The Witcher The Witcher IV - The Ciri Saga Begins

[Tyrr]

With recruitment practices, for start.

Is this what you're referring to?

More from the GameSpot article:

"CD Projekt embraces diversity in the belief that a workplace which respect diversity is the cornerstone of openness and trust. This enables us to fully unlock the creative potential of our employees, which, in turn, translates into increased depth, innovation, and appeal of our products," the Polish developer said. "We also believe that diversity reinforces and enriches our organizational culture."

...

Overall, women make up 26 percent of CDPR's total staff, which is an increase from 2018. CDPR also pointed out that it's much higher than the Polish game industry average of 15.5 percent. The number of female developers working for CDPR has grown every year since 2017, and the percentage compared to men has stayed around the same, fluctuating between 24 percent and 27 percent.

We all know at least 50% of these "women" are trannies.

 

[Dodo1610]

It can't be Ciri's since that is clearly a lynx amulet while Ciri's amulet clearly depicts the domestic cat

Journos can't even use Google these day

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

They could have redesigned the cat's medallion for this one. If that's the case, it could be Ciri's one. Honestlty, I don't think they will create a game with a complete customizable main character. They even didn't it wth Cyberpunk 2077, V is a own character in that game regardless the visuals. So or they go with Ciri (Which is the safest option IMO) or they create a new witcher character (That could have his own new witcher school, the lynx) which is risky.

 

[cvv]

I'm okay with Ciri being the protagonist if we get really detailed scenes of Leo Bonhart killing Rats, drugging Ciri, beating the shit out of her, and forcing her to fight in an underground arena.

I'd be very much ok with Ciri as the protagonist....in a game by CDPR from 10 years ago.

Today tho we'll just KNOW what to expect, right?

 

[flyingjohn]

Switching the engine won't fix the bugs/technical issues.It will just give them a bigger pool of bad programmers they can hire and fire for peanuts.
CD Projekt problem is that they bleed competent devs at a much higher rate then anybody else.The engine switch doesn't fix that.

And when the game comes out they won't be able to fix any of the issues because they won't have any competent unreal devs and the engine limitations can't just magically be fixed.(unreal engine stuttering is impossible to fix,you can only lessen it).
Custom engines allow them to actually try to fix the issues unless the engine is a complete mismatch for the designed genre.
The red engine wasn't.

Oh,and this might be a bad sign for GOG.They might just pull the plug and fuse the catalogue with the epic store for the monnies.

 

[Tyrr]

I'm not an expert in game engines, but it seems strange to make your shooter game in the REDengine and your sword fighting game with Unreal 5.
Wouldn't it be smarter the other way around?

 

[SlightlyRadioactive]

I hope they learn to properly design an open-world this time around instead of copying Ubisoft's shitty formula and drop Diablo-like itemisation, though I guess that would be too fabulously optimistic of me.

 

[Tyrr]

I hope they learn to properly design an open-world this time around instead of copying Ubisoft's shitty formula and drop Diablo-like itemisation, though I guess that would be too fabulously optimistic of me.

The success of Elden Ring increases the chance that other developers divert from the Ubisoft open world system. The new Witcher game seems early enough in development to be influenced by that.

 

[coldaqua]

The success of Elden Ring increases the chance that other developers divert from the Ubisoft open world system.

I was thinking the same thing. There's been a mounting weariness towards checklist-style open world games, and triple A studios are too creatively conservative to deviate from the formula. Elden Ring not only provides a new blueprint, but its success is hard to ignore.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The Witcher 4 teaser fuels theories that Ciri may replace Gerald

nobody wants to play as ciri besides coomers
no geralt, no buy

 

[Ravielsk]

So keeping with the tradition they are announcing a new game now and will be releasing it a decade later. What could go wrong it worked out so great for Cyberpunk after all.

But really on a more serious note. Witcher 3 was design and story wise a mess carried more by hype than its actual qualities and Cyberpunk... well it did not exactly disprove that. The real question here is whether anyone at CDPR is aware of that. Do they know that their skill tree was hot garbage or do they think they just did "WoW" anyone? Are they aware that their leveling progression made over half the content in Witcher 3 into pointless filler or do they think it added replay value? Do they know that the witcher sets invalidated 80% of all the gear in the game or do they think it added to the game's "immersion"?
Because if its the latter then the game is already dead in the water because even replicating these systems for a new game will produce a much worse response than with Witcher 3(no good will left) and if they double down on them then they are just making a worse Skyrim without mods.

