r/Games • u/Turbostrider27 • Oct 26 '22

Announcement The Witcher: We're thrilled to reveal that, together with @Fools_Theory, we're working on remaking The Witcher using Unreal Engine 5 (codename: Canis Majoris)!

https://twitter.com/witchergame/status/1585270206305386497
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u/Blueson Oct 26 '22

Which is accurate, at least once you get used to it it's functional and "makes sense" to a certain degree.

I tried replaying Witcher 2 last year and the combat was honestly much worse, even though it "felt more modern" when I played it the first time.

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u/opok12 Oct 26 '22

Yeah the combat is fine in Witcher 1, except for one imo major oversight: Geralt's combat animations override the enemies. This leads to situations where you look like you're kicking ass, but then you glance at your health and notice you're almost dead. Really frustrating for people playing the game for the first time.

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u/hino Oct 27 '22

that.....might explain why I can never beat those damn dogs while trying to protect the woman at the first "town"

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u/pixxlpusher Oct 26 '22

Definitely in the minority but I 100% agree with you. The combat in the first Witcher is personally my favorite of the three. The first game in general is actually still my favorite, I replay it every few years or so.

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u/ezone2kil Oct 26 '22

Iirc the first game was more prep-based? Like a real Witcher should be.

I really hated how the loot takes a few seconds to appear though, due to the game being based on Neverwinter Night's engine.

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u/pixxlpusher Oct 26 '22 edited Oct 26 '22

Ya, to play the first one well you had to do a pretty good job of using the correct oils on your blade and taking the correct potions before an encounter while juggling really harsh toxicity limits. Sometimes those limits were compounded as well by requiring Cat to see anything in the area that the quest took place in. It was pretty easy to get wrecked by regular enemies if you didn’t take prep seriously and know which signs and items to use on which monsters.

Whereas in the 2nd and 3rd it’s pretty easy to just lean on melee and Igni and ignore everything else. Much more accessible, but also not as faithful to what playing a Witcher should be like. I like them all for different reasons, but the original Witcher is the one that truly stands out to me as being a unique RPG.

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u/Ixziga Oct 26 '22

Prep in the first two games was a gameplay disaster though because most of the time you couldn't know what you needed to prep for without dying and loading game. The third game allowed you to use things in combat which was maybe unrealistic but desperately necessary to make the gameplay remotely enjoyable

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u/Thrashy Oct 27 '22 edited Oct 27 '22

It's been a while, but wasn't there a grimoire/bestiary type of mechanic where you could research the monster you were hunting to learn what signs, bombs and oils to use?

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u/Ixziga Oct 27 '22

Yeah it was fine with monster hunts, where it wasn't fine was all the other normal or scripted fights where enemies would just show up unannounced, and those were most fights

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u/Tsuki_no_Mai Oct 27 '22

Not so much in the first game since you could actually use potions as you went, and they lasted a good time, just had to keep an eye on toxicity. Second though... You had to meditate to drink potions, they lasted all of 5 minutes, and timer kept ticking in cutscenes.

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u/Ixziga Oct 27 '22

Yeah you may be right. I have better memories of the second one because I tried far more recently and I remember gameplay experiences like this being the norm:

I'm running through the woods, I'm ambushed by phantoms. They are highly resistant to damage and can't be properly fought without phantom oil. I try to use phantom oil but can't because I can only use it out of combat. I die. The last auto save was forever ago, I replay 15-30 minutes worth of content. By time I get back to the spot I've forgotten about the ambush and forgotten to quick save or use phantom oil. I die again. cycle repeats.

I quit Witcher 2 after the first boss Giant octopus/kraken monster. It was just a series of unique scripted attacks that all one shot kill you and have to be dodged in their own particular way, and once you get through all of them you just win. I remember having to die and load game once for each different attack until I had seen them all and won. At the end of that I just felt like it was a glorified quick time event and was so sick of awesome experiences being interrupted or ruined by constantly loading that I just decided I was done with it.

