cd-projekt posts

Is it possible for a fantasy RPG to have too many endings? The team at CD Projekt is hoping the answer is "No". At a presentation at GamesCom last month, and reported by PC Games Hardware, the development team revealed that its upcoming RPG sequel The Witcher 2 will have a whopping 16 different endings. That compares to "just" three different endings in the original Witcher title.

The Witcher 2 will also have three different openings compared to the original's single opening and 150 minutes of cut scenes versus just 53 minutes for the first Witcher game. And while the first game had tons of loading screens, the development team says The Witcher 2 will feature just four loading screens. It's not quite an open world game but it's pretty close. The game is due out in spring 2011 via publisher Atari.

Witcher is one of the better PC games, and is a strong contender against titles like Dragon Age. The Witcher 2 is more of the same dark fantasy world, and we're hardly surprised that it looks stunning. This trailer definitely proves that, and while it doesn't really show any gameplay out of the norm, the art is stunning and the monster design at the end is both unique and intriguing. It's just a shame that a gameplay trailer doesn't show more, y'know, gameplay.

Download HD Witcher 2 Gamescom 2010 Trailer
Check out all Witcher 2 downloads

Developer CD Projekt is getting ready to show off their upcoming fantasy RPG The Witcher 2 to the assembled at E3 2010 next week. However some fans of the original game have expressed concerns that the title might have some restrictive DRM set-up. An executive from Namco Bandai, which is distributing the game in Europe, recently stated he supported the "always on" internet style of DRM for PC games.

CD Projekt decided to reveal their own policy concerning DRM on their message boards. In summary it states, "In our opinion, it is more important to encourage acquisition of original game copies than to punish those who play pirated copies." While there's been no decision on what DRM set-up, if any, will be put to The Witcher 2, CD Projekt's CEO Adam Kiciński stated in an email press release, "As per our policy, we will do our utmost to prevent the adopted DRM solution, if any, from making life difficult for those who acquire legal game copies. I can't imagine using any protection that would deprive game fans of any of the pleasure that will come from playing the game, as has been the case with other notable PC game titles."

If you own the first game in developer CD Projekt's The Witcher series and made it to one of the fantasy RPG's many endings, you might want to keep your save files from the time. In a new video dev diary for the upcoming sequel The Witcher 2 on IGN it's revealed that there will be a way to import those save files from the original game into the sequel.

According to the video, the imported save files will affect how some of The Witcher 2's characters deal with your lead character depending on how you completed the original game. Hopefully we will learn more about how this will work at E3 later this month. In the meantime you can check out the full video after the jump.

Earlier this week one of the worst kept secrets in PC gaming was finally admitted as developer CD Projekt announced their fantasy RPG sequel The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. This week the developer released a couple of new videos promoting the game. One of the videos is an example of an in-game engine cut scene from the trailer that shows off some of the game's storyline and a couple of its monsters.

The other video, which you can see after the jump, is the first developer's diary for The Witcher 2 as the dev team (speaking in their native Polish but with English subtitles) go over their goals in the making of the game.

Download HD The Witcher 2 Real-time Cutscene (152 MB)
Download HD The Witcher 2 Developer Diary (197 MB)
Check out all The Witcher 2 downloads

If you blinked, you missed it. Actually even if you didn't blink you likely missed the one frame message in the new trailer announcing the fantasy RPG The Witcher 2. You can see the message above if you don't care to comb through lots and lots of video to see it for yourself.

What does it say? Basically it's all about hype for the upcoming CD Projekt-developed game. It's also a thank you letter to the original game's hardcore fans. The Witcher sold over 1.5 million copies on the PC and the dev team wanted to push themselves to make the sequel look even better. They were also honest about the reception the original game got and plan to put lots of improvements for the second title. Check out the trailer to see the full message if you can.

Download HD The Witcher 2 Trailer (162 MB)
Download The Witcher Demo (1.97 GB)

It's a bit anti-climatic at this point but today developer CD Projekt finally and officially announced they were indeed developing The Witcher 2. The sequel to their hit fantasy RPG is currently scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2011. The developer has already admitted it was working on the game after a video showing the game's development leaked on the net several months ago.

The press release reveals that The Witcher 2 has already signed a number of publishing agreements including Atari for the North American market. The press release hypes up the sequel's new graphics engine which CD Projekt developed from scratch this time (the original Witcher game used BioWare's Aurora engine as its basis), The first English preview of the game can be read at GameSpot (be aware there are some story spoilers in the preview).

While as of the posting of this article the official Witcher web site still has that number "2" and nothing else, the folks at GameTrailers managed to jump ahead of everyone else and get access to the first true teaser trailer for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

The trailer for developer CD Project's next game in the mature fantasy RPG series certainly looks a lot better than its predecessor. In addition to lots of bloody battles there's more than a hint of some sexual content in this trailer as well. There's no word yet on a release date for the game. You can check out the full version after the jump:

Update: A post on the game's message board by CD Projekt's PR head stated they are looking for a first quarter 2011 release timeline for The Witcher 2.

When an entire web site for a fantasy RPG title goes dark except for its forum and its front page showing just a stylized "2" on it, there's just two things that might be happening. One is that all of us are receiving a two dollar bill or that the game is getting a sequel.

In this case we think its the latter for the official web site to The Witcher 2, the sequel to developer CD Projekt's hit game that they have already admitted is in the works. However specific details about the sequel have been few and far between which would mean that an announcement on those details, including perhaps a publisher and release date, is getting very close.

There are quite a few PC game download services to choose from but none of them are quite like GoG.com. For over a year now the service, started by The Witcher creators CD Projekt, have offered gamers a way to buy some of the best PC games ever made in a DRM-free environment and with pricing that makes them extremely easy to afford. Over the past year the service has added more and more games and publishers to the mix and even added games that no other download site can (legally) offer to consumers.

As we first reported earlier this morning CD Projekt has has officially announced that GoG.com will begin to offer older PC games from Activision's library of titles. Those titles now include games from Activision's merger with Vivendi Games to form Activision Blizzard. Before today's announcement, Big Download got a chance to ask some questions to CD Projekt's co-founder Marcin Iwinski about this development and GoG.com's future. We even managed to sneak in a question about CD Projekt's next big game project, The Witcher 2.