CD Projekt RED's apogee - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

“The Witcher 3": The Wild Hunt is an open-world story-driven role-playing game. It's set in an amazing magical universe, and any decision you make can have serious consequences. You play as professional “monster hunter” Geralt of Rivia, who is tasked to find the “Destiny Child” in a vast world full of trading cities, pirate islands, dangerous mountain passes and abandoned caves.

"The Witcher 3'' is probably the best thing to happen to the RPG universe and the Action/RPG game genre in the last 5 years. CD Projekt RED has done a simply colossal job, gone through fire, water, copper pipes and crunches. The developers have put their heart, blood and sweat into it, proving that the RPG games deserve special attention and that it is necessary to reach your goal, no matter what! If you are a streamer and you like games and you plan to expand your social media audience, you can buy real Instagram followers. There you can post clippings from your streamers and your achievements.

Let us remember together how CDPR managed to reach such heights and how they managed to evolve from a grassroots and grey-horse in the huge market of the game industry into giants and AAA-class game developers.

CD Projekt RED's triumphant march began back in 2007, with the unsightly first installment of the Witcher series.

The Witcher

The first RPG in the series, which began development back in 2004 was the starting point of this legendary story. In the first part, the player takes control of the main character of Andrzej Sapkowski's literary world — the witch doctor Geralt, of Rivia.

Action of the first game takes place after the events of the saga of the witch — barely survived, Heralt of Rivia falls into oblivion and is forced to re-learn his “witchcraft”. In turn, the player recovers the lost experience of the protagonist by fighting human opponents and monsters. At the same time, he is faced with a moral choice on which the fate of the game world depends. The title faithfully depicts the dark atmosphere of the universe of novels, but its plot is not officially supported by author Andrzej Sapkowski himself.

As I have already mentioned, the development of the first game in the series started in 2004 and lasted for four years, and the game used not the familiar “The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings” and “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” — “RED Engine”, but the engine “Aurora” from BioWare.

The game was well-received by critics, who praised its storyline, graphics, soundtrack and combat system, but criticised the technical bugs; most of these were corrected in the September 2008 “supplemental edition”, which also added a new adventure for the player. However, already in 2011 a sequel called The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was released and many people had forgotten about the first part.

The Witcher 2

The sequel was not long in coming. The second RPG series — “The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings” developed by the Polish company CD Projekt RED based on the novel series “The Witcher” by famous Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, a sequel to the computer game “The Witcher” 2007 issue.

The game came out in the same year as, no less beautiful game, “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim”, which essentially nullified all the attention in relation to the game. But from this interesting and no less exciting, in its own way, the story of the continuing wanderings of the “monster hunter” has not become worse. The protagonist is still the witch of Rivia, Geralt. According to Andrzej Sapkowski, he was still not involved in the development of the game's plot and didn't even know about its creation.

The plot, however, compared to the first part of the Witcher series, has become even more developed. It also became known that in the story, Geralt will be travelling a lot, and there will be a lot of powerful magic involved in the game's plot. The developers have ensured a high level of replayability, and by the middle of the game, the possible variations of the story can vary greatly from one to the other.

As I've mentioned before, the new “The Witcher” story uses an entirely new multiplatform game engine called “RED Engine”, developed in-house studio CDPR, especially for the game, and as the physics engine used the old-fashioned and familiar to us all Havok.

According to the same developers, “RED Engine” focuses not only on graphics and physics, but also on building a non-linear quest system. The graphics engine supports dynamic shadows, normal mapping and parallax mapping. In comparison to the first game of the series, the textures have become more detailed, the time of day has become more realistic, as well as the weather phenomena.

The developers from CD Projekt RED did not finish their work. Sometime after the game's release, new rumors began to appear, that the studio is in full swing to develop the next part.

The Witcher 3

The release of the third installment of the series was said back in 2011. At that time, Mr. Adam Kiczyński — at that time the head of Optimus, a subsidiary studio of CD Projekt RED — said that The Witcher game was originally created with the expectation of several sequels and that the game industry is quite normal to release another part of the series every two or three years. He suggested that The Witcher 3 could be released as early as 2014 or 2015.

This time, writer Andrzej Sapkowski — the creator of the books, on which the gaming universe is based — did not take part in its development, although he provided the developers some advice on the map game world and the names of characters. Earlier, Sapkowski himself had declared that he had no interest in computer games and considered the CD Projekt RED games to be a “free adaptation” of his works. In the aftermath, realizing his mistake, Mr. Sapkowski will decide to request a round sum from the developers, but that's a completely different story…

“The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” is a multiplatform PC RPG developed by the studio CD Projekt RED we know, based on the Witcher series of novels by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski and released in 2015 for PC, and current generation consoles (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One).

The game is a direct sequel to the computer games The Witcher and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, and the final part of the White Wolf trilogy.

A lot of guys started streaming this game because the gameplay is so intriguing that it involves hundreds of thousands of people. They shared their achievements on social media. And budding bloggers often have to buy Instagram followers, because it's hard to promote an account on your own.

The game is set in a fictional fantasy world, somewhat reminiscent of the medieval Europe of the late 14th century. As we already know, the protagonist is the “Butcher of Blaviken”, a “witch” — a professional monster hunter who embarks on a journey to find a “Destiny Child” named Ciri, who possesses supernatural powers.

