Company News CD Projekt: "We will combine story driven and open-world RPGs for the first time."

[Infinitron]

Tags: CD Projekt

CD Projekt RED published a press release today about their upcoming new engine, REDEngine 3. It sounds quite ambitious:

“If we look at RPGs nowadays we find two approaches, one which emphasizes the story but limits the game world, and one that builds a vast, open world but hampers and simplifies the story. With the REDengine 3 we combine the positive aspects of both approaches for the first time, creating an open environment with a complex, multi-thread story. Together with believable characters, a captivating tale and a world where players can roam freely without loading times, we will be able to move gaming to a new level with a realistic feel and full player immersion. When working on our previous titles, I didn’t dream that we would achieve something like this. Thanks to the support of all our fans, now we have the possibility to use REDengine 3 and create something many RPG fans dream of,” said Adam Badowski, head of CD Projekt RED studio.​

Big words, Adam. But didn't Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle do this 20 years ago?

The rest of the press release boasts of REDEngine's impressive graphical capabilities as well as its quest scripting tools. It also includes an image which I assume is a render from a game currently being developed with the engine - most likely, The Witcher 3.

 

[hiver]

just more PR hype bullshit.

 

[Kane]

how would that be first time. both gw2 and swtor claimed that and they failed horribly.

aside from the fact that noone cares about story in open world scenarios anyway.

 

[Jaesun]

Maybe they played Ultima VII: The Black Gate recently and discovered this concept? Serpent Isle is linear (except you can decide which of the 3 city's main "quests" to do and in any order. Though running straight to Moonshade and doing the Mountains of Freedom would be really bad). After that it's railroaded.

 

[Lancehead]

Plenty of marketing speak keywords; especially "immersion".

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[flabbyjack]

We're combining both game and roleplaying for the first time. We call this new invention a roleplaying game

Fixed.

Consequently, should I SNES or PC Ultima VII? PC seems so clunky even with Exult...

 

[Zed]

who cares about the engine if they won't make a good game with it.
witcher 3? - another immature twitch combat adventure with pre-defined characters I couldn't get two shits about.

 

[Jaesun]

We're combining both game and roleplaying for the first time. We call this new invention a roleplaying game

Fixed.

Consequently, should I SNES or PC Ultima VII? PC seems so clunky even with Exult...

Exult is exactly like the original PC game, minus all the gamebreaking bugs.

 

[Gerrard]

So wait, when did they make Red Engine 2? I thought the W2 version was the first one?

 

[Hellraiser]

The good news is that it will be used first in Witcher 3 so those who buy it will be able to beta test the engine so that Cyberpunk 2077 runs better when it gets released.

 

[bonescraper]

So wait, when did they make Red Engine 2? I thought the W2 version was the first one?

It's so advanced, they skipped a number, duh.

 

[Infinitron]

So wait, when did they make Red Engine 2? I thought the W2 version was the first one?

I'm not sure there was a REDEngine 1. Bioware's Aurora Engine + CD Projekt's modifications = REDEngine 1, I guess.

The good news is that it will be used first in Witcher 3 so those who buy it will be able to beta test the engine so that Witcher 3: Enhanced Edition runs better when it gets released.

Fixed

Maybe they played Ultima VII: The Black Gate recently and discovered this concept? Serpent Isle is linear (except you can decide which of the 3 city's main "quests" to do and in any order. Though running straight to Moonshade and doing the Mountains of Freedom would be really bad). After that it's railroaded.

The game's structure might be linear, but at the technical level, the world is open.

 

[DeepOcean]

I would be really happy if they had said how they are going to improve the combat/character system of witcher 3, I was bored of rolling and spam igni, rolling and spaming sword attacks and being an alchemist who didn't needed to roll because we was invencible anyway.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Errr... Baldur's Gate 2?

Fixed.

Consequently, should I SNES or PC Ultima VII? PC seems so clunky even with Exult...

I heard that the SNES version is much better .

 

[Excidium]

Ugh, fuck hiking simulators.

 

[Infinitron]

Errr... Baldur's Gate 2?

BG2 isn't an open-world game. Not even BG1 would qualify under CDPR's definition:

a world where players can roam freely without loading times

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

BG2 isn't an open-world game. Not even BG1 would qualify under CDPR's definition:

Oh, I see. Sounds good.

 

[Gord]

BG2 isn't an open-world game. Not even BG1 would qualify under CDPR's definition:

a world where players can roam freely without loading times

So neither are Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim then.

 

[LESS T_T]

2 is for 360.

The REDengine demonstrated its capability to create great adventures for the first time in The Witcher 2 (PC). It was praised for its graphical excellence and exceptional, branching storytelling. The studio developed the technology, and with optimization REDengine 2 (internal name) brought The Witcher 2 to Xbox 360.

 

[CrustyBot]

Even if they somehow miss Ultima, CDPR cannot into Fallout (and by extension, Arcanum), either.

Still, it's calling to the paradigm of Bethesda's "big world shit story" and BioWare's "shit world awesome story" which is a viewpoint that's pretty popular amongst mainstream gamers who believe the two approaches are incompatible. As if open world design and competent writing are literally impossible to have in the one game. Or at least, was impossible UNTIL NOW, as CDPR would have them believe.

 

[Infinitron]

BG2 isn't an open-world game. Not even BG1 would qualify under CDPR's definition:

a world where players can roam freely without loading times

So neither are Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim then.

Haha, good point. Somebody should ask them if that definition includes building interiors.

Witcher 2 was good about this for some buildings, but not all of them, IIRC.

 

[Excidium]

They probably mean kilometers of generic copy-pasted enviroments in-between each story hub.

 

[Scruffy]

so when i thought that arcanum was both story driven and open world i was wrong?

 

[Delterius]

Sounds like the Third coming of Christ.

so when i thought that arcanum was both story driven and open world i was wrong?

He did say approaches to "modern gaming" which means how companies deal with the increase in technological power versus how much you can realisitically create for your RPG.

 

[Jaesun]

Well the non-linear aspect is a good thing.

Now tell us this will have multiple ways of finishing quests, stats/skills, stat/skill dialogue checks, stat/skill based combat, turn based combat and I will cum buckets.