E3 Preview: The Witcher

The world of The Witcher is a gritty, dangerous place…

OK, so to be completely honest, we had never heard about The Witcher before last week. In fact, when we accepted the invitation to go see a demo of the game at this year's E3 expo, we had fairly low expectations. I mean, games that debut in Kentia Hall seldom, if ever impress the truly hard-core, even if the booth is one of the better-looking ones on the show floor. But, after talking to the Polish development team over at CD Projekt and seeing what they have to offer, I have to say that I'm really glad that we kept the appointment.

The Witcher is a 3^rd person RPG based on the fiction of European fantasy author Andrzej Sapkowski. Readers in the States have probably never heard of Sapkowski's stories and novels, but they are immensely popular in Poland, Russia, Germany, the Czech Republic and other Eastern European nations, where they have sold over 5 million copies.

The game world is rich and lush, with all the little touches that signify a quality title.

The world of The Witcher is a dark place, where the line between "good" and evil" is oft-times blurred, if it even exists at all. You play the role of Geralt the Reaver, (Sapkowski's main protagonist), who is a Witcher. Witchers are a brotherhood of professional monster slayers for hire, and utilize "magic-imbued mutant powers" alongside their formidable martial skills to rid the world of inhuman threats. In this world, the armies of the nation of Milfgaard rampage through the world, aided and abetted by the forces of the Elves, Dwarves and Gnomes. Due to their ruthless oppression, the remaining humans have banded together against the forces of Milfgaard and the non-human races.

Along the way, Geralt will have to deal with two warring political powers, terrible disease and pestilence, a monster invasion, an ancient prophesy (the #2 most common theme in fantasy gaming) and even the old chestnut of amnesia (the #1 most common). The game uses a mouse-based interface heavy on tactical combat and is built on a heavily modified version of Bioware's Aurora engine (the same toolkit that made Neverwinter Nights look so good).

As the day lengthens to dusk, the sun moves across the sky and sets… Lovely.

Chose your responses carefully, for the "good" choice isn't always the best or most profitable one- sometimes even good deeds will come back to haunt you.

The game itself looks incredible, likely due to CD Projekt's heavy modifications of the Aurora engine. In the demo, we got to see the combat system in action, which featured what we were told are over 200+ motion-captured animations. The settings are lovely as well- the devs played a scene for us set in a crumbling castle, and we have to admit that we've seldom, if ever, felt that a structure of this nature has been better re-created. It seemed incredibly lifelike, from the play of ruddy sunset and shadows across the stones to the realistic, crumbling architecture. This being a role-playing game, anything that helps the player really believe that they're actually in-game is a plus, and so far the game looks like it will be able to deliver the goods in this respect.

The Aurora engine supports real-time environmental effects such as pelting rain…

CD Projekt wrote the story for The Witcher under the watchful eye of the series' author, and all of the original game content has his official blessing, so we have to admit that we're intrigued to see how the game's story will play out. Make no mistakes- The Witcher is not a kid's game- this is an adult tale of intrigue and bloody fantasy, where sometimes even the good guys have to make difficult choices; choices that might even be, for lack of a better term, evil. Personally, I like developers that aren't afraid to explore the darker side of human nature (shallow, mindless crap like GTA notwithstanding), so we'll make sure to keep an eye on this game as it approaches its Spring 2007 release date.