00:05The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt
00:07is one of the most anticipated games of 2015
00:11and last week I was one of the lucky people
00:14who got invited to CD Projekt Red
00:16to try it out
00:17and in this video I'm going to show you
00:19what it was like to once more
00:21take up the role of Monster Slayer
00:24and become
00:25The Witcher
00:41Now, before we start
00:43I do have to tell you that at this event
00:46we had to use a controller
00:48they had not optimized the game for mouse and keyboard
00:51and so I was basically told I had to use the controller
00:54and I never use that particular device
00:58I am a mouse and keyboard user
01:00through and through
01:02and of course
01:03it was a steep learning curve for me
01:05I am basically a total beginner
01:09and it shows
01:10you will see it in the video in the combat
01:12and in the movement
01:13you should be aware
01:14that any clumsiness is down to
01:16my incompetence
01:18and not the game
01:20So, having got that out of the way
01:22let's take a look
01:23at the world of The Witcher Wild Hunt
01:28one of the key features for Wild Hunt
01:32one of the things that is a little different
01:34from the previous Witcher games
01:36is the open world nature of the game
01:39and I can tell you now
01:41the Witcher world now feels large
01:45it really does feel vast
01:48you feel like you can pretty much head off
01:50in any direction
01:52you can just keep riding and discover
01:54new things in this
01:57extremely beautiful and quite varied world
02:01there is a fast travel system if you want to use it
02:05you go along to these signposts
02:07and you can then travel to any other signpost you've discovered
02:11but I think you can pretty much
02:13just keep riding off in a direction
02:16and go from one hub to the next hub
02:19so from one sort of area to the next
02:21without encountering a loading screen
02:24and that really does make it feel immense
02:29now unfortunately I don't actually have
02:31a lot of footage from different areas
02:34I spent most of the first day
02:36in what you would consider the starting area
02:39the area where the prelude is set
02:41and there is so much to do there
02:45you pretty much could stay there for many many hours
02:49and so by the time I realized I should probably head off
02:52to check out some of the other areas
02:55I'm afraid it was too late to record
02:57it was on the second day
02:58I can tell you there is a lot of variety in in in the world
03:03I was at one city that was incredibly detailed
03:07it was it was just it was really
03:10I wouldn't say beautiful because cities are often dirty places
03:13but it was so well done
03:16and it was massive
03:17I mean it was easily one of the biggest cities I have played in any games
03:23um if you remove the idea of zones
03:26sort of a single zone
03:28and that is one of the key defining features of this game in my opinion
03:33that there seem to be no loading screens whatsoever
03:37so you're in a city and you travel the whole city
03:41and it makes the city feel so much bigger
03:44it was always a goal to present as much content at once as possible
03:49and uh the end result is something we're very very happy with
03:54so the most important goal was to not interrupt gameplay with video game nonsense
04:00let's just give you the experience that you can uh
04:04delve into and forget about everything beyond the edge of the monitor
04:08so there's only loading between the major hops but when you're in uh
04:12valen no man's land no big ride you're disrupted with nothing
04:15you can just gallop from the northern bit to the very south
04:19i don't know how much time it takes currently but it's 25 minutes i think on horseback or something
04:24like that so it's quite a journey and you will never be disrupted or disengaged from your adventure
04:30you look like trouble dead wrong i make trouble go away
04:35i'm a witcher and this goes for when you're entering caves or dungeons or even things like
04:42inns when you walk into an inn or a building you don't get a loading screen you don't get
04:47teleported to a whole new area this this area is part of the world you just walk through the door
04:53and you start talking to people in the inn go away or i'll kill you when you're finished you walk
05:00out of the door and the whole time you're in the same world and it makes it feel well really
05:07connected
05:08you never feel like you left the village when you enter the inn because you can actually see what is
05:15going on through the window if you want to all in all the open world feeling i get from this
05:22game
05:22is not just a vast improvement on previous witcher games it is actually a vast improvement on
05:29the open world games i've played before this game truly feels very open and the game will not
05:37restrict you in your movement at least not not in general it will not hold your hand it will let
05:43you travel to places that will be way too tough for you to actually handle and you'll also be
05:49discovering a lot of places if you do that if you just travel and look around you will probably
05:55discover so many little villages so many little places and so many little quests that you otherwise
06:02wouldn't so the game kind of encourages you to explore at the same time as punishing you if you do
06:09it recklessly now it's popular to say that graphics don't really matter when compared to gameplay
06:15and this is true mostly however good graphics do help bring the right sort of atmosphere and wild hunt
06:24does a great job graphically the lighting is really well done the effects are nice and as i've already
06:32said the scenery itself is well it lends itself to some great moments where where you just you just want
