CD Projekt RED devs have spoken frankly about development of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, including mod tools, the free DLC, and the care they took to ensure every cave is actually handcrafted.
There was one interview was with the CEO himself, Marcin Iwinski. He confirmed that they intended to release mod tools sooner than they did for The Witcher 2. He didn’t say it would be ready at launch, but he did assure that devs are working around the clock on it.
Iwinski once again talked about the company’s DRM stance. As he points out, everyone in CPR is a gamer, so they know pirates end up with a better experience. This is why CPR intends to release 16 DLC packs free, so gamers who paid full price feel rewarded about buying legit.
Level designer Miles Tost also took questions from fans, and answered them directly. Mostly, he talked about dungeons.
The dungeons will be big, so big that you could spend an hour exploring every nook and cranny. Miles stated that some of the dungeons will be horror themed, but not all of them are. With many of the dungeons, the torch will be helpful in breaking up some of the mystique of the dungeons, and making it all about the gameplay. While the torch serves as a great alternative to the cat potion, you will not be able to parry using it, although you can still fight.
And now, for the biggest claim the devs have made. Miles says he took great pains to talk to the game’s artists and assure him that the same large sprawling dungeons that will take you an hour to explore are mostly handcrafted. They did not rule out procedural tools completely. However, they took pains to handpaint terrain textures, foliage, and erosion.
Even the basic land shapes were designed by humans first before they used any procedural generation on it. Of course, we have already seen Novigrad itself was mostly handcrafted. Miles claims there is practically no spot that Geralt can step on or touch that wasn’t touched by a dev.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is releasing on May 19, 2015 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
