This is a preview about The Witcher 3. But I would like to begin by talking about a game I didn’t like. That game is Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Dragon Age: Inquisition. A game that tossed me into the deep end. A game that had zero compassion for a hapless noob like me with zero knowledge of the previous games, zero understanding of lore. A game that felt as though it jumped straight into the third act and gave zero fucks about explaining what was going on and why. There’s a green thing in the sky. You go fix that now. All that jibberish? All those feuds that make the story compelling? You don’t need to know about that. No, I won’t explain. Piss off. Go away.
Dragon Age: Inquisition. A game that seemed to oscillate wildly between waaaaay too much exposition or absolutely no information whatsoever. A game that seemed to hate its story but was crazy in love with its own lore. No balance was struck. 12 hours in I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Just following markers on a map and killing things.
Welcome to the point of this intro: when I went to play The Witcher 3, having no previous experience with the series, I expected the worst. I expected a Dragon Age-esque experience. I expected a frustrating couple of hours. I didn’t expect to leave thinking that I had just played a possible game of the year candidate. No sir. I did not expect that at all.
I think of myself as someone who is fairly critical of video games, even games released to almost widespread acclaim. Please see above for proof of that fact. I didn’t like Dragon Age: Inquisition, but The Witcher 3 completely disarmed me. It’s rare that I sink into hyperbole, but I can’t help myself. I feel like I’ve been waiting for years to play an RPG like The Witcher 3.
Now I’m going to attempt to explain why.
The Witcher 3 Has Actually-Quite-Good-Really Writing
If you were to put all video game writing on some kind of statistical graph, I’m fairly sure the median point would fall somewhere between ‘outright garbage’ and ‘sub-optimal’. Where would The Witcher 3 fall on that spectrum? Probably somewhere between ‘holy-shit-I-don’t-hate-this’ and ‘wait-a-minute-video-game-RPGs-can-have-good-dialogue’? I know, I was as surprised as anyone.
It’s the subtleties. The manner in which bland exposition is reduced to a minimum. The way a universal depth is suggested in the dialogue instead of being rammed down your throat at every opportunity. I never felt the need to trawl through ridiculous history books in The Witcher 3 (like in Skyrim). I never felt like I had to explore every dialogue choice like I did in Dragon Age. In The Witcher 3 dialogue is cold, clean and efficient. It never treats you like an idiot, it always works to create relationships and build story. It works to create in-game connections you care about and it does so effortlessly. I say this as someone who had never played a single hour of The Witcher prior to this preview. I left feeling as though I understood Geralt’s motivations and cared for the fate of those surrounding him. Actually cared.
Every Scar Tells A Story
Video game scars are totally in vogue. Dragon Age: Inquisition had scars for days, but in The Witcher 3 every. single. person has scars. To the point of parody. It’s almost comical. At first it bothered me, then I grew to love it.
I grew to love it because it fits with the idea of ‘suggested’ histories. Where did those scars come from? In The Witcher 3 scars feel less like randomised geometry dents built in a character creator and more like untold stories you might get to hear, but even if you don’t those stories still exist.
Why does it work in a game like The Witcher 3 and fall flat in others? I think it’s because care has clearly been put into every character in the game. Care has gone into their backstories, care has gone into their look. Care has gone into making sure their dialogue rings true.
It’s funny how I feel as though The Witcher 3 can get away with the scar overload while Dragon Age couldn’t. I think it’s because in Dragon Age scars felt like a short-cut. Insert scar here; get weighty back-story. In The Witcher 3 the quality (and restraint) of the writing work in tandem with the visuals. It all feels very legitimate.
The Witcher 3 Feels Like A Real Place I’d Like To Visit
The game I was most reminded of during my time with The Witcher 3 was not Skyrim. It was Red Dead Redemption.
Skyrim is the easier comparison, but it doesn’t necessarily make sense. The Witcher 3’s world feels far more sparse, far more like a ‘real’ place. The Witcher 3 does a far better job of filling in the gaps. It feels more ‘designed’. In a good way.
I’m struggling to put this into words. Whilst whilst playing The Witcher 3 I felt as though I was inhabiting this large world minus the sacrifices that size and scale usually entails. That’s why the Red Dead Redemption comparison makes so much sense. I loved Skyrim, but so much of its world felt wafer thin. With Red Dead Redemption the sparseness of its environment is a thematic decision. It makes sense in terms of the universe and the story being told. I got the exact same feeling with The Witcher 3. The world makes sense. It works. It feels cohesive.
