They have their work cut out for them. Polish developers CD Projekt are working to deliver their PC RPG The Witcher not only by its projected release date, but also to an audience that is likely unfamiliar with its in-game universe. Start with its dark fantasy universe based on the works of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski - and unless you've been following contemporary global fantasy literature (or live in Central and Eastern Europe), you've just found unexplored territory.
But that's probably the fun part of having their work cut out for them: the all-new stuff. Given a chance by the press (as members of the press did in late February/early March), CD Projekt manages to impress with its combat system, their skill in squeezing adorably dark settings from the BioWare Aurora engine, and its "fantasy with a dark modern sheen" storyline. So we decided to take a chance to interview them, and see what the best of the East (as in Eastern Europe) can offer to a world that has The Elder Scrolls IV or Neverwinter Nights to deal with. You'd be pleasantly surprised. From dynamic combat that breaks the monotony of click-hacking the target, to the challenge of developing a Witcher of your liking from an array of skills and equipment, CD Projekt's got their game going to deliver something unique and yet comfortably within the fantasy RPG genre.
Catch the interview with Projekt CD's Michal Madej after the jump!
They have their work cut out for them. Polish developers CD Projekt are working to deliver their PC RPG The Witcher not only by its projected release date, but also to an audience that is likely unfamiliar with its in-game universe. Start with its dark fantasy universe based on the works of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski - and unless you've been following contemporary global fantasy literature (or live in Central and Eastern Europe), you've just found unexplored territory.
But that's probably the fun part of having their work cut out for them: the all-new stuff. Given a chance by the press (as members of the press did in late February/early March), CD Projekt manages to impress with its combat system, their skill in squeezing adorably dark settings from the BioWare Aurora engine, and its "fantasy with a dark modern sheen" storyline. So we decided to take a chance to interview them, and see what the best of the East (as in Eastern Europe) can offer to a world that has The Elder Scrolls IV or Neverwinter Nights to deal with. You'd be pleasantly surprised. From dynamic combat that breaks the monotony of click-hacking the target, to the challenge of developing a Witcher of your liking from an array of skills and equipment, CD Projekt's got their game going to deliver something unique and yet comfortably within the fantasy RPG genre.
Answering our questions is Chief Designer Michal Madej.
Atari will be handling North American publishing for The Witcher. Now we can presume that the marketing will more or less be their job, but we'd like to ask you guys this nonetheless: How do you pitch something as story-intensive as The Witcher to an audience who's probably unfamiliar with the story/universe?
Unfortunately people from English speaking countries havenÂ’t had a chance to read the books yet; the first collection of stories will be published in a few months in the UK. That being said, we created the gameÂ’s storyline so it could introduce the world to players unfamiliar with the source material, while at the same time allowing them to play and learn about the character of Geralt, The Witcher. We wanted to keep the style, the atmosphere and the humor of the novels, without using the plot. There will, of course, be a lot of references to the books that will add some flavor and should appeal to fans of the books, but it wonÂ’t confuse anyone who hasnÂ’t read the books at all. We spent a lot of time promoting the game before signing with our publisher, so The Witcher is already quite a recognizable game; weÂ’ll keep that promotion going with our publishing partner, and weÂ’ll release lots of new info, screenshots and videos before release.
Does the real-time combat engine, pulling off combos, and all those motion-captured swordplay moves mean we'll see fluid and dynamic combat like those in fighting games, and not simply characters slashing away at each other? In other words, more Jin Kazama 15-hit attacks, less World of Warcraft strafe-and-hack? (Maybe I'm just drawing up the wrong picture here...)
It’s definitely dynamic combat. First of all, there's the arcade element based on performing certain combat sequences. The player clicks on the opponent to perform the first attack. When the cursor changes, the player must click again to perform the next attack in the sequence. Finding the right moment isn't too difficult, though it requires a degree of concentration on what is going on. We do not want to make combat too complicated; this is a role-playing game, after all. This approach to combat eliminates the mindless clicking found in a lot of hack-and-slash games, which we think deprived the combat of any real purpose (other than mindless clicking). The protagonist would perform the same type of attack over and over again, and at the same speed, too – clicking slower or faster wouldn’t change anything, so there was not much the player could do.
In our game, combat will engage players constantly as they need to pay attention during battle and must choose their actions carefully. It is not difficult to master, but the very idea of completing certain sequences correctly seems appealing. What's more, seeing these awesome combat sequences play out serves as a reward itself; there are more than 200 combat animations in The Witcher, each created from actual moves performed by master swordsmen during our motion-capture sessions. In this aspect, combat is more akin to action/adventure games.
How quickly will we be able to adapt to The Witcher's control system? Can you take us through a typical combat scenario or monster fight in order to demonstrate it?