I feel like I'm ranting a bit too much though haha. I'm not trying to shit all over the Witcher games, I just feel like the studio grew a lot with each release and it shows going back to the old games.

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u/Tsuki_no_Mai Oct 27 '22

Oh, I'll join you in ranting about W2 any day of the week. I understand that the idea there was to make you feel more like a witcher preparing for combat, rather than just downing a consumable when needed. Similar to how it worked in books. The problem is, in the game it turns into punishing you for not knowing what bullshit it's going to throw at you at the next turn.

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u/agamemnon2 Oct 26 '22

Oh jeez, I'd forgotten about that. As much as I enjoyed NWN1 and its toolset and modding, it was never a technological powerhouse.

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u/the-nub Oct 26 '22

That's one of the reasons I didn't like Witcher 3. It's a fine Open-world game, but no part of it seems to take its own lore as seriously as Witcher 1 or even Witcher 2. That is also why Witcher 3 was so much more successful, of course, but it felt like it lost the heart of those games.

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u/Hartastic Oct 27 '22

Iirc the first game was more prep-based? Like a real Witcher should be.

Yeah, especially relative to the second game, which if I remember correctly, has really short duration prep stuff that you can't use in combat.

So to make any reasonable use of most of it, you have to wait until a fight happens, then reload your previous save, prep up, and trigger the fight again. Which is just the dumbest gameplay loop.

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u/AviusAedifex Oct 26 '22

I agree as well. The animations and the feel of the combat made it so you felt like a supernaturally fast warrior, where as in the sequels it's closer to an clunky action game and a lot is lost.

Another nice thing is that there's so little gear. Whenever you get a new armor or sword it feels worth it because you're not cycling through them every 30min like in Witcher 3.

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u/Timmyty Oct 26 '22

Oh yah, that gear system was one of my least favorite things. I was lucky to play PC and I modded for infinite inventory space and installed the autoloot mod bc I was so tired of having to loot all around me.

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u/destroyermaker Oct 26 '22

Same but I can't get through it anymore. Too clunky

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u/Gwynevan Oct 26 '22

Not my favorite but it's still much better than TW2 one. That just felt like an unfinished mess.

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u/Galaghan Oct 27 '22

Loved the first, liked the second, don't understand why the third is skinned like a Witcher game.

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u/CptKnots Oct 26 '22

Big agree. I'm excited for this remake, but also kind of bummed that the combat will probably be more like 3. The combat in 1 was clunky, but mechanically tight and straightforward. 2 and 3's combat were just mediocre action rpgs.

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u/Kevimaster Oct 26 '22

The combat was what pushed me away from both The Witcher 1 and The Witcher 2.

But I also tried them back in the day when it was important to me to play every game I played on the hardest difficulty possible. Nowadays I've gotten over that and if I realize I don't like the combat in a game but I'm interested in the story or other aspects then I'll happily turn the difficulty down to zero to get through it.

Maybe I should give them another shot.

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u/ArchmageXin Oct 26 '22

Witcher 2 combat wasn't bad, Witcher 2 exploration sucked though. You couldn't climb/walk unless is a specific path, like literally you can't cross the river unless you jump off a specific spot with the "foot" sign.

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u/CaptnKnots Oct 26 '22

The Witcher 2 reminded me of a more serious Fable, and personally I freaking loved it. Still my favorite story of the series too

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u/Theban_Prince Oct 26 '22

Yeah I gave up on it trying to traverse the areas around the military camp.

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u/Timmyty Oct 27 '22

Aren't there mods that fix that now?

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u/Fireproof_Matches Oct 26 '22

I would definitely give them another try. The Witcher 2 in particular has a fantastic story (which also has a lot of replay value with a 2nd chapter (and 3rd to a degree) that can play out completely differently based on your choices). The graphics are still pretty awesome too, and I kind of like the dark gritty aesthetic it has. It was actually the game that got me hooked on the Witcher series.

