Before the release of Wild Hunt, the photo of the wild CD Projekt RED head Marcin Ivinsky went through the network with the comment "here, say, people do several years of inhuman work and large-scale development."
After the marathon run in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, I also feel squeezed lemon. Before the eyes of the cosmic power sweeps the stream of experiences. Here you are alone in front of an unfamiliar world full of dangers and secrets, rushing endlessly on a wave of adventure through the cities and villages.
After that it becomes somehow awkward to talk about the integrity of the narrative, the value for the genre and sex on the stuffed unicorn. Only the most important thing is important: friends, it was truly a wild hunt.
And that's why.
Witcher - the most successful hero for adventure
Once upon a time in the world of "The Witcher" a cataclysm, called the Conjugation of Spheres, occurred, after which various monsters, magical beasts and other beasts came there. Live ordinary people became much more fun and dangerous. Therefore, in the end, a special caste of soldiers appeared, able to cope with most of the supernatural troubles. In other words, witchers are mutants with accelerated metabolism.
These gentlemen can do a lot of things - for example, the chimera can chop off the head, take the curse off, sit half-day in the dirt in the sewage so that the silver sword between the eyes can then enter the unknown creature ... In a word, they help people in difficult life situations. Not disinterestedly.
In this regard, the witcher is the ideal protagonist, because he can undertake any work, and it will not look ridiculous.
The savior of the galaxy Shepard, like an inveterate psychologist, conducts soul-saving talks with friends, helping them overcome their complexes and long-standing traumas. The Dragonborn kills rats in the basement, and it's kind of like that.
The Witcher does ungrateful work, and this fully corresponds to the nature of the character, because this world does not need a hero, he needs a professional.
The violent, uncontrollable Trevor in Grand Theft Auto 5 made a reflection of the collective unconscious of any player in the GTA - and it seamlessly fits into the gameplay. With Geralt, the story is almost the same: it's the character whose actions during the game will not cause unnecessary questions.
"Wild Hunt" is conducted in a huge world
From the fairly compact and structured world of the second "Witcher", we are transported to the open world, where we explore a part of the Northern Kingdoms - lands along the banks of the Pontar river (part of occupied Temeria and Redania) and Skellig's archipelago in the west.
All this space in "Wild Hunt" feels holistic, as in Morrowind, where everything was strange and new - remember at least the houses-mushrooms of the mighty Telvanni or reminiscent of the bone shells of the House of Redoran. With an amendment to the fact that in the "Witcher" we are told an evil East European fairy tale.
You are immersed in this mythological ethics, and it acts much more efficiently than the usual stories about knights and dragons. Here, the witches gaze upon the goat's milk and blood, there the bastard wanders and the herbalists impose mighty curses on the severed horse heads. Geralt lives on the land of miracles - to figure out all these churras, demons and chemists on the move will not work. In the "Wild Hunt" folklore from different cultures, not excluding Scandinavian, is mixed: Schelling and customs are different, and there are absolutely other creatures living there.
On the other hand, the powerful rulers are waging wars over the territory, in the cellars and attics, the conspirators are working out another treacherous plan, and on the archipelago the Vikings are choosing a new king - in short, there are enough internal intrigues. The nearest landmark is the "Game of Thrones", the second most important source of inspiration for developers from CD Projekt RED.
Locations in the Wild Hunt are very different in mood. Each of them has its own color palette, and when you first get to the Vikings, it seems that the game has changed dramatically. There are places on Skelling where one should not go badly with a weak spirit - the cemetery of the Drakkars, the fading beacon on which the poltergeist settled, the lair of the ice giant.
In Velen on a separate island, too, should not be delayed - around the district roam the Utopians, near the gloomy abandoned tower, plague rats swarm in dead bodies. Over the unfriendly Novigrad, the sun sets ominously ominous, the wind on the withered marshes barely hangs hung over the withered branches of trees.
In Oxenfurter, on the contrary, it is always clean and dubious personalities do not roam the streets, but on the central square they give a representation of buffoons - all NPCs have their own daily routine, and by night turn off the performance.
Not far from Novigrad you can stumble upon the insane beauty of the apiary and flower fields; next to grow sunflowers, through the clouds break through the sun - it seems that soon there will be a thunderstorm. And it is true, the weather changes dramatically, and now the wind is bending the trees and driving the leaves that have flown around. In statics, the beauty of the world can not be conveyed, especially when rushing on horseback through torrential streams under the folk of Marcin Przybilovich and the tunes of Percival.
Immediately go wherever you want will not work, first you need to pass a prologue in the White Grove where you are gradually introduced to the course of the matter and given to get acquainted with different things and activities. But the starting location does not at all seem like a banal training: they can easily kill here, in the deserted village the spirit of the dusk is groaning, and in the Grove an enraged griffin rages.
It seems that in the prologue the designers worked half-heartedly, because the most interesting begins just from the moment when Geralt goes to Velen. From there you can go anywhere - although you need to sail to the archipelago on the ship, and through Pontar they are not allowed without a charter, unless you can not get to the fortress of Kair Morchen at once.
The world in "Wild Hunt" is not seamless - a continuous large-scale transition from the Caer Morchen fortress to the White Grove, and then through Velen and Novigrad (a map of incredible size) to the Skellig islands is impossible. If you reach the end of the earth, Geralt is turned back against your will.
And it has something to do
It is important not only to draw and create space, but also to make it interactive, to give the player the incentive to explore the world. You can achieve this in many ways, but in this case it's not about side quests, but simply about filling the world with various trifles.
In Skyrim, for example, the sights system worked well. You make your way through the rocks - there is a cave, here an abandoned fortress with vampires, oh, ran into a flooded fort with cultists. Pieces are completely optional, but create depth.
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