After a couple of fights and a few minutes of playing, you should have a hang of things, as the control system is quite simple and intuitive. Players will not have a problem adapting to it; itÂ’s generally point & click with a bit of support from the keyboard. The combat system is completely real-time (with an active pause). It was the core concept of combat in The Witcher from the very beginning.
LetÂ’s imagine a fight situation from the game. You approach a small party of foes, regular bandits that are not as strong as some single opponents youÂ’ll face, but in the group they might do a bit of harm. Enemies will try to surround you to gain an advantage in combat. You can avoid it by running, dodging or leaping away from combat, which is achieved by double-clicking or simply by clicking around to move.
LetÂ’s say theyÂ’ve succeeded in surrounding you anyway. In The Witcher, you have six fighting styles in total, which youÂ’ll want to choose based on the situation you find yourself in: strong, fast and group stances are available, and your choice will also depend on whether you are fighting against humans and monsters. You change your combat style using the user interface or a keyboard shortcut. In this particular situation, the best choice is to use a group style against humans enemies. Rather than rushing into combat, weÂ’ll weaken the enemies with one of GeraltÂ’s magical abilities. Clicking the right mouse button casts the spell youÂ’ve assigned to it, while holding the right button down longer will unleash a powered-up spell. WeÂ’ll use the Aard sign, a telekinetic spell used to stun the enemies. While the enemies are stunned, you can easily finish one of them off with a single blow before the others recover. The group style uses sword techniques which can strike multiple enemies with roundhouse blows.
When attacking, you start the combo sequence. To continue successfully, you must click to attack at the appropriate moment. Jumping out of combat or casting a spell will break the sequence. Using the group style, combined with a little bit of magic, the bandit problem should be solved in a moment :).
It's become cliche with RPGs that players have to slog through the tedium of leveling and farming useful resources to carry them through the next phase of the storyline. Is this dynamic present in The Witcher, or have you worked/are you working on minimizing that and keeping the player moving through the story?
There will be an extensive character-development system implemented for Geralt, but as far as the mechanics go, we decided to give up on a stat-based system, because itÂ’s hard to imagine its actual influence on the game. That is why we decided to base the character development in The Witcher on abilities. For example, when it comes to leveling up your combat styles, you can buy another blow in a sequence, or a chance that the hit will have a bonus effect. There is a large variety of skills, with nearly 250 available to acquire. Skills are grouped in a related tree system; some of them concentrate on magic, some focus on combat, etc. As for equipment and items, Witchers are not exactly the kind of guys that engage in combat just to collect whatÂ’s left from the enemy, then run to the nearest pawnshop before the increasing supply of cheap swords drops prices to somewhere around a nickel. The alchemy element of the game does encourage some item collection, though, to create new potions. There will be dozens of ingredients waiting to be found, bought, ripped from the monsters, etc. There is plenty of it, and itÂ’s lot of fun :).
Given the definition of what a Witcher is, it's probably safe to say that a lot of the in-game activity will be quest-based (and for the right price, after all), right? If so, how much of the in-game activity/quests will have a bearing on the story or character (player or NPC) development? Conversely, how much of the game will be side quests?
That’s correct; completing quests is the primary way to receive experience and earn money. There is a fairly even division between main and side quests, and some of them are contracts for killing monsters – that’s all in a day for witchers, after all :). We reckon that it will take about 40 hours to complete main quest and 40 to complete the side quests.
Of course, killing enemies will also give experience points. There is a special algorithm calculating the amount based on the difference between the difficulty value of the opponent and the level of Geralt.
What games have inspired you, not only in developing The Witcher, but also as game developers and gamers? It seems you have a great love for RPGs; do you also have favorite games in other genres?
Most of the people in the CD Projekt RED studio are hardcore RPG fans, but of course we play lots of other games too, and we also keep up-to-date with new titles. CD Projekt is the biggest publisher in Poland so we have a great background and lots of games to draw inspiration from. :)
We were mostly inspired by classic RPG titles like Fallout or Baldur’s Gate. The game engine is based on the BioWare Aurora Engine, so there is, of course, some reference to Neverwinter Nights. Well, you know there are so many beautiful games, you’ll always be able to draw a bit of inspiration from everything — something from the graphics, something for gameplay, something for the animations. A few non-RPGs we’ve really liked and have tried to learn from are Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Blade of Darkness, Devil May Cry, God of War, Final Fantasy series and Prey.
Have you ever considered a PS3, Xbox 360, or perhaps Wii version of the The Witcher - and given the chance to make one, would you?
The Witcher is strictly a PC game, and it was never considered for any other platform. We do have plans to develop a console game in the future, though.
In the voice acting department: if you were given the option, which English-language actor (traditional studio actors or professional voicework actors) would you cast in the lead roles?
We should have more news on the voice actors soon. Finding the right person to voice Geralt is quite a challenge, since this is a very unique character as far as fantasy games are concern. There arenÂ’t many actors that could fill the part, but weÂ’re excited about the actors weÂ’re talking to.