The Witcher 3 New Details: Difficulty Settings, No QTE, Crafting, Locations And More

German gaming publication, Gamestar.de, recently got the chance to sit down and play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for 12 hours and in that time they were not only impressed, but also only managed to reach level 7, pointing towards a lot of potential gameplay time.

The player said, “My two days with Geralt were one of the most beautiful, most exciting and overwhelming experiences I have experienced in my 33 years gaming life”. So with that in mind, here’s what we know now. The game will feature four gameplay modes, Easy, Medium, Hard and Dark, all of which alter the opponents skill, hit points remain unchanged. It would appear as though there is no level scaling as the player (who was level 7) was killed in one shot by a level 24 Wyvren.

Upon completion of your contract, you can haggle for more reward money by way of a mini game, but there are no details right now. Fist fighting will also make a return but not in the form of QTE’s. The games side quests, of which there are many, are all said to be well made and feature solid writing as well as branching paths for added replay value.  Unlike Mass Effect, dialogue choices aren’t represented as good or bad, this is a decision that players must make. On the higher difficulty settings of the game, potions are going to be essential but they can be increased and made more potent easier than before.

The best items in the game cannot be purchased and must instead be crafted. Any items that Geralt equips will be visible on his person. The No Man’s Land and Novigrad are one large gameplay area and it’s said to be “much bigger than Skyrim”, which was already fairly huge. The rest of the game world is made up of Skellige and 5-6 separate locations.

There are two huge cities in the game world, one is Novigrad and the other is Oxenfurt. Both of which are said to be buzzing with life. On the technical side of things, the Xbox One resolution will stay at 900p and will not climb. There is a day one patch for the game that is confirmed. There is more visual gore than The Witcher 2. The controller feels better to use than a mouse and keyboard, this was to be expected and Ultra settings noticeably improve the game worlds visuals.

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