It rings true. Call it what you want — call it ‘immersion’, call it ‘engagement’ — but my time spent in The Witcher 3 was one in which I felt spellbound. I was there. I was living that life. For two to three hours I was legitimately able to suspend my disbelief.
There Is Actual Variety In Missions
Here is a list of things I did in The Witcher 3:
— Had a bath. Looked at a lady’s bottom.
— Did a tutorial in which I learned to move around and fight and what not.
— Rode a horse.
— Played an actual card game. Within the game.
— Declared my love for a lady who smelled of lilacs.
— Fought a bunch of bad guys.
— Tracked a Griffin.
— Found the ingredients for a trap for the Griffin.
— Fought the Griffin.
— Killed the Griffin with a bow and arrow.
— Went to a mad, totally rowdy highland party in a castle filled with Irish and Scottish people.
— Fought bears trying to kill everyone at the rowdy highland party.
— Embarked upon a ‘Cluedo-esque’ investigation trying to figure out who let the bears into the party.
— Used Batman-like ‘Witcher’ abilities to track down the culprit.
— Helped make a totally awesome Irish woman the new Queen of some cold looking region.
Compare that to most video games these days: follow marker to location X. Kill all the things. Repeat until oblivion.
Best of all? Almost everything I did felt polished, unique and cohesive. At no point did anything feel tacked on (or tacky).
The Witcher 3 felt like the kind of RPG I’ve been waiting years to play: the kind of game that balances scale with design; visual fidelity with scope. The kind of game that sucks you into its universe but doesn’t feel weak and flimsy minute-to-minute. For the longest time it felt as though you could have one but not the other. The Witcher 3 seems to do it all and sacrifices nothing. That’s sort of scary — in a good way. You should be excited about this game.
Comments
69 responses to “I’ve Been Waiting Years To Play An RPG Like The Witcher 3”
So different than Nathan’s review.
Mark, are able to tell us if the combat, potion and sign improved in Witcher 3?
My only issue in the Witcher series is that the potions are troublesome to use.
We’re just coming from different points of view I think.
Difficult to tell if the combat is improved. I didn’t play the first game and probably spent 30 mins with the console version of The Witcher 2. 😐
:P. How about the story? Was it confusing for someone like you who did not complete the previous games?
I had no problem at all following stuff.
Not to take away from your impressions Mark, but would it be possible for you to mention whether you attended a preview event and if so, was it as a guest of the publisher/distributor? I am not suggesting impropriety, just that the disclosure would be welcome.
Really, this #gamergate stuff is still a thing for people?
Nothing to do with #gamergate (which I don’t really know that much about), just seems to me that if you receive a product or experience gratis and give your views about it, it would be responsible to make that disclaimer. Other sites do it and I think that it should be encouraged.
Does it really matter that you know who provided the game and where? Other sites most likely do it now to “show transparency” when in fact why do we need it in the games industry? Politics – Yes, News – yes, Game reviews???
I think it is important, when someone holds him or herself out as being an independent journalist or reviewer, that anything that could potentially taint that perception be disclosed. And the flipside, how would such disclosure harm the journalist? I would trust a preview or review article a lot more if the journalist stated that the product or experience was provided by the publisher or otherwise. I’m not suggesting that journalists or reviewers NOT accept these kinds of invitations or products, because that would be unrealistic and uneconomical, but one line of disclosure would, I think, reassure people that the writer at least considers perception of bias to be important enough to address, and that the writer has not been subconsciously influenced by the generosity of the publisher.
If publishers could have journalists in their pocket without destroying their credibility then they would. The best publishers can do is to create an atmosphere conducive to positive feelings, which they hope will translate into positive coverage. Why else would publishers hold ‘review events’ or send out trinkets? They want to control perception as much as possible. I’m sure Mark and any other journalist worth his or her salt is aware of this, so why not take a simple step to allay any concern that the writer’s views have been tainted?
Wow – I was going to say “who cares” but obviously you do!
I personally could not give two shits if there was a paid review event, bribery, cocaine and hookers etc. In fact, I’d be happy for the reviewers to partake in such events.
It’s very easy to jump on metacritic to get a large sample size of reviews.
@xxryan I do care because I think that publishers shouldn’t take it for granted that they can just lay out the red carpet and get positive coverage for upcoming games, particularly when we’ve recently seen some fairly egregious examples of reviewers giving Halo MCC and Assassin’s Creed Unity high scores when they were quite buggy.