06:40to look at the world around you and drink it all in i didn't spend any time analyzing the textures
06:47on
06:47objects or looking for distant objects and seeing if they popped into existence suddenly but the fact
06:54that i didn't actually notice anything like that is a good sign i never once saw something just magically
07:01appear or at least if i did it didn't register because i was looking at something else i never saw
07:06a
07:07texture that i didn't believe the entire experience just felt believable and graphically that's what
07:15is the most important thing you want it to feel like a real world and not like a computer generated
07:22game
07:23so all around the game looked gorgeous i was playing it on the highest settings except for one feature
07:30which was the nvidia hair physics and it looked great the machine i was on was a top of the
07:38range cpu
07:40i think it was an i7 and it did use a single 980 but they didn't put sli in so
07:46either they've not quite
07:47optimized for sli yet or they wanted us to experience it on a single um gpu and i did and
07:54the performance
07:55was fine there were a few moments where i could feel the frame rate drop below 60 but it wasn't
08:02too
08:03bad it wasn't too distracting and i realized that's a fairly high-end machine but this was playing on
08:09ultra settings except for this one thing so it looks like the game's going to look good and perform well
08:17on on a good rig the nvidia physics was disabled they they told me they were trying to optimize it
08:24more
08:24but it does have a big performance drop however when you enable it i i don't have any footage because
08:30i did this on the second day but when you enable it it looks great um gerald's hair looks a
08:36little
08:36nicer the horse's hair looks incredible and if you have a trophy such as a griffon's head it is amazing
08:44with that turned on but it really does hit the performance massively uh you you really you do notice
08:52the difference when you turn it on so when you turn it off you can see it doesn't look as
08:56good
08:56but honestly it's one of those things that unless you have a massive hair fetish you're probably
09:03not going to want that that particular setting on it does hit very very hard but i have to say
09:10it also looks incredible now if they optimize it or if that type of thing can be passed on to
09:17a dedicated physics card the way much of the nvidia physics can be passed on perhaps you'll be able to
09:25run with that setting on as well and it will look amazing there is a night and day cycle in
09:32the game
09:32as there was in the previous ones and there is a dynamic weather system the weather does vary from
09:39area to area and it really does change the feel of the game the rain can make things feel a
09:46little more
09:46miserable the sun obviously make it cheerful but you can go to some areas and find yourself getting
09:52wind in the trees that is so strong it actually makes the trees bend backwards i don't just mean
09:59some nice little sway you can hear this wind roaring through the trees and you can see it bending the
10:06trees it really does add an incredible atmosphere and for a witcher game that is very very important
10:13you need the atmosphere to be right and the ambient sounds in this game do that they get it right
10:19and of course it has a great soundtrack i've actually got the cd of the soundtrack i've been
10:25listening to it it is incredible and it plays the right music at the right time in the game just
10:32to
10:32keep you exactly in that moment it's a moment of danger the music will reflect that if it's if it's
10:39a
10:39calm moment the music is reflecting i really did like the way the game sounded
10:47movement around the world of the witcher is very very well done it's much better than in the previous
10:56games i mean not only can you run around you've got sprinting but you also have a horse and you
11:02can
11:02call your horse at any time and one of the very cool things with a horse is it will actually
11:09auto
11:10follow the roads if you if you press the button for sprinting or trotting with your horse but do not
11:18put your fingers on the arrow keys it will actually just follow whichever road you are on and just keep
11:23going which is a really nice feature but more importantly for me you actually have a lot more
11:31options for just moving around the terrain and what i'm talking about are things like jumping you can
11:37jump in the wild hunt you can vault over fences you can climb very very easily the the objects in
11:46game
11:47only cause a problem if they would realistically cause a problem if you want to slide down
11:53a hill you can do it you can jump off objects you have far more freedom of movement than in
12:00previous
12:00games and it feels really good and remember i was using a controller which i really do not like
12:09doing i don't i do not enjoy using controllers for this sort of a game and it was actually not
12:16that
12:16difficult moving around the world with a controller was actually reasonably pleasant for me so i'm
12:22imagining once i go to mouse and keyboard it's going to be even easier if you are a controller user
12:28if you
12:28want to play this game with controller you can the movement was pretty easy and basically if i can
12:35do it you guys should be excellent at it and that brings us to the end of part one i
12:42have shown you
12:42the world of the witch of the wild hunt what it looks like what it sounds like and what it's
12:48like to
12:48move around within it but of course there is much more to a game and in part two i'm going
12:54to cover game
12:55mechanics what's the inventory like what are the potions like how about the user interface and of
13:01course the combat
