CD Projekt RED on The Witcher 3 Downgrade-ation, Game Delay, Horse Slow-Mo & Finishers


Over at the official The Witcher 3 forum, CD Projekt RED’s developers have been answering a lot of interesting questions. CD Projekt RED has shed some light on that awful Frost effect that drove everyone crazy and started all the talks about the game’s “downgrade-ation”, the game’s delay, as well as whether players can turn off all the finishing moves.

First things first; the Frost effect has been replaced with a higher quality one. As CD Projekt RED’s Benzenzimmern said, that frost effect is already changed. Moreover, that character’s textures are promised to be ‘as sharp as ever’.

Later on, CD Projekt RED’s MilezZ said that their environment artists has tinkered a bit with all of the brick walls in order to further improve them (visually). MilezZ also added:

“Of course we keep going over assets and polishing them, it’s among the reasons we pushed the game back – we see this as much as a bug as, say, a gameplay glitch. I can not really give you a clear answer as to the case with the bricks. They did look very out of place though so it is very likely that they were on someone’s task list and had just been bumped up in priority, because it was shown that it was seemingly more apparent than assumed.”

CD Projekt RED’s developers have also shed some light on the game’s delay, and whether it was caused by a particular platform. As CD Projekt RED’s TheEvilChris said, the game was delayed because it was not ready yet, and not because of any specific version.

“When we polish a game, we fix bugs and issues for all 3 platforms, PC and consoles.”

Benzenzimmern also confirmed what MilezZ said, adding that CD Projekt RED postponed because it had to polish the game itself, no matter the platform. Moreover, Benzenzimmern claimed that this scene looks much better in the latest build of the game.

Last but not least, MilezZ confirmed that gamers will be able to turn finishers off, and explained why the team decided to implement a slow-mo effect while riding a horse.

“Actually, you can turn the finishers off in the game options.

Regarding “Horse Slow-Mo” – it is not meant as a sort of finisher. On the horse, when you hold the button for fast attack, it slows down time when you are close to an enemy. This allows you to line up your attack a bit better for a few split seconds. The window for this is relatively short, as it sort of wears off as soon as you get too close to the enemy.

Consider this: horse combat without the slow down didn’t play too well, since the horse movement is quite fast. The high speed, when testing, got even more problematic on horse to horse combat, so the short slow down window (again, only activated when holding the button within a certain range of an enemy) helps a lot here.”