Interview The Story Of The Witcher 3: Geralt's Midlife Crisis

[Infinitron]

Tags: CD Projekt; The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Another Witcher 3 interview was published at Game Informer today. This one is about the game's story and setting, and how the world and Geralt's life have changed since the events of The Witcher 2.

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The vehement reassurance that there will be no world-destroying "Ancient Evil" to defeat makes me think the developers have been reading the Codex. It sounds like they're planning to ignore or paper over some of the choices made in the previous game again, though.

 

[Infinitron]

Too bad Game Informer haven't posted the interview on Youtube yet so I can embed it in the post and make it look bigger.

 

[Broseph]

I am beyond excited for this.

 

[evdk]

Meh, looks like no matter what you did in W2 the world will look the same in the third part. Why the hell have I bothered to put Temeria back together?!

 

[Kahlis]

You know since the game is titled Wild Hunt, I'm really feeling disappointed at how the game is probably going to completely overlook how you dealt with that guy at the end of TW1. That doesn't even affect anything if you import over into TW2, does it? I wonder if the entire thing was just a fun last-minute boss fight they added on to the end of the first game for the sake of making the ending seem more personal, but they've since decided to overlook it since it doesn't fit their plans for the story now.

And another disappointment was that in TW2 if you didn't import a character, apparently a lot of the canonical stuff Geralt did in TW1 got handed to you anyway. I guess it wouldn't make sense for Geralt to have just not existed for the events of the first game if you didn't import, but I was hoping for more reward. In most of the cases, you'd only notice a difference in importing a character if you did the worse thing in the first game.

 

[Infinitron]

You know since the game is titled Wild Hunt, I'm really feeling disappointed at how the game is probably going to completely overlook how you dealt with that guy at the end of TW1. That doesn't even affect anything if you import over into TW2, does it? I wonder if the entire thing was just a fun last-minute boss fight they added on to the end of the first game for the sake of making the ending seem more personal, but they've since decided to overlook it since it doesn't fit their plans for the story now.

I don't think you actually kill him for good there. You just prevent him from taking Alvin/Jacques de Aldersberg's soul.

(He says earlier in the game, in Chapter 1, that the only reason he's letting Geralt live is because he anticipates that Geralt will deliver Alvin's soul to him, although you have no idea what he's talking about at that point)

 

[J_C]

We don't know which choices will be carried over and which are not, so no need to bitch yet.

Also, carrying over saves from game to game is overrated. We had great games like the Gothic series or Baldur's Gate, where you didn't carry your choices over (even in BG2, you just imported your character stats). It is stupid that because of Bioware, this became the RPG norm, when it comes to story driven RPGs.

 

[Kahlis]

I guess that's the only way it could've gone down. Still, I wish that was touched upon in the second game. It seems like the only situation in which importing a character gives you the opportunity for a better outcome than starting from scratch is with Adda, who's dead by default if you didn't import. And even then you just get some choose-your-own-adventure forced-replay lip service with a few different lines of dialog, but I guess that's all it's ever been with importing in non party based games.

 

[evdk]

We don't know which choices will be carried over and which are not, so no need to bitch yet.

Also, carrying over saves from game to game is overrated. We had great games like the Gothic series or Baldur's Gate, where you didn't carry your choices over (even in BG2, you just imported your character stats). It is stupid that because of Bioware, this became the RPG norm, when it comes to story driven RPGs.

But Gothic didn't have dramatically different outcomes, Matt. You picked a faction in the beginning, stuck with it during the midgame and come the ending it turned out that the final goal is faction independent. There were basically no choices to port over.

 

[J_C]

We don't know which choices will be carried over and which are not, so no need to bitch yet.

Also, carrying over saves from game to game is overrated. We had great games like the Gothic series or Baldur's Gate, where you didn't carry your choices over (even in BG2, you just imported your character stats). It is stupid that because of Bioware, this became the RPG norm, when it comes to story driven RPGs.

But Gothic didn't have dramatically different outcomes, Matt. You picked a faction in the beginning, stuck with it during the midgame and come the ending it turned out that the final goal is faction independent. There were basically no choices to port over.

I know, but it is still unfair to bash CD Projekt if they don't port over every decision. This is a huge work, they have to design around every outcome which were in TW2. I would be happy if they said that X is the canonical outcome, and they will continue that path in TW3. I'd rather have them using their resources to make a big, complex game, than scripting different outcomes based on your previous choices.