I also think you are missing my point. I recognise that preview events are necessary (not so much review events) to show off a working slice of the game. I also recognise that games journalists can’t be reasonably expected to spend their own money to attend such events. All that is fine. However, when a journalist could easily put in a line at the bottom of the article saying ‘the writer attended a preview event courtesy of the publisher’, but chooses not too, when it is standard journalistic practice, I find it a bit disappointing. As I said in another comment, I’m not losing sleep over this, but I thought I’d bring up the issue as a matter of public interest.
For someone who claims to not know much about gamergate you appear to be awfully fluent with some of their arguments.
@sunsoar77 I thought they were targeting Zoe Quinn for some insane reason like she slept with a guy that supposedly reviewed her game, when in fact he didn’t write any such review. Anyway, like I said, I think disclosure is in the public interest. If someone chooses not to disclose something then that is their choice. I’m not going to get upset about it 🙂
I’m sure people are flocking to receive ethical approval from the great “Zambayoshi”. Don’t you have better things to care about?
I just think that journalistic integrity and the public perception of games journalism is important. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it though. Sorry if I offended you. That wasn’t my intention.
Kotaku usually puts disclaimers out where necessary…
Again….. why are you reviewing it lol
Are you trying to tell me there ISN’T a kotaku hivemind?!
Three things about the new Witcher that Gaming Journalists (like Nathan) don’t want you to know!
Oh thank god you like it Serrels, everyone else seems to bitch it out a little, and I’m fairly confident we have similar taste in games, so, some more hope I’ll enjoy Witcher 3…
Damn you Serrels!!! you make it sound like its better than pavlova.. and pavlova is like eating a cloud!
But seriously happy that you enjoyed the time playing it. just a question did you play New Vegas? because i found the writing and dialog in new vegas to up there with witcher series
I’ve only played about 14 hours of the first Witcher game and found the dialogue atrocious. Pretty sure the terrible voice acting didn’t help. I’m guessing it got better or writing in Witcher 2 was much improved?
Thing about the first game is it was originally created just in Polish, and the English dialogue was tacked on at the end. It was later fixed up a bit with the Enhanced Edition.
From TW2, the English script has either been the main one or co-running with the Polish one, so it is lightyears ahead of the first game.
Nothing is better than pavlova.
Except mangoes.
A pavlova with mangoes?
Had a bath. Looked at a lady’s bottom
Game of the Year 2015.
That depends on the resolution and frame rate of said bottom.
900p @ 30fps? GTFO.
1080p @ 60fps? GotY!
4k at 210 fps or die.
I just finished number 2 yesterday, and it was just fantastic, but it did not feel like I made any impact on the overall world or story. Other than saving the characters I liked and letting some bad guys live. I don’t know what, but there’s something beautiful about it. It’s not like other games where you save the world or kill a bad guy and move on. It was definitely different. I’ve never played the first one and doubt that I will ever, but I am definitely looking forward to the third one and definitely will play it. Can’t wait.
Yeh that’s definitely something that makes the Witcher different from other RPG’s. Geralt is such a bad ass and I had no problem with not being able to create my own character in the series. He’s not the saviour of the world and has his own personal quests, also he’s a friggin monster hunter for the right price.
Thanks Mark, that’s a very nuanced preview of the game. I personally only spent a few hours with the first game and wasn’t overly impressed. But this preview now has me interested in the franchise again. Particularly after the scathing – and, from my perspective, agreeable – write up of DA:I, it’s good to hear of an RPG that is paying attention to theme, story and design and putting in a lot of polish into those things.
Serrels, I feel your pain but… on Dragon Age. I was also a DA noob. I hadn’t played 1 game in the series. I was told by a friend that it was “as good as Skyrim” and that sold it for me. I picked it up and like you…. for the first 10 hours or so…. I absolutely hated it. I found it overly complex, too focused on spitting story at you and just not fun. However… that all changed. Once I kept at it… let the story sink in, got to know the characters and finally learned how to properly use the strategic camera… I started to LOVE it. I’m now +100 hours in and can honestly say it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played… and definitely as good as Skyrim.
Maybe I should keep on trucking?
