Can The Witcher 3 have a huge, open world and good characters?
In a recent video onGame Informer,The Witcher 3‘s game director gave the statement “Skyrim— it was generic.” He went on to explain how characters should react to what you are doing for a game to be truly immersive. He said he tried to think of five good characters fromSkyrimand that he couldn’t. Those are some bold swings at the current king of role-playing games.
WhileSkyrimis awesome, what Konrad Tomaszkiewicz said about the lack of characters is pretty accurate. This is a game about the world and the characters are just bland actors inhabiting said world.
WhenThe Witcher 3: The Wild Huntwasrevealed, there was a lot of statements being made on how it would bebigger and betterwith an open world to explore. While this may sound great, it might just be an attempt to capture some of the market that loves games such asSkyrim.
Creating a massive open-world title can be a very difficult thing to do. Bethesda has been at theElder Scrollsseries for almost twenty years now. Even after all of this time, they are still rather buggy and lacking in story. The reason people overlook the bugs and lack of decent characters and plot in a game likeSkyrimis because of how massive the world is. you’re able to go anywhere and do anything, and there’s hundreds of hours of gameplay to be had.
The Witcherseries has always been very focused on the story and the characters involved. CD Projekt RED does an excellent job of creating characters and a story, and it feels like you are actually Geralt hanging out in a tavern with Dandelion and friends.
I don’t want to get my peanuts mixed up in my chocolate.The Witcheris about characters andSkyrimis about the world. Sure, it would be terrific to have a game that can be both, but it’s easier said than done to incorporate a deep story into an open world on the scale that’s being talked about. If you’re going to have a game that focuses on story, it’s much easier to create small slices of an area then to create the entire area. I think it’s going to be a technical miracle for a developer to make a game as big asSkyrimwith the depth ofThe Witcher.It’s not impossible, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