 

[odrzut]

Lore-wise the Wild Hunt isn't something you can deal with by "killing" a few specters (even the king of wild hunt), and this was in books, before TW1 came out. But yeah, it would be nice for them to change a little (even a few dialogs) depending on how you dealt with wild hunt in TW1.

And I certainly think they should use TW2 choices in TW3 to change things considerably, even if it's only different gossips in inns about current war situation, and a few different quests.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

It is stupid that because of Bioware, this became the RPG norm, when it comes to story driven RPGs.

You mean japing about it, not actually delivering on it.

 

[Sunsetspawn]

We don't know which choices will be carried over and which are not, so no need to bitch yet.

Also, carrying over saves from game to game is overrated. We had great games like the Gothic series or Baldur's Gate, where you didn't carry your choices over (even in BG2, you just imported your character stats). It is stupid that because of Bioware, this became the RPG norm, when it comes to story driven RPGs.

Oh no, this practice is quite a bit older than that, Bioware just resurrected that shit. Anyone remember Quest for Glory?

 

[Tigranes]

I don't know why people care so much about inter-game C&C. Sure, it would be nice, but it's practically so difficult to do, especially in a way that doesn't just end up an expensive gimmick. I don't know, did the ME series do it well? Was it really such a groovy thing, as opposed to having good C&C within each installment?

You play one game within a period of days or weeks, the gap between playing one game and the next is in years. I don't mind as long as the sequel doesn't blatantly shit all over the Great Choices of the previous game, and tacitly avoids the question.

 

[Jaesun]

I don't know why people care so much about inter-game C&C. Sure, it would be nice, but it's practically so difficult to do, especially in a way that doesn't just end up an expensive gimmick. I don't know, did the ME series do it well? Was it really such a groovy thing, as opposed to having good C&C within each installment?

IT'S BIOWARE.

NONE of your decisions mattered. Not one.

 

[Tigranes]

I don't know why people care so much about inter-game C&C. Sure, it would be nice, but it's practically so difficult to do, especially in a way that doesn't just end up an expensive gimmick. I don't know, did the ME series do it well? Was it really such a groovy thing, as opposed to having good C&C within each installment?

IT'S BIOWARE.

NONE of your decisions mattered. Not one.

I was trying to be fair, since I didn't bother to play ME. Of course, that was the response I anticipated.

 

[Aeschylus]

I don't know why people care so much about inter-game C&C. Sure, it would be nice, but it's practically so difficult to do, especially in a way that doesn't just end up an expensive gimmick. I don't know, did the ME series do it well? Was it really such a groovy thing, as opposed to having good C&C within each installment?

IT'S BIOWARE.

NONE of your decisions mattered. Not one.

Think of it as commentary on the futility of human endeavor against the vast cosmic forces of the universe. Or just lousy writing, could be that.

TW2 already paid basically no attention to the decisions you may have made in the first game, or rather they weren't really relevant to the plot, so I don't see why this is terribly surprising.

 

[Mrowak]

Think of it as commentary on the futility of human endeavor against the vast cosmic forces of the universe. Or just lousy writing, could be that.

TW2 already paid basically no attention to the decisions you may have made in the first game, or rather they weren't really relevant to the plot, so I don't see why this is terribly surprising.

I think those decisions have to be limited to fluff. They are too costly to implement and the benefit of having them is not significant enough. Frankly, I'd rather they focused their efforts on quest design within the framework of TW3.

 

[Infinitron]

Bonus video:

 

[Rivmusique]

Yes, truly games of the same quality (or better!) than Skyrim or Dragon Age is an awesome goal.

 

[Minttunator]

I think those decisions have to be limited to fluff. They are too costly to implement and the benefit of having them is not significant enough. Frankly, I'd rather they focused their efforts on quest design within the framework of TW3.

Absolutely. Especially if the game takes place in Nilfgaard and is focused on Geralt's personal story then it doesn't really matter what the exact situation is in the Northern Kingdoms. I'm sure we'll get some cameos (like Siegfried in TW2 if you helped him in TW1) or mentions of your deeds (like Adda was talked about in TW2 depending on whether you saved her in TW1) but I don't think it's realistic to expect anything major.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Sign: "WE ARE REBELS"

So Polish.

 

[Indranys]

Geralt's midlife crisis??



Apparently being chased by specters to death and having a ugly rapist-face bard friend is not miserable enough.
Running out of women to pound??

 

[Kem0sabe]

So no importing saves?

 

[villain of the story]

The title "The Wild Hunt" got me worried about a Wild Hunt invasion. Good of them to clarify "ancient evil" stuff. So then I'm guessing The Wild Hunt will come to haunt Geralt for whatever happened in the past.