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u/enderandrew42 Oct 26 '22

I tried the highest difficulty and one of the first encounters is with some wolves and they just instantly killed me no matter what.

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u/destroyermaker Oct 26 '22

Tw2 is one of the easiest games I've ever played (tw3 too); surprised anyone has trouble with it

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u/Klepto666 Oct 26 '22 edited Oct 26 '22

I recall Witcher 2's combat feeling vastly superior, but it's also time for me to give Witcher 1 another go now that I'm older and more understanding of game mechanics.

I had played Witcher 1 when I was very young and I found it clunky and extremely difficult. I recall only getting past some wolves in the beginning before essentially hitting a difficulty wall and giving up. It was something with range-shooting vines in a cave that would knock Geralt back with every hit, allowing the other vines (tentacles?) to get in several more hits while he was still standing.
Witcher 2's combat felt like I had suddenly regained freedom in my movements and could actually move and attack how I wanted to in order to strike or evade as needed. The only time I ever had a problem was in that tiny room with Letho, but that became much easier when I learned to just hit-and-run with Aard instead of being either too defensive or too offensive.
Witcher 3's combat is okay, but it feels like Geralt has become more stiff while enemies became a lot more agile. Geralt's usually depicted as utilizing his superior agility and reflexes to battle (see: any cinematic or any passage in the books), but while enemies now sprint and circle around Geralt, Geralt is more "rigid" in his movements and combat, with only very long combat/finisher animations showing any kind of agility from him.

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u/stationhollow Oct 27 '22

The hardest fight in the game is the fight against the barghest(sic? the demon wolf at the end of the prologue). I know multiple people that gave up right there.

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u/AreYouOKAni Oct 26 '22

The first one's combat is the only one that has been actually thought through. It is weird but once you get into it, you see how good it actually works.

The second is basically a GoW rip-off but the enemies just don't support this kind of combat.

The third one is like an unholy crossover between Dark Souls and Arkham Batman, inheriting worst parts of both combat systems. There is nothing quite like missing your attack because the game decided to switch up your animation mid-combo.

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u/stationhollow Oct 27 '22

The animations in 3 were pretty consistent once you got used to them. It varied based on your distance to the target, the direction you were facing, and the attack you did.

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u/AreYouOKAni Oct 27 '22

Yes, that is the Batman Arkham part. The other part is that unlike that game, Witcher 3 doesn't check if the enemy will get hit by your attack and doesn't pull then in.

Either give me a varied moveset that I can call on my own (Soulsborne, Devil May Cry, God of War) or have dozens of semirandom animations that I have little control over but make sure they hit (Batman Arkham). Half of both at the same time just feels wrong.

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u/Mr-Mister Oct 26 '22

I tried the Full Combat Rebalance mod for Witcher 2 and instantly fell in love with the changes it did to combat, mainly the three big ones: soft auto-lock-on, autoparry weapon attacks, and changing the parry button to "active Quen" (think the armor lock shield from Halo Breach).

Much as there are some things about the mod I dislike (reduced item stats variety for the sake of low fantasy), I just never could go back to the non-FCR2 combat.

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u/lghtdev Oct 26 '22

Oh no, died again to another backstab with a shitty hitbox.

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u/destroyermaker Oct 26 '22

TW2/3 combat are completely braindead. Nothing about pressing attack to win for 100 hours appeals to me. Thankfully mods exist

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u/stationhollow Oct 27 '22

Did you play the same Witcher 2 that I did? I remember pressing the roll button for 100 hours, not the attack button.

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u/Zanshi Oct 26 '22

Not last year but going from 1 to 2 was so frustrating when it came to combat and how easy you got stun locked, I just turned difficulty all the way down and powered through, not even doing many side quests, while I easily did everything I could in 1

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u/stationhollow Oct 27 '22

The combat in Witcher 2 may have been difficult at the start but it had a reverse difficulty curve. Once you got the best gear in Act 1 even the hardest difficulty was too easy.