If you want to search for the best games of 2007, you probably won’t find The Witcher in many lists. This is partly because 2007 was an unusually good year for gaming, debuting such beloved series as BioShock, Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, Uncharted, Rock Band, and Portal. But that’s also because The Witcher was – if we’re brutally honest – not the series’ strongest premiere. This is why CD Projekt Red’s remake of The Witcher seems like a good idea.
Earlier this week, CD Projekt Red, which developed the three Witcher games and published the last two, announced that “the original Witcher game is being remastered from the ground up.” There is no timeline for The Witcher Remake project, but the company is working alongside developer Fool’s Theory, which employs team members from The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. In other words, the Witcher Remake’s lineage appears to be well established; The only question is whether this game – which is perfectly playable on modern PCs – needs to tackle a complete remake.
I would argue that it is, especially when you consider how much The Witcher 2 and 3 developed the ambitious but complex first game mechanics. However, as with any remake, there is the potential for some of the creative aspects that made The Witcher a cult classic in the first place to get lost along the way.
A world without The Witcher
In case you haven’t played the first Witcher game (and depends on Steam . Charts, that’s many of you), it’s an exclusive RPG for PC where you play as a wandering monster hunter Geralt of Rivia. As an illegal sequel to Andrei Sapkowski’s The Witcher novels, The Witcher included many of the same elements that made the books work, including a morally gray story, sharp text, and dry sense of humor. It also introduced an open character progression system, innovative sword gameplay and a series of interesting levels to explore.
When The Witcher came out, it was greeted politely, but not profusely, by fans and critics. Going by Metacritic Reviews (which isn’t everything, the end of all game reviews, but a useful starting point nonetheless), the magician It was the 126th highest-rated game of 2007, ranking well behind Contra 4 on the DS, WarioWare: Smooth Moves on the Wii, and Jeanne d’Arc on the PSP. Contemporary reviews of The Witcher praised the game’s challenging moral choices, distinctive setting and robust level design, while criticizing the meticulous combat, repetitive dialogue, and buggy presentation. It is worth noting that all these observations are fair, even in hindsight.
However, it is important to remember that players went to The Witcher, in general, without any preconceived notions. While today, The Witcher has half a dozen bestselling games, a beloved Netflix adaptation and an entire series of subtitled books, the cultural character of the series in 2007 looked a lot different. Before the advent of CD Projekt, The Witcher’s only English-speaking audience offering was One translation of a short story in 2000 (Opens in a new tab). It does not necessarily mean that the players have recognized the connection; In its initial translation, the story used the word “Hexer” instead of “Witcher”.
It’s also worth remembering that PC-style RPGs were less accessible globally in 2007 than they are today. While series like Dragon Age, Pillars of Eternity, Diablo, and Fallout are widely available on consoles today, they required fairly robust gaming platforms — not to mention a player base that was willing to withstand both a steep learning curve and a host of of a technical problem. There is in fact a fairly acclaimed history of “EurojunkGames like The Witcher – ambitious cult classics from Eastern European developers, which nonetheless require a lot of patience to fully appreciate.
In other words, you can jump into The Witcher 3 and start having fun within the first 10 minutes. The original Witcher makes you work for fun. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but The Witcher 2 and 3 showed us that the series can be accessed without losing any story or depth of play in the process.
What should stay, and what should go
To start with a warning, we have virtually no information about The Witcher Remake. When CD Projekt Red says it intends to remake the game “from the ground up,” we don’t know if it’s going to be a shoot-em-up remake, like Demon’s Souls, or a more open-ended reimagining, like Final Fantasy VII Remake. For the sake of argument, let’s pretend CD Projekt Red wants to go the last way, since The Witcher has a lot of rough edges that could use some sanding.
Graphics
We can safely assume that the new version will have completely new graphics. The original game’s voice acting was a bit on the rough side, and I doubt many players would complain if CD Projekt Red brought The Witcher 3 back to the board for a remake instead. (Doug Cocklewho voiced Geralt flawlessly in all three games, is of course non-negotiable.)
On top of that, CD Projekt has plenty of leeway, depending on whether the company wants to keep the game intact or make it a pick-up and play experience. To that end, I think the company will have to make two big choices: what to do about the fight, and whether to change mission design.
fighting
First, The Witcher’s combat system is probably a complete article in itself, but it’s not your typical action/RPG fare. Instead of the standard light attacks, heavy attacks, blocking and dodge, Battle of The Witcher feels like a rhythm game. In addition to steel swords for human enemies and silver swords for savage enemies, you can switch between three combat modes: strong mode, quick mode and group mode. Each style has a completely different rhythm, and you need to click the left mouse button in time with the prompts, or you lose your combo. The prompts also get longer and more complex as you develop your skills.
Personally, I loved fighting in the game just because it’s so different, and I’m not alone. But even a quick reading of contemporary The Witcher reviews reveals that many players would have preferred a more straightforward system – which The Witcher 2 and 3 ultimately went for. There are pros and cons to either approach, but I wonder if CD Projekt Red will ultimately go for history preservation or ease of use.
Quest Design
The mission design in The Witcher is also much more complex than modern players might be used to. The task prompts don’t tell you exactly where to go, or the prerequisites you’ll need to complete them correctly. It’s entirely possible that you’ll go wrong on a mission, get your rewards, and find out hours later that you got the whole thing wrong. Even something as simple as “kill a number of monsters” can be a complicated process, as you’ll need to purchase expensive research books on each monster type before you “count” the kills. The last two Witcher games make it much easier to know where you’re going, and much harder than to fail badly.
It also probably goes without saying that The mini-game where you collect trading cards of naked women after sleeping with them (Opens in a new tab) He has to go.
Whatever CD Projekt Red decides, The Witcher Remake feels like a timely project that could introduce a new audience to an RPG. And if you can’t wait that long, you can always play The Witcher: Enhanced Version On Steam – provided you’re okay with some old and cool stuff. There is still a great story below.
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