By Jim Rossignol on September 23rd, 2009 at 8:36 pm.
So The Witcher 2′s video pitch to publishers was leaked last week, and we’ve all been asking a lot of questions. CD Projekt have now answered some of them. No, that’s not the final voice acting, and yes, it’s a new engine: “The game does not use the Aurora Engine anymore. We developed a brand new engine dedicated to creating games with the design and features we love. The new engine is fully scalable and, well… kicks ass.”
We contacted CD Projekt to ask even more questions, but they’ve declined to say any more at present. (Although RPS will be first in the queue, obviously.)
23/09/2009 at 20:46 Schaulustiger says:
What surprises me most is that CD Projekt didn’t find a publisher for part 2 yet. I wonder who’ll take them…
23/09/2009 at 21:15 linfosoma says:
Anyone but Atari please, the first game is still locked in my region =(
24/09/2009 at 00:25 Sonic Goo says:
Maybe they’re just holding out, creating some hype to get a better deal?
23/09/2009 at 20:55 born2expire says:
Can’t wait for this, the first was incredible, prefect bridge between RPG storytelling and action RPG combat.
23/09/2009 at 20:58 Philip Karpiak says:
Wot I want to know is who was stupid enough to believe that those voice overs were final?
23/09/2009 at 23:38 Azradesh says:
Many many people I’m sad to say, just read through the RPS thread from when the video came out.
24/09/2009 at 00:10 Gnarl says:
They would still be better than the original english voice work, so I believed they could be final.
23/09/2009 at 21:01 Alex Norris says:
Woo, Witcher 2! CD Projekt deserves a medal the size of the Moon, both for what RED is doing and for pulling off GOG.
The Witcher was pretty much the best CRPG since BG2, and I’m really looking forward to this second one.
Here's to hoping this one's as good out of the box as the EE made the original.
23/09/2009 at 21:04 subedii says:
@ Schaulustiger: I suspect that it’s not so much that nobody’s willing to publish it, more the case that they’re negotiating with different publishers to get the deal that works best for them. In a situation like that it does well to be able to show off something that looks good and makes the publishers more interested.
23/09/2009 at 21:05 Magnus says:
Playing the first one now, and it’s fantastic. Hopefully the second can live up to it!
23/09/2009 at 21:06 Zyrxil says:
The first was published by Atari; I would think they would use them if they had to, but no one in their right mind would go with Atari if they had other options.
23/09/2009 at 21:06 Some Guy says:
just ordered the extended edition part 1 off amazon, been meaning to do that for yeras, and now a see a far better looking version is comming out soon.
23/09/2009 at 21:10 Schaulustiger says:
@subedii: Yeah, that’s true. Still surprising to see that CD Projekt seems to have such a strong financial cushion. The Witcher must have sold really well.
23/09/2009 at 21:17 Wooly says:
1.4+ million copies thus far, IIRC.
They should get Squeeinx to publish it! :D
23/09/2009 at 22:18 damien says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_Projekt
the witcher is only a part of their history in the industry.
23/09/2009 at 22:24 Schaulustiger says:
Woops, didn’t know that. I thought they were rather small, maybe because of their friendly “indie attitude” towards the community. I remember playing an early version of The Witcher during a Games Convention and talking to one of the developers for quite some time. I liked his passion when talking about the game and showing me all kinds of stuff from later in the game on one of the presentation PCs.
23/09/2009 at 21:25 SirKicksalot says:
CD Projekt is over 15 years old. They’re the biggest software publisher in Central Europe.
23/09/2009 at 21:40 Paul says:
CDProjekt kicks ass all around.Can’t wait for this.Also, The Witcher EE second playthrough is in my backlog, once I finish Planescape Torment and Dead Space.
23/09/2009 at 21:46 Kadayi says:
The burning RPS question of course is ‘Will there be nudey card collectables this time around?’ ;)
23/09/2009 at 21:53 We Fly Spitfires says:
New engine? Intriguing. I wonder what was wrong with the old one.
23/09/2009 at 22:08 Schaulustiger says:
Most annoying stuff was reloading times whenever you entered a building. Since it took about 30 seconds in the original release it was a *major* annoyance.
