STACK NZ May Issue #62

GAMES

FEATURE

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DLC. And what’s even better, the studio are releasing 16 free bits of DLC after the game comes out, including cosmetic items for key characters and even contracts. Platkow-Gilewski explains: “We owe gamers for supporting us and free DLC is our way of saying 'thank you'. But that’s not everything. As a company, we’re not particularly fond of what’s going on with the industry with regard to downloadable content. “Gamers are being charged for things we think should be free and we wanted to put the money where our mouth is. We see a clear line between content that makes paying for it sensible, and content that should be free. And we try to lead by example." Not all the DLC is free. CD Projekt RED recently announced two drops of DLC called Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine . With over 30 hours of gameplay included here, the studio wanted to deliver content that was worthy of a price tag. “We’ve just announced two expansions to The Witcher III: Wild Hunt that will give gamers 30 hours of adventures,” Platkow-Gilewski says. “They will introduce new characters and items, and even a totally new region of the world. “Both Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine are huge and meaningful, and we think that when gamers see how much effort we put into creating them, they won’t feel ripped off seeing that they’re not free. That’s the whole point for us.” Since the first game back in 2007, the Witcher series has stamped its own identity in a crowded genre – no easy task. Anticipation for the final game in the trilogy is at fever pitch, and this is likely to be one of the biggest games of 2015. What does Platkow-Gilewski attribute the studio’s success to? Is there a secret to CD Projekt RED’s success? “Learning from what you do, I think. There’s no magic thing one needs to do that grants you success. You need a dedicated team, you need ideas, and you need to work really hard. That, plus a bit of luck.”

under the hood stuff – we optimised how the game ran and focused on eliminating bugs.” Following the initial success of the first Witcher title, CD Projekt RED attempted to port the game to console enlisting French studio Widescreen Games to complete the task. It was an absolute disaster and was scrapped after less than a year in production. While the studio has had prior experience with console development ( The Witcher II: Assassins of Kings only came out on Xbox 360 as the PS3 was purportedly to hard to work out), it's the first time the game is coming out on the PlayStation platform. Platkow-Gilewski says the console versions were always in the planning and that they 'wanted to make a truly multiplatform game right from the start'. “We did a lot of research before making the decision to launch on all platforms simultaneously,” explains Platkow-Gilewski. “We tested waters with the Xbox 360 launch of The Witcher II: Assassins of Kings , so this time we’re even better prepared to launch on consoles. “As for the PlayStation gamers, they need not worry – we’ve created Wild Hunt in such a way that for newcomers it’s basically a standalone game. Every major character will be gently reintroduced, every recurring theme explained. What’s more, we’ve managed to do this delicately enough so longtime fans still see this as a natural continuation of the game. Our story team is pretty awesome.” While Andrzej Sapowski created The Witcher universe, he has no input in development. In fact, he doesn’t even like video games, so the narrative in the Witcher titles are conceived by the studio. The world in Wild Hunt is purportedly 30 times bigger than the previous Witcher games and a whopping 20 per cent larger than Skyrim . That’s a lot of open world to fill with content. “We had to develop our own idea of how to create worlds, I guess,” says Platkow-

We've created Wild Hunt in such a way that for newcomers it's basically a standalone game

Gilewski. “I spent a lot of time talking with the team on their vision of an open world and it always struck me that it was never anything like 'let’s just make a huge mass of land and fill it with stuff'. “Everything was created with a purpose. For example, gameplay teams requested a part of the world to be created, so environmental teams had an idea of the purpose of what they were creating. The world was not created and filled with content, it’s content that created the world. And it’s huge.” If this expansive world isn’t enough for gamers, CD Projekt RED are already planning a significant amount of

• The Witcher III: Wild Hunt is out May 19

MAY 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.co.nz

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