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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

#151

Post by alasdair_ »

Tade0 wrote: 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?

When I first played W1, there was no North American release. I only found it because metacritic listed it with fantastic reviews in Europe and I tracked down a place to buy it there.

It was an amazing game at the time.

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

#152

Post by daemin »

msbarnett wrote: post #144
WorldMaker wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more interesting part of the story is Unreal is being used. For a while Unity and Unreal have been pushing out in-house engines. This is exactly the case for CD Projekt Red. They built their own engine (RED Engine) for Witcher 1 and built on top of it for the two Witcher sequels and also pushed it to its very limits for Cyberpunk 2077. A lot of useful criticism of the technological pains (delays, marketplace re…

> This is exactly the case for CD Projekt Red. They built their own engine (RED Engine) for Witcher 1 and built on top of it for the two Witcher sequels and also pushed it to its very limits for Cyberpunk 2077. Close. REDEngine was created for Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Witcher 1 was built on a modified copy of Bioware's Aurora Engine (the Neverwinter Nights engine). REDEngine versions were: REDEngine 1: The Witc…

To add to that (since I'm somewhat of an expert on this), the engine for Cyberpunk 2077 was completely rewritten from scratch, and only small bits were either ported from W3 or inspired by what was done in W3.

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

#153

Post by daemin »

Tade0 wrote: 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?

From what I saw Witcher 1 had a following in RPG players, back in the day I remember seeing one guy at multiple lans play the game. Witcher 3 though was the big breakout where I saw people get excited for it and play it.

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

#154

Post by bashmelek »

msbarnett wrote: post #144
WorldMaker wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more interesting part of the story is Unreal is being used. For a while Unity and Unreal have been pushing out in-house engines. This is exactly the case for CD Projekt Red. They built their own engine (RED Engine) for Witcher 1 and built on top of it for the two Witcher sequels and also pushed it to its very limits for Cyberpunk 2077. A lot of useful criticism of the technological pains (delays, marketplace re…

> This is exactly the case for CD Projekt Red. They built their own engine (RED Engine) for Witcher 1 and built on top of it for the two Witcher sequels and also pushed it to its very limits for Cyberpunk 2077. Close. REDEngine was created for Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Witcher 1 was built on a modified copy of Bioware's Aurora Engine (the Neverwinter Nights engine). REDEngine versions were: REDEngine 1: The Witc…

I remember Neverwinter Nights 2. Decently fun game, but extremely buggy. It had some strange local lag where it wasn’t that unusual to command a character to move only to have them freeze in place then teleport back where they were 10 seconds before.

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

#155

Post by kuschku »

dragontamer wrote: post #20
verst wrote: 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…

> 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 attack vs various monsters in that game).

That's actually why I stopped playing Monster Hunter: I really hate the non-responsiveness, it feels like wading through molasses.

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

#156

Post by sorenjan »

danschuller wrote: post #100

Remakes make business sense. Every game is a risk. A portfolio of products that includes remakes reduces that risk. A game that was previously popular is easier to remaster than trying to make some new that's less tested. There are always brand new gamers to introduce to your IP as well as existing gamers who may have missed or want to replay earlier games. If you're a mature studio it's almost irresponsible to not d…

I don't follow game development closely anymore, but my feeling is that UE5 with features like Nanite, Lumen, etc is so advanced that you can't expect an inhouse engine to come close. Or are there other engines that's at the same level? Frostbite used to be cutting edge years ago, but some of the developers left EA and I haven't seen any excitement about it since.

Add to that things like huge install base that should make it pretty well tested at this point, big asset library, plenty of educational material available, and I guess it's a pretty easy decision for game studios. But I'm not in the business, maybe there are big downsides as well.

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

#157

Post by nz »

danschuller wrote: post #100

Remakes make business sense. Every game is a risk. A portfolio of products that includes remakes reduces that risk. A game that was previously popular is easier to remaster than trying to make some new that's less tested. There are always brand new gamers to introduce to your IP as well as existing gamers who may have missed or want to replay earlier games. If you're a mature studio it's almost irresponsible to not d…

Related, Jonathan Blow on custom vs 3rd party engines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOtxjOLst2k

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

#158

Post by dragontamer »

kuschku wrote: post #155
dragontamer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 attack vs various monsters in that game). That's actually why I stopped playing Monster Hunter: I really hate the non-responsiveness, it feels like wading through molasses.

You're super slow because you need to predict things like 2... 3... maybe even 5 seconds+ in advance.

Monster Hunter basically forces you to memorize the way the monsters move. Its not for everyone, but its in the title. "Monster Hunter". You gotta keep practicing vs the same monster over-and-over until you memorize its patterns before you really get the joy of success in that game.

When you're finally cool with one monster, you move on to learn the patterns of the next, etc. etc. Its a "take it at your own pace" kinda game. No story, just hunting.

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

#159

Post by kuschku »

dragontamer wrote: post #158
kuschku wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 attack vs various monsters in that game). That's actually why I stopped playing Monster Hunter: I really hate the non-responsiveness, it feels like wading through molasses.

You're super slow because you need to predict things like 2... 3... maybe even 5 seconds+ in advance. Monster Hunter basically forces you to memorize the way the monsters move. Its not for everyone, but its in the title. "Monster Hunter". You gotta keep practicing vs the same monster over-and-over until you memorize its patterns before you really get the joy of success in that game. When you're finally cool with one…

Honestly, to me it feels more like Monster Hunter is just a rhythm game dressed up in a fighting system. It's almost like a dance with the monster.

But that's not what I'm looking for in a game, I generally want the agility of e.g. Mirror's Edge ^^

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

#160

Post by profile53 »

daemin wrote: post #152
msbarnett wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is exactly the case for CD Projekt Red. They built their own engine (RED Engine) for Witcher 1 and built on top of it for the two Witcher sequels and also pushed it to its very limits for Cyberpunk 2077. Close. REDEngine was created for Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Witcher 1 was built on a modified copy of Bioware's Aurora Engine (the Neverwinter Nights engine). REDEngine versions were: REDEngine 1: The Witc…

To add to that (since I'm somewhat of an expert on this), the engine for Cyberpunk 2077 was completely rewritten from scratch, and only small bits were either ported from W3 or inspired by what was done in W3.

Huh that’s super interesting — full rewrites aren’t super common. Do you know why they elected to rewrite the engine completely?
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