CD Projekt RED Answers Fans’ Burning Witcher 3 Questions

After finally letting press get hands-on with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, CD Projekt RED decided it was time for fans to get a little treat, too. Today it held a Twitch stream to show off 15 minutes of gameplay. Afterwards, the team answered questions from fans. We compiled some interesting takeaways from the Q&A.

Senior game designer, Damien Monnier, and level designer, Miles Tost, revealed the following:

• As you make choices, people will react to what you do in the world. Expect NPCs to comment on your choices and their demeanor to change if they agree or disagree with them. Also, different people and activities will be available depending on the time of day.  
• Characters from the first Witcher game that weren't in the second won't be making an appearance in Wild Hunt. However, it's possible that CD Projekt RED will bring them back in DLC. 
• For crafting, you must find a blueprint, collect the necessary ingredients, and then locate a blacksmith skilled enough to craft the item. It's straightforward, but finding a blacksmith skilled enough will be more of a challenge. Some blacksmiths are not immediately accessible and can only be unlocked by doing quests. Apparently, you can craft some pretty spiffy armor for Geralt. 
• Geralt has a father/daughter relationship with Ciri, and that doesn't change. CD Projekt RED followed the books and wanted to make sure it introduced new fans to the Witcher lore accordingly. "You see that Geralt who is usually quite tough and serious clearly has a soft spot for this girl,” said senior game designer Damien Monnier.  "She’s not a damsel in distress; she’s quite badass,” added level designer Miles Tost.
• Regarding the alchemy system, you start with a recipe, find the ingredients, then create a potion. This potion will have four to five uses. But here's the cool thing: once you create the potion, you can obtain more by merely mediating and drinking some alcohol to replenish it. This eliminates you constantly having to track down ingredients, although expect the ingredients not to be as easy to find in the first place. CD Projekt RED has this new system because too many people were afraid to waste the potions they crafted in past games. This encourages players not to be scared about wasting them and to experiment more with the alchemy system. 
• Melee combat features over 100 combat moves and animations. How many you'll actually see just depends on if you want to focus on that branch of the skill tree. 
• You can meditate anywhere you can build a fire, but you can't just go into a stranger's house and meditate at their fireplace. 
• CD Projekt RED took fan feedback into consideration when tweaking the combat. It wanted it to be more responsive and put the player in more control, while still being challenging. Another goal was to make it so people could easily grasp the mechanics from the onset. 
• More was revealed on transferring your save if you're moving platforms or played on Xbox 360. You will come across a character that will sing your past tales to you. You can correct this character with the choices that happened to you if he gets an event wrong. This is directly woven into the narrative and not something separate from the game. 
• You won't just be riding on horseback. You can also climb mountains, swim, and dive. The game has different paths to get anywhere, and those will reveal different goodies.
• Some fun side activities include the return of fist-fighting (but they're no longer QTEs), a new horse racing minigame, and a new deck-building card game that's based on one in the books called Gwent. 
• CD Projekt RED is still working on its insanity mode, so it couldn't reveal much, but did say it's toying with plenty of ideas, like having dying delete your saves. Nothing has been decided yet, but it wants to make it super punishing without eliminating the fun. 
• There will be an option to still play after you complete the game.

You can watch the stream below!

For more information on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, check our recent hands-on preview. You can also click the banner below to see more coverage from our March 2013 cover story.