The Witcher (game)

The Witcher is a computer role-playing game for the PC by CD Projekt. Based on the book series of the same name by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, the game utilizes BioWare's proprietary Aurora Engine and was released in October 2007.

The Witcher follows the story of Geralt, a mutant "witcher" — a traveling monster hunter for hire gifted with unnatural powers. Taking place in a medieval world, the game implements detailed visuals. The natural light during various phases of the day is realistically altered, and the day and night transitions serve to enrich the game's ambiance. The weather can dynamically change from a light drizzle to a dark, stormy downpour accompanied by thunder and lightning, and the people reacts on the rain by going under roofs where it doesn't rain.

Storyline

 * For the full detailed storyline visit the Storyline Main Article.

The game is centered around Geralt the witcher, who at the beginning of the game suffers from amnesia. He gradually learns that he was a very renowned witcher, and that he had friends and enemies almost everywhere who remember him but whom he does not remember. Through the player's actions, he will redefine those relationships and choose his path in the political intrigue that surrounds him.



Geralt starts his adventure in the citadel of Kaer Morhen where bandits attack lead by two shady characters, The Professor and a mysterious mage. The player eventually learns that they are part of a criminal organization called the Salamandra, and that they are after some special potions which were developed to genetically alter witchers to give them their powers. What they want with those potions is unclear.

The chapter ends as the Professor and the mage teleport out of Kaer Morhen with the potions. The remaining witchers and allied characters decide to split up and search for information about the Salamandra to eventually stop them.



The first chapter has Geralt exploring the Outskirts of Vizima, where a beast is harassing the townspeople. There he meets Shani, who will be present for the following chapters.

Note that Geralt no longer has access to Kaer Morhen in this chapter, but he gains access to the Outskirts of Vizima.



Geralt now has access to the Vizima Temple Quarter, where he will have to solve a mystery. Who is involved with the Salamandra? Several influential people in the city are suspects, and Geralt has the help of the private investigator to help him sort the clues and follow up on them.

Note that Geralt not longer has access to the Outskirts in this chapter, but he gains access to the Vizima Temple Quarter, part of the Vizima Sewers, the Vizima Dike, the Vizima Cemetery and the Swamp.



During Chapter 3, Geralt will have to follow new leads on the Salamandra, while investigating the mysterious powers of the child Alvin who he rescued in Chapter 1. The Scoia'tael also start being more bold in their attempts.

Important: The choice of whether to bring Alvin to Triss or Shani may alter the events in the remaining chapters. The following description was based on bringing Alvin to Triss.

Note that Geralt still has access to the areas he had access to in the second chapter, and he additionally gains access to the Vizima Trade Quarter as well as new areas of the Vizima Sewers.

Geralt now finds himself in a totally new area of Temeria, far from Vizima and cut off from most of the people he knew. Dandelion and Alvin are with him though, and there are new intrigues around him. The chapter ends with a showdown between the Order of the Flaming Rose and the Scoia'tael, where Geralt must choose his side (though one choice is to remain neutral, accepting the consequences of that choice).

Note that Geralt no longer has access to the areas he had access to in Chapter 3. He can now explore the areas of Lakeside, Murky Waters village, the Fields and Black Tern Island.

Order path
...

Neutral path
Geralt escaped the conflict between the Order of the Flaming Rose and the Scoia'tael in Murky Waters. But Vizima now burns, the conflict taking more and more casualties. Geralt meets Shani once again, and must help her get out of Old Vizima to the relative safety of the Swamp Cemetery. At the same time, King Foltest returns and his daughter Adda seems to be having a relapse of the Striga curse. Geralt must do what he can for the princess, and in return, Foltest will divulge what he knows about the Salamandra hideout, and as a result, Azar Javed's location.

Scoia'tael path
...

Note that Geralt no longer has access to the areas he had access to in Chapter 4. He can now explore the areas of Old Vizima, the Swamp Cemetery and the Old Manor area.

Order path
...

Neutral path
With Princess Adda cured of the Striga once more, Foltest and King Radovid of Redania forge an alliance. Foltest agrees to give his daughter's hand in marriage to Radovid in exchange for Radovid's army, to help in resolving the Order/Scoia'tael conflict. It has also been revealed that the Order was behind the Salamandra all along, with Jacques de Aldersberg, Grand Master of the Order, using Azar Javed and his organization to build an army of mutants able to overthrow Foltest to take the throne. With Javed dead, the Grand Master will be expecting Geralt's visit...

In the end, the Grand Master reveals that he did everything to try and save humainty from the Great White Cataclysm (can't remember the real name). He had visions of what the future of humanity would look like if no one tried to do something, and his solution was to create mutant Greater Brothers to help believers in his cause in an exodus to the south, hoping to escape the long winter which would come. Geralt rightly remarks that every despot always talks of a higher cause. With the help of the friends he made during the entire story, he makes it through the Grand Master's vision and ends his plans, at the same time freeing himself from his destiny of leaving only destruction behind him by denying the King of the Wild Hunt the right to take the Grand Master for himself.

Scoia'tael path
...