Plus, the engine was made with NWN2 in mind (afaik) and therefore designed towards an easily moddable, “tile-set”-based, D&D-like gameplay with rather small square zones. I hope the new engine features a seemless open world and less artificial zone borders.
23/09/2009 at 22:12 Tertiee says:
Aurora Engine was made for Neverwinter Nights 1. CD Projekt also probably wants something to make cross-platform friendly if they are looking to release on the consoles.
23/09/2009 at 22:07 autogunner says:
I think the MAJOR question is: is geralt going to have that gay hairdo all the way through?
23/09/2009 at 23:57 subedii says:
Why does everyone keep slamming his hair? I actually thought the new look was pretty cool.
23/09/2009 at 23:59 ZIGS says:
THANK YOU! I was also terribly upset by his hair. WTF, what were they thinking? That being said, I want to play this game yesterday
24/09/2009 at 03:36 Psychopomp says:
Hair+Face=dead
24/09/2009 at 07:04 Pemptus says:
It sort of resembles the old Polish comic book look: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/witcher/images//thumb/7/75/Komiks_Geralt_okladka.jpg/250px-Komiks_Geralt_okladka.jpg
24/09/2009 at 01:35 Blast Hardcheese says:
Yes but…
Is it the witchiest?
24/09/2009 at 03:06 Lintman says:
I’m looking forward to Witcher 2. The Witcher EE was great, but I’m wondering if 2 is going to need as much post-release work and improvement as The Witcher did, to get to that state.
24/09/2009 at 08:33 ZeeKat says:
Appreciating The Witcher took me a while, but the more I play, the more I love it (even voice acting stopped to annoy me – some dialogues are pure gold). Amazing they’re making the sequel.
24/09/2009 at 09:16 Griffin says:
The Witcher is hard to get into a first. But after awhile it really grows on you. this is my third attempt at finishing the game and i am definatly going to do it this time. The previos attempts i stopped at the second chapter. you have to give the game awhile before it gets good. Im in murky waters at the minute
24/09/2009 at 10:23 Alex Norris says:
I made the horrible mistake of taking a break after playing through the rather arduous acts I and II, so I went and played something else once I’d done Triss’ magical sonar quest.
Problem being I did something else for about six months. Every time I load my save, I stare dumbly at my journal and alchemy list thinking “I should really restart” before remembering how much of a chore the first two acts were. I still love the game to bits, but they could definitely have cut off a little content in places – it felt like MMO-level of using the same location sometimes.
24/09/2009 at 09:29 Stick says:
Blatantly ignorant blurting:
Publisher schmublisher, “just” chuck it on Steam and Stardock’s wotchamacallit, Impulse.
Who needs boxes? Etcetera.
(Now for someone to explain to me why it isn’t this simple. :)
24/09/2009 at 09:51 BlazerKnight says:
Warning Dissenting opinion ahead! Get ready your pitchforks and torches!
I like RPGs. I heard The Witcher was good. So I bought it. Could not get into it at all – first, an opening cutscene with some kickass action, but seemed to go on too long. Then, some shoddy performance issues. I had to turn all the graphics settings down. Then the gameplay itself. The combat felt like the mind-numbing grinding of MMORPGs, except that you have to click for each repetitive slash. What happened to the awesomeness of the opening cutscene? The interface had an overwhelming amount of menus and little help was offered to navigate them. The collectible sex cards – ugh. The bland dialogue and uninteresting, unengaging characters.
Overall, I couldn’t see anything worth slogging through for. Died in a cave to some ghouls and haven’t started up the game since.
24/09/2009 at 11:32 Lukasz says:
@BlazerKnight.
you played the original version right? Play the EE with polish voice acting and subtitles. because dialogues are far from bland and uninteresting. one of the better one in video game, topping kotor2, BG1 and fallouts (one and two. not a challenge with number 3)
and you do not to sleep with anyone in the game so if you don’t like sex cards don’t have them. what is the big of a deal. it is jut an option.
24/09/2009 at 13:31 stormbringer951 says:
@ Lukasz: I’m a big fan of the game, but the sex cards did strike me as very crude. Also, the contact is repitition incarnate, but I wasn’t too bothered about that. You are right that the Polish EE acting is brilliant though. I recommend that to Stick most definitely.