The Witcher (learn even more at www.thewitcher.com ) is another example of an offering at E3 which suddenly came out of nowhere and shot to the upper echelons of my "Must Play" list. This game, being developed by CDProjekt and based on a heavily re-written version of Bioware's older Aurora engine, The Witcher is an isometric RPG with a careful mix between direct combat, strategy, adventure, and open-ended gameplay.

From the generous presentation I was shown today, considerable effort is being put into the game's backstory. In the wake of a massive war resulting in much bloodshed for both sides, unrest and chaos has gripped the world. Legions of specialized soldiers are sent out to try to quell the increasing population of demons and beasts, but even they aren't sufficient to hold their numbers. Desperate, humanity turns to an ancient group of warriors, known as "The Witchers". These warriors have been specially trained since birth to fight monsters, and have also been subjected to magical experiments which have transformed them into almost inhuman killing machines, but are also devoid of sentimentality. When the game opens, "Gerald", one of the few Witchers left in the world is found in a weak state with no memory of his past.

This is effectively how the game opens up, and this in turn makes for a very involving, "adult" storyline filled with tragedy and oppression. Full plot details will have to wait until the actual release of the game, but suffice it to say, there's more than enough to keep players motivated and moving forward. Which is a nice bonus, because the game is also expected to be very open-ended. Players can engage in side-quests, roam the landscape, work to improve their skills, and just explore the game's promises of many secrets. Most interestingly however is how the player's actions will affect the game as a whole. An example shown was a situation where a bandit had been captured and dragged back to a fortress. The player is then faced with a choice – he can either agree to the prisoner's incessant begging and release him, or wait for the rest of his party to arrive to help decide his fate. It was shown that releasing the prisoner can have a drastic affect on how later events may occur in the storyline, and keeping him, or even killing him can have substantial consequences for later. All of these situations eventually combine into a possible 3 endings depending the player's performance.

Another cool point is how combat is handled. Understanding how boring and tedious the basic "incessant mouse-clicking" approach can be for hack and slash games of this nature, the developers have instead implemented a combo system. While attacking an enemy, the attack cursor may change at certain moments – clicking during these moments can move the player to the next segment of a combo chain, or even issue a grotesque finishing move. Combine this with a skill-based system that enables players to choose from three different combat styles ("Fast", "Strong", and "Group" – the latter being suitable for attacking swarms of smaller enemies), and combat looks to be a very interesting proposition. It's also worth noting that the AI is also made aware of the way the game's combat style works, so you can expect to see enemies trying to distract you or work around to attack you from two directions at once, as attacks from behind cannot be blocked.

Some technical aspects to the graphics engine were also shown off. The game features a very impressive day/night cycle, complete with environmental and weather effects. A physics solution has also been implemented through the Karma system, though when asked why this was chosen versus the "Havoc" standard (not that I have anything against Karma, this was just idle curiosity), there was no specific comment beyond the developers already having familiarity with this code base. A particular point of interest however is how well the graphics system has been implemented – because this game is indeed based on the older "Aurora" graphics engine from Bioware's past games, it's amazing how much has been done to bring the game up to modern day technology.

Suffice it to say, The Witcher is looking to be a very solid RPG release and is one I'll really be wanting to pick up on it's release. Expect it to be out early 2007. - Dave VanDyke.