Unlike previous games in the series, The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt is an open-world game: the player is free to travel across vast territories, find new locations, quests and points of interest independently.

The game received extremely high scores from the press: reviewers praised the storytelling, world design, combat system and graphics of the game. “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” was also a commercial success, selling over 10 million copies of the game.

It garnered a number of “Best Game of the Year” awards from various publications and organizations. Two expansive expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, were released, also highly praised by reviewers.

The game has become not only the most memorable project of 2015 but also the most significant RPG project of recent years. This year The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt will be celebrating its four-year anniversary and so far, it is the best complete and most ambitious RPG game so far.

CD Projekt RED is currently working on an equally ambitious project called Cyberpunk 2077. It has every chance of surpassing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, as well as failing miserably. I'd like to believe the best for the studio and for the White Wolf series.

After all, the series doesn't end there. The second project, which is being developed, at the moment, the studio may well be a game in the universe of The Witcher, or it could be a completely new project that will be inspired by the series of “monster hunter”.

The world and universe of The Witcher is limitless, it can pull you in for tens or even hundreds of hours and there's nothing you can do about it. If for some very strange reason you still haven't read the delightful books in The Witcher series of novels or played The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, then feel free to start doing it now!

List of innovations

·     The game world is approximately 30 times larger than in the previous game in the series (it would take more than 40 minutes of real-time to traverse the mainland on horseback).

·        A completely open world with different regions inhabited by unique peoples.

·        Various transports for moving between locations are available.

·        The game is developed on the REDengine 3 engines, which allows, according to the developers, to set new standards for the look and feel of role-playing games.

·        The story is not divided into chapters as in past games.

·        The story is based on the third Nilfgaard invasion of the Northern Kingdoms.

·        Geralt's memory is fully regained.

·     Tasks are divided into several levels of importance. Decisions made by the player now have an even greater impact on the world around them.

·        Of course, it is only possible to complete the game through the main storyline.

·        Twice as many cinematic cutscenes appear in the game as in the second part of the series.

·        The game features complex puzzles as well as a multivariate combat system known from the previous parts of the trilogy, but with numerous tweaks.

·        The game has been released on both eighth-generation consoles (PlayStation 4, XboxOne) and PC.

·        An important element of the game is now the hunting of monsters. Different creatures must now be handled individually.

·      The level of monsters is not related to the player's level. That is, in order to travel to locations with high-level monsters, you will have to properly pump the hero.

·     You can earn a living by taking contracts to kill monsters.

·     Some quests may require you to conduct a thorough investigation. Geralt has a special ability “witch sense”, using which the player will see important objects needed to complete the task, as well as hints.

·      There is a dynamic change in weather conditions.

·     During combat, you can interact with the surrounding objects. For example, the sign Aard to stir up the bees' nest, and while the enemy fights off the insects to escape.

·     Changed the effect of some characters.

·     Enemy AI is completely redesigned.

·     For Geralt, 97 different movements in combat have been drawn. The great complexity of combats is corrected in the direction of availability and ease of mastering.

·        Inventory system improved — added ability to stack items in saddlebags.

·      The ability to create armour and weapons was retained. However, if the player does not want to create items, he can walk around in what he gets for completing quests or killing monsters.

·        Geralt will let go of his beard. In addition, a hairstyle change feature will be available.

·        New mini-games have appeared. For example, the gwint. Their importance is not great, but for victory is given a good reward.

·        Above the game worked for twice as many teams as the first parts of the series.

·        The gameplay continues the ideas of the second part of the computer saga, but with more advantages.

Players can expect:

·        Dynamic weather changes and real volumetric cloud models;

·        Revised combat system. Combat mechanics is based on the principles of previous games, but the team has revised a lot of details. For example, the roll will be replaced by the pirouette, which is designed to retain the defensive function without losing mobility; you can parry or dodge a blow even if you run out of energy, but losing your balance; the ability to interact with the environment during the battle, for example, to stir up a hive with Aard sign to cause additional damage to enemies. There will be 96 animations of Geralt's movements in battle (the last game included 20 animations). CD Projekt RED reports that swordsmanship experts were involved in the creation of the combat animations. A stuntman is also used to capture the movements. Overall, the developers have created a clearer and more intuitive combat system. Enemy AI is completely redesigned.

·       The badge system has been redesigned. For example, each of the five signs will have a primary form, and as you progress through the selected branch it will be possible to unlock the secondary form of the sign, for example, the Igni sign in its primary form allows you to cast flames. The secondary form deals circular damage. Both forms of the mark will be available.

·        Improved inventory system and the ability to stack items in saddlebags.

·        Items, armor and weapons crafting are retained.

·        The game has the ability to import saved data from the previous installment.

·        The level of the enemies is not adjusted to the character's level. (In game settings there is the possibility to enable auto-leveling)

·       The “witch's gut” mechanic has been updated, it will allow you to see clues and traces.

·       Hunting now has more significance to the game.

 

·      Passing the main storyline takes about 50 hours of the game. Side quests will take about the same amount. During this time the hero will be able to level up to the maximum level of 70.