The Witcher 2: Review in Progress

Is CD Projekt RED's sequel any good?

It's finally time to play CD Projekt RED's anticipated sequel, and you might be wondering where the IGN review is. Well, we're in the same boat as you on this one. IGN did not receive early copies for The Witcher 2 and cannot provide a launch day review. Instead, we'll be playing alongside you in the days to come and updating this story with impressions, screenshots and video.  

 Why do this, you ask? It's a way of making the review process a little more transparent and also delivering opinion before the final story is written and score assigned. Odds are The Witcher 2 is going to be a long game, so the review wouldn't be finished for a while. Instead of hiding all perspective from public view, you'll find updates pertaining to specific aspects of the game like visuals, gameplay and story in the days following launch. It'll be similar in structure to the way we handled the Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and DC Universe Online reviews.

 

Once the final review is ready, the text and video review will appear on this page. If you have any questions in the meantime or specific things you'd like to know about, feel free to leave comments in the field below and we'll try to address them as best we can while we play.

Overview

The Witcher 2 is a single-player fantasy role-playing game by CD Projekt RED, starring Geralt, the hero from the first game released in 2007. Geralt is a witcher, a ghost-haired mutant that can wield swords and magical powers to dispatch foes. Expect a large cast of characters to interact with, plenty of ways to upgrade and customize Geralt to suit your play style, and at least one boss fight against a giant tentacle beast.

From what's been said about the game so far, The Witcher 2 is enormous. The official word is 40 hours long, though it's unclear how much that may vary if you decide to take part in all the side quests and minigames. Like in the first game, your actions while playing affect what happens later. In the sequel, this may mean you'll miss entire towns (as well as the associated storylines and side quests) on your first playthrough. According to the game's official site this means there'll be four different beginnings and 16 possible endings. CD Projekt RED is using an entirely new engine for the sequel, which basically means The Witcher 2 looks significantly prettier than the original, which utilized a modified version of BioWare's Aurora Engine.

Combat has also received a significant overhaul. Gone is the restrictive timing-based system used in the original, replaced by a more free-form system that should be more familiar to those who play third-person action games. You'll be able to equip lots of different armor pieces this time, as well use weapons, spells and alchemical components to kill your enemies. From what I've played for preview it all works really well, and hopefully that holds true when I start playing the game for review.

source IGN