the-witcher-2 posts

The Witcher was an RPG in the classic PC style, and we loved that. The combat, however, felt a bit odd. Maybe it was because it was somewhere between action-focused murder and tactical thinking without being one or the other. This trailer for Witcher 2 goes into the intricacies of the combat system, and we are already liking what we see a lot more. Smooth combat, more varied moves, and a lot of information on how each skill tree affects your fighting. This is the definition of an excellent trailer.

Download the The Witcher 2 Combat Overview Trailer
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At least one game due in May is sticking to its proposed release date. Developer CD Projekt has just announced that its long awaited fantasy RPG title The Witcher 2 has now "gone gold" meaning that the game is completed and is being replicated onto disks that will later be shipped to stores.

That ship date is still scheduled for May 17, a date that CD Projekt announced several months ago. The game, a sequel to the million selling The Witcher, will be released in retail stores in the US via publisher Atari as well as download sites. However the CD Projekt owned GoG.com will be the only place to download and purchase a DRM-free copy of the game.

[Via email press release]

The Witcher 2 is shaping up to be quite the third-person action RPG, and this trailer just adds to the list of things we can look forward to. Multiple play styles in a single game is one of our favorite styles of design, and the Polish developers at CDprojekt really want to impress that Witcher 2 will be guided more by the players expectations than a developer-forced linearity. There's lots of information about the three major tree here, and it shows each in action: swords, alchemy, and magic. Tons of information, a large amount of in-game footage, and plenty of combat makes this a great trailer.

Download the The Witcher 2 Dev Diary #5
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While the GoG.com version of The Witcher 2 will still be DRM free, other copies, including the retail version, of the upcoming fantasy RPG will have a DRM set-up. In a streaming press conference today, developer CD Projekt announced that they are using SecuROM for the game's DRM program However the developer also said that the game will only use the system in order to keep pirates from leaking the game before its scheduled release date of May 17.

The game will need a one-time login to the internet to start playing but will not have an "always on" set up to continue playing the game. The Witcher 2 will let PC gamers have unlimited installs on an unlimited amount of PCs and will let people play it on up to five PCs at once.

In related news, The Witcher 2 will have an optional registration that will alert players to future patches as well as give them access to free content updates.

The Witcher 2 is due out on May 17 but today developer CD Projekt has just revealed the PC exclusive RPG's system requirements for all to see and read. The time has come to see if your particular PC gaming rig can handle the new minimal and recommended system specs.

The game is still up for pre-orders at a number of sites but if you want to get the game via download without any fear of a DRM set up it's best if you go and get the game via the GoG.com download site. You can see the system requirements for the game after the jump:

So a portable game console with glasses-free 3D was released today. Which is great, except that the console looks on the surface something that was made 10 or 15 years ago. Why won't Nintendo learn something new about case design?

• Eurogamer's Digital Foundry has a Crysis 2 PC tech article up, reviewing the tech features before the (hopeful) DirectX 11 patch.
• Some possible system specs for The Witcher 2 have been posted up ... but they are in Polish.
• A Canadian ISP admits that it has been cutting down the net speeds of its customers when they run World of Warcraft.
• Sales of Minecraft continue to impress; it broke the 1.7 million unit sales mark earlier this weekend.

While GoG.com had already announced a few months ago that the version of The Witcher 2 it would sell would be DRM-free, this week the PC game download site confirmed that it would be the only retailer to sell a DRM-free Digital Deluxe version of the upcoming CD Projekt developed fantasy RPG.

In fact, GoG.com just put in an extra incentive for pre-ordering The Witcher 2 from its site. Anyone who does do by 7 am Eastern time this Thursday will get a special code to join a live video Q&A on Ustream where CD Projekt team members will take questions about the game and also reveal some new concept artwork.

An important part of any game is exploration, and developers must keep exploration fresh by providing plenty of environments for the players. This developer diary for Witcher 2 examines the different art and architecture styles in CD Projekt's latest game, and it's both incredibly interesting and quite pretty to boot. It shows off the architecture for the dwarves and elves, and also explains the process around the building construction of different races. There are also some incredibly obtuse analogies which are oddly funny. This trailer is spoken entirely in Polish with English subtitles.

Download The Witcher 2 Developer Diary #4
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For the past few years, PC gamers have usually thought of the month of May as being on the slow side when it comes to new game releases. Indeed in 2010 there were only a few major retail PC game releases during that month; the racing games Split/Second and Blur (both of which turned out to be sales disappointments) and the MMO expansion Age of Conan Rise of the Godslayer.

That isn't the case for May 2011. Indeed there's a boat load of major AAA PC game title that are currently scheduled for release that month. They include the long awaited first person shooter Duke Nukem Forever (May 3) the fantasy RPG The Witcher 2 (May 17) the action-RPG Dungeon Siege 3 (May 31), the sci-fi shooter Brink (May 17) the racing sim Dirt 3 (May 24) and other titles like Red Faction Armageddon, F.E.A.R. 3, and Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, all of which are currently scheduled for release sometime in May but don't yet have a specific release day that month (by the way the release dates in this article are ones that are confirmed by the publishers, not necessarily the dates shown on retail web sites which can be inaccurate). Even more PC games could be announced as being released in May in the coming weeks.

What's even more interesting is that for April there are only one or two major PC games that are currently scheduled to be released (Portal 2 on April 18 for example) and June is also looking pretty empty with Hunted The Demon's Forge the only PC game officially scheduled for release that month (and that game is due out on June 1).

So it begs the question: What is it about the month of May that is causing publishers to pile on with lots of new PC game releases while other months like April or June are at the moment looking relatively empty of new game titles?

Developer CD Projekt Red gave gamers a pleasant surprise when it announced that any copies of The Witcher 2 bought via its own GoG.com PC game download site would be free of any DRM set-up. It also offered up some cool pre and post-release extras. Now the site has added another pre-release pre-order bonus for the game.

Anyone who pre-orders The Witcher 2 from GoG.com will now get five exclusive concept artwork pieces that can be downloaded immediately. That's in addition to the previously announced four MP3 music tracks, 10 HD wallpapers, 10 avatars and a photo tour of the development team's offices. That doesn't include all of the post-release extras that you will get when the game is released this May.