The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Interview

Big Download also managed to secure a chance to interview senior producer Tomasz Gop on CD Projekt’s upcoming RPG sequel The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

How does the storyline in The Witcher 2 continue from the original?

Pretty straight forward. If you remember the outro of The Witcher, some bad things were almost done by some bad guy to some very important person… Geralt definitely wants to find out more about the motives, and that (the game’s subtitle: Assassins of Kings) becomes the main plot. First however, King Foltest needs our help to quell the last sources of rebellion in Temeria – that’s exactly where the storyline of the sequel starts. There’s around a two-month gap between TW1 and TW2 storyline, but you won’t miss anything crucial. Oh and of course, as with any sequel – it’s bigger (terrain scale, politics, emotions), better (graphics and storytelling), and more badass (combat)! 🙂

What were some of the things that the development team wanted to improve upon in The Witcher 2 compared to the original?

Am I going to repeat myself if I say narration? Ok now, let’s think about the other stuff… RPG mechanics! We’ve modified the character development toward a more gameplay-oriented system. In The Witcher 2, you can choose the way you shape your own Witcher – magic, sword, alchemy. All that leads to a different feel you get from gameplay. It’s harder for a sword-oriented player to perform an effective combination of cuts and magical signs (because of the character development trade-offs) than it would be to give opponent a lethal sequence of sword strikes. Oh yeah, and the graphics of course – it’s going to be the best looking RPG ever.