIW, Witcher 2 was a very closed game. (I loved the game btw.) So being "30x" larger may still be smaller in size than something like Skyrim. I am, however, very excited to see what they do with an open world Witcher. Witcher 2 was my favorite game of 2011, even more so than Skyrim.

Long live CD Projekt Red.

@patrickklepek said:

“We believe that we should end the series on a high note,”

said no one ever in the past 5 years.

Good on them!

I am very excited for this and Cyberpunk 2077.

@subyman said:

FWIW, Witcher 2 was a very closed game. (I loved the game btw.) So being "30x" larger may still be smaller in size than something like Skyrim. I am, however, very excited to see what they do with an open world Witcher. Witcher 2 was my favorite game of 2011, even more so than Skyrim.

The original quote had them saying something along the lines of "The Witcher 3 is 20% larger then the world of Skyrim."

@White said:

Do fans dig the Witcher 2 combat system? Or perhaps we can see them make a change to something more Dark/Demon's Soul-ish or even Amalur?

They seem to be going more into the heavy momentum basis of the Souls stuff. Pirouetting and swings requiring follow-through rather than canceling and such, though.

Amalur-like? God no. Too floaty and mashy, and would totally peel away the love of the combat systems that made me play TW2 in Dark Mode. There's a time and place for that combat, but I don't think it fits the relatively grounded world of The Witcher.

@Mr_Skeleton said:

I want to love the Witcher but I cannot understand the combat for the life of me, finishing the tutorial in The Witcher 2 was one of the hardest things I did that year.

I don't understand how you don't understand it. Regular sword for humans, silver sword for monsters. Hit enemies with appropriate swords, dodge out of the way of attacks and so on. Also you have a few different types of magic. One creates a shield around you, and the others are offensive.

It's exactly the same as other games of this sort, except you need to know when to back off and roll out of the way. Unless you're playing on easy, in which case you can just mash attack. Simple as that.

The Witcher is off the chain.

Wheezes with excitement!

@MildMolasses said:

"with the visuals we want"

Are they saying that the Witcher 2 fell below expectations visually? Holy shit

They are saying the Witcher 2 is not an open world game. Context.

God damn I can't wait!

@Sooty said:

@White said:

Do fans dig the Witcher 2 combat system? Or perhaps we can see them make a change to something more Dark/Demon's Soul-ish or even Amalur?

Witcher 2 combat system is brilliant, no real need for changes. Skyrim on the other hand...ick.

I actually played Dark Souls, then Skyrim, and then Witcher 2 so I was all in on the fantasy stuff. Dark Souls had the most satisfying combat for sure, but the Witcher 2 is already pretty close to that Dark Souls sense of weighty combat. I feel like they could refine their combat system, but I wouldn't really change that much about it.