Totally… it really does get better for us noobs. It was an uphill battle for me as well (I almost traded it in, but a friend stopped me)…. now it’s all downhill and I’m loving every minute of it, especially the epic dragon battles (which honestly eclipse all the dragon fights I had in Skyrim). Also, the game really doesn’t kick in and get good until you start owning/running a huge castle called ‘Skyhold’. At that point, you’ll start to enjoy it.
I agree with you but don’t you think it’s a bit weird for a game to expect you to sacrifice 10 hours before it gets good? Just seems like poor design to me.
If there’s a good game hidden in there somewhere…. why not show it ASAP?
to be honest, the thing that put me off DA was their booth at PAX.
It was hidden away in a tiny room up some stairs, and then it was a 2 hour wait to even see the game. They were giving everyone 15 min and there were about 30 people in line….which means they must have had only about 4 computers… I dunno it seemed odd.
On top of that, it was in a roped off tent thing which means you couldn’t look in, and they wouldn’t let anyone just come up and have a look.
So you’re at a games expo and you’re not actively showing off your game to everyone??? You’re actually making it hard for me to see it?
After that…. it was all “meh” for me. Kind of seems like the game itself is following a similar mentality.
I got to play it at PAX. We had 30 minutes, there were at least eight consoles (I actually think 12?) And I walked past the previous day and watched other people play…you only had to ask!
Oh I asked… I was told to get in line or leave…. guess which one I chose.
Yes, absolutely. I was like you, the first 10-12 hours I found it horribly confusing and not terribly enjoyable. I’m now just about to start my third playthrough, with a total of some 140 hours so far. Without spoiling anything, the game really starts after a big story event – everything prior is basically an introduction.
No don’t waste your time. Seriously if you aren’t feeling it by now you will not. I had the exact experience with Dragon Age.
I set up an acct just for this… Anyways if you haven’t finished DA:I yet how can you go on a rampage about hating the game… Come on lets be fair here, yes the first part is long but once you you get to Skyhold then the world really opens up, your more involved with your companions +. The story, the game, everything really takes off… I’ve played all 3 games, I’m on my 4th playthru for DA:I. Yes for people that never played the other 2 it will throw them off but with Codex’s it will help… Give the game a chance before you tear it a new _______ LOL.
And btw Def looking forward to playing Wicther 3, I’ve played all those too and read the books LOL
I’m about 25 hours into Witcher 2 and I’m loving it. It feels a lot less hand holdy (if that make sense) and feels better than a majority of RPG games I’ve played recently. The journal gives me a good idea of what I need to do and the not every mission will have a big “HERE IS YOU OBJECTIVE, GO HERE” (although it is there on ocassion). I hope the Witcher 3 feels like this. After playing 2, 3 has gone from “meh” to “must buy”. Can’t believe I waited this long to play it.
Does TW3 have a cast of companions to accompany on my journey, that I can find out about, or romance?
Does TW3 let me play as female?
No? Does TW3 let me look at a dude’s bottom? (Not that I’d want to, but I’m sure some might.)
Does TW3 have some way of discovering the world’s history? Books? Codex entries? Notes? (I’m weird. I fucking love codex entries).
If it’s anything like TW2 it will have the best Codex entries and a journal from the pov of the narrator that is extremely entertaining.
In the Witcher games you don’t play as your own custom character. You’re playing as Geralt. He’s an existing character like Cloud Strife or Link.
In my LoZ game he is called MaxPenis…
There is part of the story where you play as Female don’t know how long that portion is.
Books? Yes. Yes it does. On Amazon.
From what I understand based on experience with the previous two games & what they’ve talked about so far:
– You’re usually alone, but there are recurring major characters in the series and at least one of them is a romantic interest for Geralt. They might help out on specific bits of the game but they’re not following you around everywhere.
– Yes, actually. Technically you’re playing as a fixed protagonist (Geralt) but there are apparently parts of the story where you instead play as
Ciri, a female witcher that Geralt trained and he’s somewhat of a father figure for– I’m fairly sure that if you wanted to, you could track down a dude’s bum to have look at. It might be Geralt’s own bum though, does that count?
– Dunno, but there was a sizeable amount of lore scattered around the previous two games if you looked for it. Not as deep as the stuff Bioware tend to pack in, but the world has a decent amount of history and CD Projekt are IMO far better at telling a story and imparting lore etc. through more subtle means inside the game itself. They also have insane levels of attention to detail that you don’t get in many other games at all. Stuff like the fact that all the NPCs in the world have schedules and everything and react to the game world – even right back in the original game, NPCs would go to their own house to eat meals and sleep at appropriate times of day, huddle under overhanging roofs when it would rain and so on. More attention tends to go into making the world feel real than writing lots of text about its history.
