- The game once again stars Geralt, his memory now restored, who is done fighting for others. His new missions include everything from solving mysteries to slaying monsters. And there will be no chapters, acts, or artificial break-points to slow him down.
- game world 20% bigger than
Skyrim and 40 times larger than
Witcher 2 - traversing it takes 30-40 minutes on horseback
- open world, no loading screens
- area-dependent mini-games are in; example: knife-tossing game in Skellige for exclusive rewards
- three-level narrative:
- Lowest Level: Free-form activities such as crafting, monster slaying (which seems to be more extensive in the third iteration), and going on quests. (There are over 100 hours of hand-scripted quests. These include helping villages and engineering the succession of the Skellige kings. Though, I think the latter would apply to the Next Level.)
- Next Level: The political situation of the Nilfgaardian invasion is resolved through a core plot line for each area, including Skellige, Novigrad, and No Man’s Land.
- Final Level: Geralt’s main storyline, his search for his loved ones, and the chase of the Wild Hunt.
- different parts of the land have their own storyline branch
- Major events in the main storyline are said to be “gates” for the state of the world. For example, a village threatened by bandits might be abandoned after certain events if the player doesn’t step in with a helping hand.
- dynamically generated weather effects modeled as real, volumetric clouds in the game world
- no scripted boss sequences
- information gathering on monsters and enemies via fighting, books and dialogues; level of information determines possible critical strikes or special effects. When fighting a vampire, for example, you can negate its poison attack by hitting its venom gland. Or, you can strike at both its hearts with a thrust attack for an instant kill.
- time of day influences presence and/or abilities of monsters
- crafting/customization system
- 96 combat animations (
Witcher 2: 20)
- new "weighting" system that keeps most dangerous opponents in the frame (-> camera focus to keep them on the sceen would be my guess)
- mounted combat still in testing stage and not definitely confirmed, but horses will definitely be in as a movement aid and possibly as a mobile access point to the players storage chest
-
Witcher 3 team double the size of that for the previous games
-
Witcher 3 as conclusion to the trilogy
http://gematsu.com/2013/02/the-witch...hunt-announced