On top of that them ditching Red engine for Unreal is guaranteed to make the game look worse than even Witcher 2. That engine is simply incapable of producing a game that does not look like hot garbage. The only silver lining here might be that with the availability of unreal toolkits modding the game might be easier but I am not holding my breath. Spit shined turd is still a turd.

 

[Ravielsk]

Elden Ring not only provides a new blueprint, but its success is hard to ignore.

The problem is that they are not capable of replicating it because just as with Souls-borne combat you cannot cheaply copy paste it and expect it to work. Ever since DS1 became a hit I played a ton of Souls-like games and I can confidently say that maybe about 1 out of a dozen is actually any good and by good I mean its not hot garbage.

All of Miyazaki's games have this fatal flaw that they require skill and attention to detail which the AAA sphere lost sometime around 2014. On top of that they cannot work when the marketing department keeps asking for additions that undermine the core gameplay features. Shit like an "easy mode" or "micro-transactions" or "lootboxes" cannot be added into a game without compromising it. Best case scenario is that they take some surface level ideas like not placing a random "activity" every few steps but I highly doubt they will be able to replicate any significant portion of the elden ring formula.

 

[Serus]

Oh my, what did CDPR do to lose the Polish vote?

Never had mine when it comes to Potato votes.
Ok, i'm lying bit. They had it when the first Witcher came out. After only a few hours of play they lost it forever. Unless they start making good party-based TB crpgs but even then they'll probably fail.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

nobody wants to play as ciri besides coomers

 

[flyingjohn]

The success of Elden Ring increases the chance that other developers divert from the Ubisoft open world system

No.
Japanese can get away with it because their marketing departments have no power.
Western firms are run by marketing.Marketing will never allow a consuuuumer to get lost in their game.

 

[Gargaune]

Given the success of Witcher 3 and the hype for Cyberpunk, I was expecting them to be able to work on two games at a time by now.

I think there's a good reason that gamedevs with a specific brand don't really do that anymore. Even if the games aren't too similar, you're making games that compete with each other for sales because they likely share the same audience.

Also there's the matter of having enough resources, marketing, etc. Players also don't like having a "B" team/studio working on their favorite project either.

I don't think it's that. These games release 4 or 5 years apart, they're hardly cannibalizing each other's sales. Games are huge now and require a lot of developers and carry a lot of expectations. Very few studios have the enough experienced developers to work on several projects concurrently. The bad launch state of games like Andromeda and Fallout 76 stem from crucial parts being spun off to the B-team.

A studio of CDPR's present size would want to put out a new flagship game every two to three years tops, and yes, alternating between their Cyberpunk and Witcher IPs is the sensible approach. You don't want 'em out yearly, though, so they have enough time to breathe in the marketplace with all their DLCs and expansions (and, obviously in CDPR's case, patches). After 2015's TW3, the studio needed a new property to prevent franchise burnout, enter Cyberpunk, but it would've been absurd from a business perspective to do a straight trilogy of it and let their Witcher brand fade into nostalgic obscurity for over a decade.

 

[Vincente]

nobody wants to play as ciri besides coomers

Yeah, checks out.

 

[Salvo]

The Witcher 4 teaser fuels theories that Ciri may replace Gerald

nobody wants to play as ciri besides coomers
no geralt, no buy

If the protagonist is a witcher I'd rather play an original character, doesn't even have to be customizable
Just don't make it Ciri

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

Being subtle is not their thing

 

[Tyrr]

Being subtle is not their thing

So an open world action adventure with a strong female MC?
How original.

 

[Arbiter]

So an open world action adventure with a strong female MC?
How original.

It's called Far Cry 6

 

[Salvo]

Being subtle is not their thing

Smell that sweet sweet desperation after Cybertanic

 

[Alphons]

 

[None]

I'm not too well versed in the who's-who of the studio. Who from Witcher 1/2/3 are left to make this new game? Or is it a relatively new crew?

 

[Arbiter]

I'm not too well versed in the who's-who of the studio. Who from Witcher 1/2/3 are left to make this new game? Or is it a relatively new crew?

New crew. Most of Witcher 3 devs left.

Most of Witcher 1 devs were in fact laid off after the success of the first game due to the financial crisis of 2008.