Personally I like Bioware’s stuff quite a bit (though Dragon Age Inquisition I found to be very flawed in a lot of ways) but I like CD Projekt’s output a whole lot more.
There is a whole series of books that the game is based/inspired from called ‘The Witcher”….Most of it is in polish but I think several have been translated into english.
The witcher doesn’t care so much about the world’s history. Because, like most people in the world, its about a guy trying to live his life (being a complete badass makes it abit hard…hence 3 games of epic tales…)
Companions? No. It’s a single character action RPG. You sometimes get characters to accompany you on specific quests, but they don’t stick with you through the entire game or level up or anything. Romance is probably going to play a reasonably important part in the overall story, though. And no, you can’t customise a character. This is the story of Geralt of Rivia, not Generic Adventurer. In plot specific points you sometimes get to play as his foster daughter, Ciri, who is the object of Geralt’s search at least for the first act of the game, but those are short segments.
But the world does have tons of lore. The previous game had the game codex told from the viewpoint of Dandelion the Bard, Geralt’s occasional travelling companion, with some delightfully witty or pretentiously annoying commentary, depending on who you ask, thrown in to spice up the dry facts. We’ll have to see if The Witcher 3 is going to do something similar.
May 19th release, we got a very long time to wait, not even thinking about this game atm. Some games seem to get released to press extremely early.
DA:I is good but will leave newbies wondering what the hell their meant to do, it needs more in-game ques from the followers telling you to get out of dodge and explore/do other things, but at the start you can easily be misled to believing you must stay in the first area indefinitely until unlocking the gates to castle and what not (not doable at start, most times).
The war table is the ONLY way to progress the story, and its interface is not very obvious to this fact
(for example continue or selection buttons on progression missions don’t exist ‘just press button or X never the less, this took me hours to figure out at start and I thought my game was broken)
I don’t get it… Is there like a time period in video games where people just forget everything outside that time frame? BioWare and SquareSoft used to make some beautifully written and varied RPG’s. The reason I’ve always loved the Witcher is because it stays true to that original concept as opposed to trying to re-invent it.
It’s as though people need to be reminded there used to be a standard for RPG’s before Dragon Age 3 came along and dropped the universally accepted standard to what passes as a story in a FPS game. The Witcher 3 from all the articles I’ve read isn’t a step forward; it’s just the rest of the games industry when it comes to RPG’s has been moving backward and Witcher 3 has chosen to stand its ground.
I think a lot of it is that the ‘AAA’ RPG space is increasingly dominated just by Bioware and Bethesda. Final Fantasy dropped out of contention years ago as that series declined and most of the other former large players in that market haven’t kept up and are more in the mid-budget range now. In terms of big, expansive, high production value RPGs, Dragon Age was the only one in the last couple of years at least.
Lol that’s what I mean; RPG’s have been moving backwards and people assume that crappy RPG’s are the new standard. They used to be better; they just haven’t been held to that standard in a while.
Don’t get me wrong I think the Witcher 3 will be good; however I’m only expecting it to be slightly better than the original i.e. holding to what was the RPG standard. Not this new age crap that throws in assassin’s creed/ubisoft collectibles with increased customization and calls it an RPG.
That said here’s hoping Pillars of Eternity and Massive Chalice bring the genre back in line to the classics. Oh and Tides of Numenera too =]
I just finished DA:I last night and loved it but yeh I can see how confusing it could be for newbies. Even after being fairly familiar with the lore and played all 3 games in the series, I still had to refer to wiki’s on the net. I was a bit confused at the start of the Witcher 2 and it didn’t grab me right away. I had the enhanced edition which comes with a map of the continent the game is set in, but the game actually takes place in such a small part of it, with so many different countries and rulers. but it eventually pulled me in, and now Witcher 2 as one the best RPG’s I’ve played,
The cool thing about The Witcher series (books and games) – Geralt isn’t the One True Hero Who Will Save The World. He’s doing his own things for his own personal reasons, and while that sometimes aligns with world-changing events, more often than not he finds that saving the kingdom is a pain in the arse he could rather do without.
Maaaan I’m gonna end up buying this aren’t I? Despite disliking the previous Witcher games.
That damn Train again.