Note that Geralt no longer has access to the areas he had access to in Chapter 5. He is back in the Vizima Temple Quarter, and will be teleported to the Icy Plains near the end.

Story Motivations
The developers have often said that their main goal with the game's storyline was to give choices to the player where there was no clear good or evil, and where the player would have to choose the lesser of two (or more) evils.

Also, the story was designed so that the consequences of the player's choices are often not immediately visible, and may only become apparent a few chapters later. This was done to prevent the "save, choose, reload" type of gameplay that is often used in similar computer role-playing games.

Gameplay
There are three camera styles available when playing The Witcher. The game can be played from one of two top-down perspectives, in which case the mouse is used to control everything, or it can be played from an over-the-shoulder view, which brings the player closer to the ingame combat, but limits visibility. In all the views the keyboard and mouse controls can be changed to be primarily mouse focused or a combined keyboard and mouse approach.

The combat system in The Witcher represents a departure from most RPGs. Players choose one of three fighting styles. The quick style allows for faster, less-damaging attacks with a greater chance of hitting faster enemies; the heavy style deals more damage in exchange for a slow attack speed, and a lower chance to hit faster enemies; and the group style, which features sweeping attacks best used if the player is surrounded. The player can switch between the styles at any point.

Each of these stances has its own unique combat style. Both of Geralt's main swords - the steel and silver ones - have distinctively different combat styles from the rest of weaponry, and serve very distinct purposes: where the steel blade is used to find humans and other flesh-and-blood beings, the silver one is more effective against supernatural monsters and beasts (against some of which steel may have no effect whatsoever).

Alchemy is a major part of gameplay. The player can create potions that increase health or endurance regeneration, allow Geralt to see in the dark, or provide other beneficial effects. The recipes for these potions can be learned through scrolls, or by experimentation. Once the player creates an unknown potion he can choose to drink it, but if the potion is a failure it will poison the character. Each time Geralt drinks potions they increase the toxicity level of his body. This can be reduced by drinking a special potion or by meditating at an inn or fireplace.

In addition to potions, the player can also create oils and bombs, respectively used to augment the damage done by weapons, or as weapons in combat. Neither can be created until talent points have been allocated into the corresponding skills.

Game Engine
The Witcher is powered by a new version of the BioWare Aurora Engine, modified for a single-player experience. A number of changes have been introduced to the original BioWare Aurora Engine, and some of them are described below.

World visualization
One of the most important of which is modification to the world-visualization method. In BioWare's Aurora Engine, the world is designed exactly as it was envisioned rather than utilizing a tile-based system. Because of this, the visuals are claimed to be unique and rich in detail. All the environments are created in 3D Studio Max and then exported into the game engine.
 * Light maps
 * The CD Projekt's version of the engine supports lightmaps, generated in 3D Studio Max. Shadows generated this way are claimed to look more realistic and are better performance-wise.


 * Texture paint
 * This is a special tool that enables to paint the environment using custom textures, with purpose of saving the time and promising more natural look than ordinary mapping.


 * Skybox and water effects
 * New realistic skybox and water effects were added to the engine.

Rendering
All the in game and tool set rendering is done using DirectX9, and the engine now supports many different shaders (water effect, bump mapping, environment mapping, etc). Additionally the whole rendering system has been unified and a new light manager was added.

Other changes
Other important changes include the following: motion-captured animation, physics effects, new mechanics and combat system. There are also many other modifications, like introduction of portals, additional graphical effects (glows, advanced dynamic shadows, blurs)

TAGES Issues
The game uses the TAGES copy protection system, which has has been found to conflict with disc image drive emulators and react similarly to presence of SCSI and SATA drivers in the system, leading to a number of occasions where the copy protection system has prevented users from running legitimately purchased copies of the game.

These problems can be usually avoided by uninstalling the TAGES driver with the official installation program and then starting the game (which will automatically install the appropriate driver version).

Localization variations
All the female portrait cards shown after Geralt's "conquests" were retouched to a more modest standard for the US release version. The in-game Dryad was also reskinned so her hair covered more of her body in this release.

Colorful dialogue between characters was cut in the English releases — not merely the US release — especially through shortening of dialogue. Lead Designer Michał Madej has disputed claims by fans that this was due to the sometimes crude language, but that the decision to edit down dialogue occurred because of production-related concerns in game development. Proof reader Martin Pagan noticed this shortened version during his work and writer Sande Chen confirmed that it was not due to censorship. Fans have theorized that it may have been done for voice acting cost savings, especially since much of the vulgar language has been retained. Such cost savings would normally occur during any shortening of dialogue, even in cases where no major crudity was involved.

Contents of each edition
The following table lists the contents of each edition in addition to the game DVD itself. Help us by adding information about missing editions! "CE" means "collector's edition" and "PE" means "premium edition".

Ports to other platforms
No ports of The Witcher to platforms other than the PC have been announced yet. However, CD Projekt is currently looking for XBox 360 producers and programmers on its career page.

Additional Information

 * Technical Information
 * Bugs
 * Easter Eggs
 * ''Spoiler Checklist