Dhruin
SasqWatch
We had the chance to spend around a dozen hours with a preview version of The Witcher 2. Here's a sample from our hands-on look:
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Read it all here.Structurally, the game is similar, with chapters and discrete locations, rather than a single continuous world. I didn't get the chance to travel to a new area (other than the transition from Prelude to Chapter 1), but it seems the game will offer a semi-linear progression with changes to new major locations as the story unfolds. Based on the village of Flotsam and the surrounding forest, swamp and shores, the areas are larger than the original game. Throughout the forest are paths that intertwine that you need to broadly stick to but they've done a much better job of disguising the restrictions than the first game: obstacles and boundaries exist but I didn't see the sort of "small garden fence" barriers that frustrated some gamers in the original game. In addition, while you can't actively jump over objects, the team has implemented interactive "hotspots" where Geralt can climb or drop down. Together with the better level design, this makes it feel more natural and less enclosed. This change means the team has been able to create more interesting terrain with a sense of height, allowing Geralt to climb down over rocks to reach a river below, for example.
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