The Witcher 2: Killing in the Name

This three-page, article-style interview on IGN UK sheds some light on The Witcher 2’s dialogue system, quest layout, hot new engine, and more courtesy of CD Projekt RED story designer Jan Bartkowicz. Interestingly, we finally have confirmation that a console version is in the works:

First of all, we can expect quality over quantity in terms of the missions this time around, with a more coherent, enjoyable structure to follow. “In The Witcher, it was a problem, because you’d look at your journal; there’d be a thousand things to do,” Bartkowicz notes. “It was hard to know which one single thing was going to get you closer to achieving your goal. I think what’s driving RPGs is that the pace of the game is yours to control. It’s really unlike linear shooters; it’s more like reading a book.”

“So, we don’t have as many side quests in The Witcher 2 as we did before,” he admits, revealing that the team decided to axe most of the forgettable ‘kill five of this monster’ missions that routinely clog up an RPG’s quest arteries. “We do still have some of those – just not as many. Instead, we have more quests like this one, and it makes it more fun and more interesting.”

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‘But what about a console version’ I hear you cry. Well, the news is definitely good, despite the depressing failure of the original version to make it to the 360 or PS3. “It’s the first console project we would like to do,” Bartkowicz confirms. “We need to do it in house. In the end we decided not to do it outsourced. We’ve been running some tests, and putting a small part of the game just to make sure we’re not cheating anyone. We can show it to you, it is possible.” Sadly, we ran out of time to see it for our own eyes, but the fact that CD Projekt is happy to go on the record and say that it’s happening is good news. In fact, the game’s eventual transition to console has been planned from day one. “You can play The Witcher 2 with joypad – it’s implemented. The whole interface is designed with console in mind, in fact.”