the-witcher posts

Direct2Drive's latest sales promotion gives folks a chance to grab a PC game from their download service every day for a much smaller price. On the second day of their 24 Days of Christmas sales event they have put CD Projekt's The Witcher on the price chopping block.

From now until 1 pm Eastern time on Thursday you can download the "M" rated fantasy RPG for just $19.99. That's a 50 percent discount from its usual Direct2Drive price. Since the game was first released in the US in 2009, CD Projekt has been updating it with new content and bug fixes. The latest such update put back in the nudity that was previously removed from the US version but was present in international versions of the game.

"Our prices are so low, they are scary!" Hey it was too good to resist. Actually that's just what the Direct2Drive web site is doing right now as it has cut the prices on a number of their horror-themed (and other M-rated) PC games for download. Some of the games have been cut down to as low as $4.95. The sale prices end on Sunday:

The games priced at $4.95 include Stubbs The Zombie, The Path, Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, Cold Fear and Downfall. In addition, BioShock, Damnnation and Far Cry 2 are priced at $9.95 and The Witcher and Dead Space get a price cut down to $19.95

It looks like Valve is going to be having more sales from their library of games on Steam more often than just the weekend from now on. We've already told you about their $5 sale for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. Today they have another pretty large sale for The Witcher, the fantasy RPG from developer CD Projekt.

From now until Thursday, you can purchase and download The Witcher for $19.99 via Steam, which is a 50 percent reduction from its usual price. The sale is apparently to celebrate the fact that the game is now available via Steam worldwide instead of just the US. And if you haven't tried out the game this might be a good time to do so as CD Projekt seems to be knee deep in production for the sequel, The Witcher 2.

Update: Impulse has the same sale price for The Witcher.

The Witcher's owners can now be bought . . .at least on the stock market. As previously planned, Poland-based CD Projekt has now become a publicly traded company via its holding company CDP Investment being bought by another Poland-based business Optimus. The owners of CDP Investment still retain control of their company while also holding onto 50 percent of the shares of the publicly traded Optimus.

In addition to CD Projekt RED, which is currently developing The Witcher 2, CDP Investment also owns the GoG.com classic PC gaming download site. It also owns Metropolis Software which is working on a still mysterious game. The company also distributes games in Poland and other countries.

In an interesting business move, the Polish web site Polygamia is reporting that Poland-based game developer CD Projekt is about to become a publically traded company on the Warsaw Stock Market. The site claims that CD Projekt's owners will take over the shares of a nearly defunct PC maker and publically traded company Optimus S.A. Technically Optimus S.A. will purchase CD Projekt via a share deal but those shares would be owned by CD Projekt's owners. We've emailed CD Projekt to get more info but their spokesperson would not comment on the story. However, GamesIndustry.biz says that they have confirmed the news with the company's marketing head.

CD Projekt is of course the developers of The Witcher. A sequel to that game was officially revealed recently. It also owns the GoG.com classic PC game download site and another game developer Metropolis Software. That team has been working on a first person shooter game for some time that was previously titled They but may have had a title change.

Update: According to our sister site Joystiq the deal between Optimus S.A. and CD Projekt Red will actually result in CD Projekt's owners holding half the shares and Optimus's owners claiming the other half, making the deal more of a merger than a change in ownership.

How many times have we been told that the PC game industry is dying? Console games get the vast majority of media attention and sales for a number of high profile console games reach millions of copies sold. However there are still a number of game franchises that have remained, at least for now, strictly for PC gamers only. We know that console gamers would love to play all of the following game titles:

Check out five PC games that console gamers would love to play after the jump

A few days ago, CD Projekt got a rude awakening when they got word that a video designed to show prospective publishers what they have planned for The Witcher 2 was leaked onto YouTube. Now the developer of the fantasy RPG sequel has posted up a mini-FAQ on the game and the video but there's actually very little that they are revealing about the game at the moment.

They do confirm that the graphics engine being used is one that was made by CD Projekt themselves, rather than using BioWare's Aurora graphics engine as they did for the first Witcher game. They state, "The new engine is fully scalable and, well... kicks ass;). We believe it will let us avoid all bottlenecks we came across during development of the first Witcher. Exact engine specifications, features and name will be revealed after the official announcement." They also confirm that the sequel will be released for the PC.

Other than that there's really not much else they are taking about at the moment. They don't have a release date, haven't yet revealed a publisher and they are a long way from even revealing more info about The Witcher 2. They state, "An official trailer and other stuff will be done with our publisher, and it won't be very soon. Sorry."

Never mind the fact that the video is clearly watermarked with an "internal use only" label. Someone clearly got a hold of this in-progress behind-the-scenes look at The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings and decided to post it on YouTube. Yep, it's the previously unannounced (but also inevitable) sequel to the hit fantasy RPG from developer CD Projekt.

The video mixes gameplay footage from an alpha build of the game with behind-the-scenes looks at CD Projekt working on the game. The game definitely has a revamped graphical engine and the footage also shows off some of the game's magical and combat moves, some of which will be enhanced with the Havok physics engine. We have emailed CD Projekt for comment but we suspect that this video could be removed from YouTube pretty quickly.

Update: The official Witcher web site now has a comment about the video leak, saying that it was made about six months ago. The Witcher 2 is apparently still being shopped around to publishers but while they are not denying that the footage is of the game they are choosing not to comment on the game itself.

[Via Kotaku]

While not quite as remarkable as last week's indie package on Direct2Drive and Steam, Impulse is spotlighting the independent developer this week with their weekend deals, ranging from the prominent independents to the little guys that nobody has heard of. Along with this also comes a deal on the new The Witcher: Director's Cut. All games except for The Witcher are half-off, while The Witcher is 30% off. The full list of games is as follows:

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director's Cut
Hacker Evolution
Hacker Evolution: Untold
Mr. Robot
Starscape
Morning's Wrath

This patch updates the content found North American release of The Witcher: Enhanced Edition to match the version released in Europe. Specifically, the patch puts back the nudity that was originally cut from the game. The game must be updated to v1.5 before applying this patch. Owners of the original release of The Witcher will need to download the Enhanced Edition patch updates before adding the Director's Cut content.

This patch also updates the ESRB Mature rating to include: Blood and Gore, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, and Violence.

Download The Witcher: Director's Cut Patch (294 MB)

To upgrade the original game to The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, you'll need:

1. The Enhanced Edition Content Patch
2. The Enhanced Edition Language Pack
3. The Blood Patch
4. The Hotfix Patch
5. Patch 1.5