I’m going to be that guy……
I may be wrong…. But it should be “a RPG”???Don’t think so. I mean just try and say it out loud, it sounds wrong.
I was debating that in my head but it was always “a” before a consonant and “an” before a vowel with the curly one being before a/an “h”.
But acronyms have their own rule? Perhaps as it’s an Arr sound and not RRrrr as in role.
You’re right. Abbreviations that start with a vowel sound like “R” use “an”.
Usually “a” is used for hard sounds which are usually consonants but not limited to them.
Oh arse… grumble…
Good to know the writing is still solid, was quite good in Witcher 2 (even if the voice acting is occasionally a little off). Keen as all hell to see Charles Dance ham it up in this game 😛
Zambayoshi is completely right and the disclosure is important (to me at least). Now I’m not going to get into a discussion over if products I purchase should disclose the amount of effort by it’s publisher to attain reviews (be they good or bad). But I too would like to know:
What console (pc, xbone etc.) you played on?
Who(Company, Publisher…) and/or Where(Pre-release, journalist event) were you playing?
How long did you get to play?
My greatest fear with this review is you attended a journalist event and got a brief amount of time to experience a carefully selected area of the game.
– Went to a mad, totally rowdy highland party in a castle filled with Irish and Scottish people.
We didn’t ask for a review of your Australia Day, Serrels…
What platform were you playing on Mark?
Mark, I would really suggest you read the books. Doing so adds so much more to the world, there are very subtle things in there that you just don’t notice until you’ve read the books. I played The Witcher 1 and 2 after I had read The Last Wish (1st book and collection of short stories) and there were a few things I picked up on, but after I had read all of the books (including the 2nd collection of short stories, not published in english, fan translated only) the depth to the world and the characters expanded to an unbelivable level, well worth the read through.
Thanks to MS I got a free copy of the Witcher 2 last week so I’ll get the chance to try it out (it always looked impressive – I just don’t need too many 100+ hour games unless they’re really good)
A comparison to Red Dead gives me confidence over the stock standard RPG
So, hold on Kotaku, you have reviewers who are reviewing trilogies they are not familiar/have not played?
That is pathetic! i understand the premise of why you did this “could a noob play” and by the sounds of it no he cant, that’s not the games fault. My girlfriend sometimes watches me play and she completely understands it, and she hasn’t even played it.
“12 hours in I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Just following markers on a map and killing things”.
Maybe you should read, or learn how RPG’s work.
thanks for the Witcher review
To be fair, if I hadn’t watch/played the first 2 films/games in a series I wouldn’t expect the 3rd installment to suddenly drop all that lore/back story in my lap. That’s entirely on me, jumping into a series. Maybe that’s just me though.
I have to agree with the above posters. If you’re jumping directly in to the third game of a trilogy, then I don’t think you should expect to have your hand held and have it explain everything in detail. If someone picks up the third book in a series or starts watching a TV series from Season 3, it’s expected that they will have some catching up to do and either have someone explain it to them or read up on the Internet.
Mass Effect 3 I think went too far in trying to cater for new players – and was weaker for it (sure, it had other problems too, but that’s another discussion).
Witcher 2 was a massive improvement over Witcher 1, and to be honest didn’t really follow on or need much explanation beyond the short primer included in the game.
Inquisition, on the other hand, starts off based around a conflict with significant lore and social context that has been explored throughout the previous two games. HOWEVER, if you paid attention to the introduction AND then went through the same process as you would be expected to do for a book/TV/whatever series, then you would *have* that context. I’m sorry, but if you want a story that explores and build on concepts and layers more on top of them, then you have to put in some damn effort to understand that context.
Witcher 1 was poorly written, juvenile and tedious, whereas Witcher 2 demonstrated to me that CDPR had worked out how to translate the essence of an interesting setting that I had seen in Witcher 1 into a genuinely excellent game. If WItcher 3 is a further maturing of their development and design skills, I’m very much looking forward to it.
The dialogue and story in both Witcher games so far has been very good. I wouldn’t criticize the size of the books in the Elder Scrolls though, at least in this context, because the Witcher team is dealing with an already established lore from the books. The quality of conversational dialogue is second to none though.
In fact, a lot of the first game feels like they put the first series of short stories in a blender and made new stories from familiar pieces. But the second game was even better in this regard (the first game’s strongest point was its story and dialogue, the gameplay was its weakest). It’s hard to imagine the 3rd game failing to match at least that level of quality.