CD Projekt Sundays
The Witcher 2
Witcher 2 motion capture sessions!
This is rather cool:
Stunt Forces!
This martial arts group is evidently called Stunt Forces, and they’re evidently the group that has done the lion’s share of the motion capture work for character and combat animations in the Witcher games.
So, about that Witcher 2 introductory cinematic…
…by which I mean this one:
I get frostbite just watching this thing.
It’s evidently the most expensive game asset that CD Projekt Red has ever created. Not that we should really be surprised to hear that, I suppose. CGI animation has come a long way, baby, but it’s still pretty expensive to turn out such an eye-meltingly gorgeous cutscene as this.
The most complex story ever told on Xbox?
That’s the assertion made by CD Projekt RED’s Jan Bartkowicz, Arkadiusz Borowik, Artur Sliwinski, Lukasz Szczepanowski, and Konrad Tomaszkiewicz in this video:
An ambitious claim.
And like as not, it’s probably true. The average Xbox game simple does not offer moral choice and consequence and non-linearity on the scale of a Witcher game.
How many copies did The Witcher 2 sell in 2011?
Eurogamer pegs the number at 1.1 million copies, which is pretty impressive for an indie game from Poland, especially a hardcore RPG. Which, as Gamespot notes, brings the total sales for the Witcher series to about 1.5 million.
Not all is roses, though: CD Projekt also reports that there may also be around 4.5 million pirated copies of the game, which was (as the good reader may recall) stripped of what little DRM it shipped with shortly after launch, in what I seem to recall was the first official patch for it.
CD Projekt RED’s next two games will be on PC and console at the same time.
Eurogamer reports:
“We are definitely starting for new consoles,” managing director Adam Badowski told us, when asked whether the pair of known-about “AAA+” games will be for this generation or the next.
“The market is ready for something new,” heralded head of marketing Michal Platkow-Gilewski, “for something faster, more powerful.”
Badowski added: “I can tell you we are and we were focusing on powerful gaming rigs. We’re going to do something amazing, so we need extra processors.
“It will be multi-platform game, so the multi-release at the same time. But if you are talking about leading platform, we will use most powerful, just because it can give us the freedom of creation.
“And it’s cool to develop something special, new – better than others on the market. It’s our goal.”
It’s probably a safe bet that by 2014, we’ll see new consoles pushed out that have some pretty powerful hardware underneath their stylish exteriors, but it makes this old Origin Systems fan smile to hear a developer talking about developing games for hardware that doesn’t quite exist yet.
The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition trailers!
Here’s the first:
Oooh...pretty lighting effects.
And here’s the second:
Somewhere is burning.
The Witcher 2 has probably got the best graphics of any game I’ve ever played. The opening siege section is rather wonderful to look at.
My only problem with the game is the annoying control system, but I imagine most people won’t mind it too much. It’s essentially designed with consoles in mind, so it’s very different from the Witcher 1 controls (which were almost entirely mouse-based). I’m sure I’ll play through it eventually (I’ve only played through the prologue and part of the first main act so far).
As for the piracy… well, three times the number of copies is far less than World of Goo were reporting (they suggested an 80-90% piracy rate).
makes this old Origin Systems fan smile to hear a developer talking about developing games for hardware that doesn’t quite exist yet.
Amen. I used to resent the fact that games would come out and make my hardware obsolete, but at this point, I’m positively eager for it.
I echo the statement of Infinitron.
I’d be happy, but it’s just going to be the same thing again. Consoles get released. Within a year PCs are way more powerful. Games will still be built for console hardware for another 4 years.
We’re in an endless loop until consoles as we know them cease to exist.
I admire CDRP for their views in DRM , selling 1,5 mil copies proves that if you make a great game people will buy it.
as a sidenote, I bought the collectors edition of Witcher1 when it was released and played it 2 years later at it’s enhanced edition
I also pre-ordered and bought the Witcher2 Collector’s edition and luckily I have not really played it yet , luckily because the enhanced upgrade is close and it seems it is really more than just a mere patch… so this time is ~1 year later.
Maybe I play witcher3 on launch LOL
Thepal:
Hopefully with improved technology and development practices, it will become easier to create PC versions that utilize the full strength of the platform, and then scale them down to the consoles.
EA, of all companies, have recently done just that with Battlefield 3.
Battlefield 3 made me so happy. And I haven’t even played it. I just loved they pushed the systems and created something that looked so much better than what we are usually stuck with. That is what I want to see more of.
I’m just in love with the Frostbite 2 engine, myself. It’s insanely powerful, and is proving stunningly versatile for various EA studios — it powers the latest Need for Speed game, is being used to power the upcoming Command and Conquer title…and I even heard a rumour today that it will be behind the next Dead Space game.
That’s two shooters, a driving sim, and an RTS. It would be pretty to think that going forward, this engine could serve as EA’s quite effective answer to the Unreal engine, and/or CryEngine.