Launch
Yay! You can skip the splash screens!
Oooh Pretty!
CDPR! Cześć Hello!
Then the game goes through a short video (again in their graphic novel style from Witcher 2), explaining Witchers, and the current war going on.
The Menu and Game Config
The main menu loads fast! In The Witcher 2, even after you skip the opening titles, the game has to load.... something.... which a good 30 seconds or more, so you're sitting there looking at one frame of the opening cinematic until the menu loads. Whereas in Wild Hunt it loads in a few seconds after the cinematic (even if you skip it).
Of course, that art on the menu is animated, I'm not sure if it's actually the game engine, though it's probably not a video - it feels too fluid and crisp.
Interesting Improvements
The Continue button!
As you can see above, there's now a button which loads your most recent save game file in one click. This is a welcome improvement over The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, and is likely a common element among modern games anyway.The HUD configurations options are impressive!
The game lets you set the size of the HUD, its scale relative to the edges of the screen (both vertically and horizontally), and toggle each item (or almost each) on or off.
Controller guide
Kindly, they've added a guide to the game controller scheme. This will be a help since it's easy to forget what all the buttons do. Also, during the game there is a HUD item that shows the controls for the current actions or attacks.
Gameplay Improvements and Additions
Movement
In The Witcher 3 you now have a horse called Roach (all of Geralt's horses are named Roach). This is the same name as Geralt uses in the books. CDPR have accurately used horse riding terminology for the horse movement - Gallop and Cantor. When galloping, Roach will automatically follow the road, leaving the player free to move the camera around to look around the environment. Sometimes the horse doesn't follow the best path to the destination, which is odd because the map itself has the optimal route marked out anyway. Regardless, it's really fun to ride a horse through such beautiful environments.
The most obvious change in the game, and one which brings it up to "modern" standards of gameplay mechanics, is .... jumping. Geralt can now JUMP! In the previous games you could only climb up particular rocks or ladders or walk up and down stairs. Even that was an improvement over the first Witcher game where you could only walk on the one level and the game loaded a new map when you went down stairs. Now, in Witcher 3, you have full movement like in other games, and jump over fences, rocks, swim, jump onto tables, down stairs, up stairs, off platforms, into rivers! Of course, now that you have full freedom of movement, you can also jump of high places to your death! The game doesn't stop you jumping or walking off a cliff-face if you want. Overall I really do prefer having a full range of movement, it's much more immersive, though it can be nice not to have to worry about falling to your death with the wrong key press!
Environment
With this new engine, the developers have been able to create advanced weather effects with the current weather having an affect on the overall lighting, the monsters in the area and behaviour of the various NPCs. In the first Witcher game there was rain but it didn't really seem to affect the lighting of the environment much. It did however affect the behaviour of the NPCs - townsfolk would huddle under buildings and exclaim that their washing is getting wet. In The Witcher 2, I actually only ever saw one rain event or storm. It did seem to affect the behaviour of the townsfolk but I couldn't be sure due to the town I was actually in. When I finally encountered a storm in the Witcher 3 however, it was very atmospheric, and oddly became almost as dark as night! With the heavy rain and rain drop patterns on the camera, the area took on a very foreboding feel. The few villagers I encountered seemed to take shelter under whatever they could find, but I'm not sure if they said something about it. Geralt however commented that it was about to rain. Apparently, in W3, some monsters only come out at night or are harder or easier to defeat at night, but I haven't experienced this yet.
In the storm, the tree sway much more violently as the wind picks up and there's even lightning effects and thunder too!
The Witcher: Wild Hunt has nicely gone back to the amazing dusk and dawn effects of the first game, but in the updated engine, the shadows and sunset are even absolutely amazing. (The second game had day and night, but the dusk and dawn periods weren't really pronounced for some reason, there was night and day, but no magic hour.) You can even look up in the sky and watch the cloud move!
Detail
I noticed a fun little detail toward the start of the main quest when I rode Roach up to the just beside the area where you had to walk up some stairs up a hill. When I got down up the hill and I returned the way I came, my horse wasn't where I left her - I found her over by the stable drinking some water out of a trough! (Oddly, the horse doesn't stay where you dismount it, even to find a water source. You can call your horse from any part of the map and she just appears, running towards you. This is strange because it doesn't take any time for the horse to travel from where you left it. The game also removes it from the map. But I guess this is a game play mechanic since it would be really frustrating to have to wait several minutes for the horse to run to you. And how could it even hear you from more than 100 meters away? Can you imagine how annoying it would be to always have to run back to where you parked your horse? It would almost defeat the purpose of putting that feature in the game. So I guess they had to sacrifice some realism for improved game play, since at the end of the day it is still just a game. And getting the player too frustrated or bored is really bad game design.
There are little fun quests like helping someone with a mundane task - but even then it is a mini story which relates back to the main game. There was a tiny fun quest once where you stumble upon an old lady who's lost her frying pan. When you talk to her, she says someone stole it and left it in this old house - but jammed the door closed. The only way to open it is with your blast sign Aard. There are no enemies to fight, but just some story. It tuns out that the thief used the frying pan to burn some papers relating to the ongoing war. There's another quest where you run into a religious person who needs help putting back some heavy statues that have fallen over. To complete it, just walk up to the statue and press the Use key - Geralt automatically puts it back on the stand in a cutscene. Then, you can get another quest to find the other statues that have fallen over that right them too.
When you come across an abandoned village with monsters lurking in the area, after you take out the last monster, a short cut scene plays that shows the villagers returning to that area and then you can watch them start to rebuild the town and move back in. At first I thought this happened immediately but some forum posts indicated that in actual fact, time does pass before the villagers move back in. I confirmed this on my recent play session, when I got to the village at about 7 am and when the cut scene ended, it was about 7:30 pm. (There's a clock in the HUD.) You can often see the lighting change, but some other indicator that time had past would have been nice, since other cut scenes take place just as you arrive at the location.
Annoyances
When you load a save, so far it's been showing a cinematic reminding you of your current main quest. It's just a short cinematic, and it's valuable if you haven't been playing the game for a several days and forgot what you're trying to do. The problem, and the reason it's annoying is that I can't skip it. Escape or Space Bar - they do nothing, and of course playing the game every night or two you don't really forget what you're doing. This cinematic actually only seems to show upon the first save game loading per game launch, so I've been able to ignore it by simply waiting for it too finish before actually sitting down to play.
One full day in the game is apparently 90 minutes of play time. At first I thought this was annoyingly short, because you done get to experience the wonderful sunsets for very long, but as I keep playing it, seems OK. I think it could be just a little bit longer though so you can enjoy the sunsets for several minutes of play time, but then again, this is about what happens in real life too, I guess.
Future (And other thoughts.)
So far I've only been playing the game for around 1 to 2 hours per session, and only a few days each week. I like this way, it keeps me involved in the story, while still allowing me to do other things with my life. As of now (just about finishing this blog), I've logged 16 hours of play time. Personally, I feel that taking my time to play the game should get the most enjoyment of the experience, as opposed to playing it for hours and hours on end and getting it done in a few weeks - then what? You just move on to something else? Of course, this all my personal choice and also what I'm trying to prioritise in my life.
I've only just scratched the surface of the game and world, so I hope to write more when I get to other parts of that game world and find interesting elements. I'm looking forward to seeing different environments - cities, forest, snow - so far I've seen towns and plains and light forest.
I also want to compare the evolution and story telling techniques of the 3 games. Please leave a comment if you have any ideas.
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