Witcher 3 Expansion Screens Reveal La Belle Toussaint

The first expansion for The Witcher 3 [official site], Hearts of Stone, let Geralt into new areas of the game's map (and is pretty great, says Cobbo). Expansion number two, Blood and Wine, will be a larger affair visiting a whole new area of the Witching world, the France-y Toussaint. And what does Toussaint look like? A lovely place for your summer hols, going by the first two 'screenshots' (they look touched-up to me).

"The first half of 2016" is still as specific as developers CD Projekt RED will be about Blood and Wine's release date. And this blurb is about as much as we know about it:

"Blood and Wine is a 20-hour tale that will introduce the all-new in-game region of Toussaint, will take Geralt to a land untainted by war, where an atmosphere of carefree indulgence and knightly ritual masks an ancient, bloody secret."

But now we also know it's pretty! Well, beneath the 'cinematic' black bars, what looks like a fair bit of artificial sharpening, and the high angles we're unlikely to see in-game. But that mountain! That castle! Those rolling hills!

The Witcher 3 surprised me with just how pretty it was, as I've come to expect dramatic skies and bright colours from screenshots to be dull and washed-out in-game, so I don't imagine it'll look too much worse than this in reality. Maybe, a few years from now, big-budget games will have learned from TW3 and be offering us lovely bold colours.

That screen up top ↑ is the palace of Beauclair, RED say, while I believe the one down there ↓ is a vineyard-y place. Famed for its glug, Toussaint. You can see the full-size screenshots here and here.