I recently invested in the Witcher 3 on Xbox One and my what a game! Praise is always heaped on a lot of games during the build up to their launches and often it seems misplaced, but not in this case.
But I am not writing this solely to big up the work of CD Projeckt Red, who are the designers. Rather I am looking at how they have set a benchmark to other games studios. It is one of those games that you play where you can immediately head off the beaten track and as a result you find you have no idea which part of the story you are in or how long you've been playing it for. The game is so rich in storytelling quality that it immerses you in its lore and you want to do it all.
It has been reported that there is over 200 hours of combat alone in the game and it is the type of experience that is truly rewarding for a gamer. To put this in perspective if you don't play games too much, one of the most eagerly anticipated games of the past few months – which came from a big games studio – was that of The Order: 1887. Visually the game looked beautiful but it always seemed that the developers were hiding something in the gameplay they were showing...anyway turns out they were as the game only had around 6 hours of gameplay!
I never invested in The Order: 1887 but it was always a game that had caught my eye. But when you compare how much the game has to offer it appears insane to me that a big game developer studio is willing to release something so shallow and disappointing. What I have to say to this is up your game! Pun intended and all!! CD Projekt Red have established themselves as the lead in the Role Playing genre and it is entirely due to their dedication and love of both the Witcher franchise and fan service.
There are so many big game developers out there who lose sight of what the fans want and get too into the corporate nature of a franchise...the classic 'lets release a game a year of the same stuff and see if people keep buying it'. This type of behaviour is evident in the like of Assassins Creed which appears to have entirely lost its way and a lot of fans and for me also with the Call of Duty franchise. I used to go to the Call of Duty events with a friend who would be invited and we eagerly anticipated them but now I don't even touch the games as I much prefer something with more depth and a bit more heart and soul to it.
So to conclude I say thank you very much CD Projekt Red for a beautiful and amazing game that I can hardly manage to leave, you have raised the bar once more to other game developers and lets hope they learn something from the amount you put into a game - both in content and love.
