Gaming
The Witcher Documentary Reveals the Franchise’s Humble Beginnings
On October 26, The Witcher video game franchise will turn 10 years old. That’s quite the accomplishment, especially given the cultural impact of the series. The Polish Prime Minister gave a copy of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings to President Obama as a gift; Netflix will soon release a series based on the original Witcher books (which has seen a resurgence of popularity thanks to the games), and video game critics often cite The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as a shining example of how to create DLC. While CD Projekt RED already posted a heartfelt thank you video to celebrate the 10th anniversary, YouTube channel arhn.eu has created something even better: a documentary on the making of the first The Witcher video game. The video is in Polish, but audiences can turn on English subtitles.
This massive, two-hour video presents the complicated production of the first The Witcher game. Well, the first two games, as the actual first one was produced by the studio Metropolis and never made it past early development stages. According to the documentary, this version, had it been completed, would have used static, isometric camera angles, not unlike the first several Resident Evil games, turn-based combat similar to Final Fantasy, and character models made on an Amiga 1200. The documentary also provides a special look at an early demo of the CD Porjekt RED version of the game before the protagonist of all the Witcher books, Geralt of Rivia, was the main character of the game.
The documentary isn’t all concept art and demo/beta versions of The Witcher; it also provides a look into the difficulties of making the game. For example, parts of the original script had to be rewritten when the developers turned Geralt into the game’s protagonist. More importantly, the video demonstrates the mindset of the developers, how they balanced adapting The Witcher books (down to the most minute details) with changing certain aspects of Witcher lore to make a good video game. In the documentary, the books and game are compared to the original novel The Shining and its sequential movie; both are compelling, but they are compelling for different reasons, as they are made differently.
I could go on all day about the documentary, but honestly my summaries do it a disservice. Anyone who considers him or herself a Witcher fan needs to watch this video.
Since the excellent Baldur’s Gate 3 has been out in the wild for a while, interesting data can be gleaned, such as how players choose to play an innovative new RPG from home. Stats from developer Larian Studios and posted on the PlayStation Blog show that most people want to play as a stealthy archer like in Skyrim when given nearly limitless options.
According to a fascinating graph, Rogue/Ranger is the most popular multiclass build, with over 175,000 players using it to snipe unsuspecting enemies from range. The next two builds reveal similarly. 150,000 played Barbarian/Fighter because they loved pummeling things, and 109,00 played Barbarian/Paladin, which lets players talk to their victims before beatings.
More sense emerges as you descend. If the Paladin/Warlock/Sorcerer/Bard has high Charisma, any combination can be interesting. Charisma helps these classes cast spells and abilities and interact with NPCs outside of combat.
Playing a single class through Baldur’s Gate 3 feels great, which is what most players do. A pure Fighter or Wizard becomes so powerful by game’s end that we don’t blame you for not mixing things up!
Play as a Tiefling Oathbreaker Paladin, Dark Urge Origin (which you must resist), or Bard for real moral dilemmas. You could also play pseudo-Aragorn again.
Techland is continuing to release Dying Light 2 content as part of its long-term support. This is surprising since the meaty Good Night, Good Luck update was released a few months ago. It’s nice to know what’s coming, but no timeline was given.
IGN-exclusive roadmap trailers reveal more co-op missions, board quests, a tower raid, and replayable GRE anomalies. Executions and finishers may be added to the April Gut Feeling update, which overhauled melee mechanics. Graphical options, weapon repair, gear, and mod dismantling are always welcome.
Knives, polearms, and more enemy variants are coming, including a Nightmare difficulty. Changes to NG+ include firearms. Players can finally dress to their hearts’ content with new cosmetic options.
Has Techland’s Dying Light 2 support lured you back? Would you rather focus on something new?
Epic Games expanded the Fortnite V-Buck “pricing alignment” after laying off almost 900 employees, citing “inflation and currency fluctuations”. Fortnite’s premium currency will rise in international markets, including the largest.
Epic Games will raise the price of V-Bucks and real money content packs in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Eurozone countries, Hungary, Japan, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Turkey, and the US (including all US Dollar storefronts) on October 27.
Raising the price of this fictitious currency was successful when the company trialed it in the UK, Canada, and Mexico, so it was decided to announce it worldwide now. These USD increases range from $1 (1000 V-Bucks, previous $7.99) to $10 (13,500 V-Bucks, previous $79.99).
How do you view Epic’s timing and pricing increase?
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