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CD Projekt is remaking the first Witcher game in Unreal Engine 5

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Re: CD Projekt is remaking the first Witcher game in Unreal Engine 5

#61
I already played it, so I'm unexcited. Remakes these days generally seem like lazier ways to try to make money compared to making new art from scratch. I thought Cyberpunk was abysmal (though i loved the witcher games) so I wouldn't expect much from them anymore in any case.

Re: CD Projekt is remaking the first Witcher game in Unreal Engine 5

#63

I already played it, so I'm unexcited. Remakes these days generally seem like lazier ways to try to make money compared to making new art from scratch. I thought Cyberpunk was abysmal (though i loved the witcher games) so I wouldn't expect much from them anymore in any case.

What about Cyberpunk was abysmal to you? I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the gun-play. NPC animations left some to be desired, but overall I thought the graphics were super engaging and Night City was super fun to run around in.

Re: CD Projekt is remaking the first Witcher game in Unreal Engine 5

#64
post #44

Has CDPR run out of ideas, but still had a bag of promises to make? They promised CP77 extensions and multiplayer, The Witcher 3 in 4k, now remaking Witcher 1? I'm kindof disappointed with this news and not hearing updates about previous "updates".

Its a third party studio doing the remake, CDPR probably won't be diverting many internal resources away from their existing in-house projects for this.

also this is just follow-up to a previous announcement where they announced 5 projects in various stages of development on top of info about the CP2077 expansion: https://ftw.usatoday.com/2022/10/cd-projekt-red-witcher-cybe...

Re: CD Projekt is remaking the first Witcher game in Unreal Engine 5

#65
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played the Witcher 1 when it came out and thought it was a brilliant game. I haven't tried going back to it ever. It felt quite polished to me then. I'm curious what people feel isn't approachable for today's audiences. Is is merely that we are used to different visuals now? What are these engine issues in Witcher 1 you speak of? As a player I did not notice them back in the day.

Its not the polish that was bad. I've played many 3d action-RPG games. Zelda, Monster Hunter, Dynasty Warriors, etc. etc. Witcher1's combat is by far the worst of the series. Just... laggy, non-responsive controls. But in a bad way (ex: Monster Hunter is also laggy/non-responsive, but in a way that's "obvious" that the slowdown is purposeful and tactical. You need to be very careful about when you attack or not attac…

I think a big problem with Witcher 1 is that its vision for combat was relatively novel and not well presented. In the lore it's emphasized that fighting is supposed to be a sort of graceful dance and so the combat tries to mimic that. The combat is much more like a bemani (beat/music type game) game than an action RPG, even though it looks nothing like the former and everything like the latter.

Once you 'get' this, everything makes way more sense, the game flows, and it becomes really quite fun. I played it when it first came out. I didn't get it, and quit before beating the first chapter. I later replayed it, got it, and ended up playing through it multiple times on max difficulty.

Re: CD Projekt is remaking the first Witcher game in Unreal Engine 5

#67
post #21

> Now we know that it's a ground-up remake of the game that introduced Geralt of Rivia to Witcher fans outside of Poland. I was always of the impression that it was Witcher III that achieved this. I'm Polish so I genuinely don't know. Were the previous two installments popular outside of Poland?

According to this site (can't vouch for how accurate their numbers are) The Witcher III sold ~12 million copies on Steam, The Witcher II sold ~6 million, and the original sold ~3 million. That's not counting sales on GOG and other stores, consoles, etc. And I personally got copies of the first and second game around the time the second game released. https://vginsights.com/game/292030

If it doesn't count sales on GOG then it's not really reliable. GOG is owned by CD Projekt group, and one of the big points when releasing Witcher games was that people bought them on GOG so that all money went to the devs instead of paying the Steam tax.

Re: CD Projekt is remaking the first Witcher game in Unreal Engine 5

#68
post #6

I don't know why, this makes me a bit sad. You can sort of feel a game engine when you're playing a game. The GTA trilogy lost a lot when they did their remastering project with a different engine. Although I'm sure it can be done well. StarCraft remastered was done really well, but I believe they built on top of their existing engine.

Why? the graphics and animation did not age very well, so they need to be entirely redone, and the combat rethinked. But the last act will look quite epic on a modern engine if done well. Unreal use will allow faster development.

Witcher 1's main quest is the most interesting of the 3 games, I hope they do not commit the mistake of adding a minimap to casualize the remake, paying attention to the dialogues, environmental details and exploring the maps is very much what made the game interesting to me. It's one of these games where you can get stuck if you are not paying attention to the story, or miss certain timed events, which increases its replay value. It's much more interesting that just spamming witcher senses all the time to complete quests.

To those who didn't play the game, this is very much a "detective" story and most quests are shrouded in mystery, it can works ONLY if the player has to pay attention to the dialogues, lore and story. It will not work if the player is spoon-fed every little detail about who is whom, what potion to use or the devs resorts to bringing back the "witcher senses".

Just like Witcher 2, one can "side" with either of 2 camps, unlike Witcher 2, one can decide not to side with anybody, although choosing the latter option might not lead to the most positive outcome...

Re: CD Projekt is remaking the first Witcher game in Unreal Engine 5

#69
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played the Witcher 1 when it came out and thought it was a brilliant game. I haven't tried going back to it ever. It felt quite polished to me then. I'm curious what people feel isn't approachable for today's audiences. Is is merely that we are used to different visuals now? What are these engine issues in Witcher 1 you speak of? As a player I did not notice them back in the day.

Not the person you're replying to, but the original Witcher felt fine to me too, but I'm a lifelong PC gamer and the interface/controls reminded me of older PC-only CRPGs like Summoner or even Neverwinter Nights. I love those games, but in terms of their control schemes they do feel clunky compared to the more visceral controller-optimized and streamlined Action RPG controls of The Witcher 2 and 3. In other words, th…

It was based on the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine, so the similarities to NWN are expected. Actually, from my perspective, combat in W1 was a big improvement over the turn based click and pray combat of NWN.

Re: CD Projekt is remaking the first Witcher game in Unreal Engine 5

#70
post #44

Has CDPR run out of ideas, but still had a bag of promises to make? They promised CP77 extensions and multiplayer, The Witcher 3 in 4k, now remaking Witcher 1? I'm kindof disappointed with this news and not hearing updates about previous "updates".

While it's surely a constant, I think the entertainment industries at large have really started to milk the nostalgia cow hard

I could say a bunch of soft science things like, go with a sure thing in an uncertain market, blah blah. I think it's simply easier

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