Not, it must be said, all that many - most of The Witcher 2 developer's current project remains cloaked in secrecy and protected with ICE and... uh... behind a wall of developers keeping schtum. Plot, style and exactly what it's going to look like all remain unknown. These answers should however assuage any fears that it's just going to be The Witcher wearing sunglasses even when indoors, and give some idea of how the company is approaching its new world and the experience it plans to offer.

The most relevant question for The Witcher players as well as Cyberpunk fans is this one:

Q: Will there be full customization of our character like a D&D game, things like gender, ethnicity, moral stand point, sexuality...etc or we will be restrict to something like Geralt from TW2?

While those specific details may not be covered (or to be more accurate, are utterly glossed over in favour of a different, easier to answer question), the response does at least bode well for those of us who prefer to create our own heroes/antiheroes/amoral mercenary types from scratch:

A: We definitely want to give players way more freedom with customization of the main protagonist then they had with Geralt in The Witcher series. We are planning on letting them change their statistics, equipment, implants and much more.

In addition, classes/roles are in, the story will focus on a place called "Night City", and the look of the whole thing will borrow heavily from Gibson, Ghost In The Shell, and Blade Runner. Earning bonus points here, there's also talk of picking up some hints from the first parts of both Deus Ex and System Shock - though hopefully not the part where the entire cast is murdered because nobody could think of a good conversation system. If SHODAN ends up in your party though, I for one will buy five copies.

Check out the full range of answers here.

Graham, Tom, Rich and Chris discuss FTL, The Witcher 2, Indie Game: The Movie, the Steam charts and answer your questions from Twitter. Also featuring exclusive information on the breakfast preferences of the PC Gamer team. Graham likes sausages.

We also talk about the overcrowded MMO market, Hitman: Absolution, the future of competitive Dota, and whether or not you should build your next gaming rig yourself.

Download the MP3, subscribe, or find our older podcasts here.

The release of the Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition marks the end of the major updates that CD Project have been adding over the course of the last year. Suddenly, they're free, but what will they do next? Gamerzines have noticed a series of new job listings on the CD Projekt site for two games. One is for an "RPG in a dark fantasy world" signified by a sword symbol, which might just be the next Witcher (maybe). The other project is listed as an RPG in "a brand new setting" next to a picture of a gun.

"We’re looking for people who would rather work on an entirely new and different IP – a vast RPG for which we want to assemble the best possible staff" CD Projekt explain in the job ad. "No matter if it’s with guns or swords, we’re just having a good time here."

An RPG with guns suggests a more current setting, which would be different to anything CD Projekt have done before. Moving into production on two games at the same time is also a new move for them, but they do already have their graphics engine, which they built in-house to power The Witcher 2. What would you like to see them do next?

It's been a year since The Witcher 2 was first released on PC. Since then a series of big patches have added new quests, characters, combat tweaks and game modes. Earlier today, the Enhanced Edition made even more additions. Like every update for The Witcher 2, it was released as a free download. I met up with level designer Ziemak Marek last week to find out why CD Projekt have decided not to charge for additions that other companies would sell as DLC packs.

"It's a part of our philosophy," Marek said. "Our concept is to create a really great RPG game, and if it's not great for everyone and it's not as great as we'd like it to be, if it has some glitches or there are some elements that could be better, then we feel responsible for remaking them."

Marek went on to say that "it wouldn't be fair" to charge players for these remade areas. "It's just improving the game," he suggested, "it's not delivering something that's new."

But it is adding something new, I suggested, mentioning the new difficulty mode and combat arena added in the 2.0 patch, and the four hours of new quests added in the Enhanced Edition. All these extra areas took time and money to develop, why not pass that cost on to the player?

"We do some extra work, but on the other hand, when you buy The Witcher, we're promising you a really great experience. If you don't feel satisfied enough then we, sometimes, probably a little bit guilty because we're after delivering a really great experience," he said.

Marek went on to explain that CD Projekt hope that free updates instil sense of goodwill among players. "If you trust as a player that our games are great, you like them, you enjoy them, even if we can't think about everything, if you find some glitches or problems in the game, you'll be sure that will be fixed," he said. "Then you'll probably feel good when you're buying our games, and that's what we're after."

"We're giving resources for that," he said.

If you own The Witcher 2, your copy should update automatically through the launcher, or through Steam. Check out The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition site for more.

The Enhanced Edition of the Witcher 2 is out today. The patch adds 10GB of new cinematics, quests, tweaks and balance fixes to add another layer of polish, and to address players' biggest criticisms of the game. I sat down with level designer Ziemak Marek to ask him about the Enhanced Edition updates, but first I had to know, is this the last update for The Witcher 2? Is it finally finished?

"It's finally finished!" he laughed. "We're really happy with it."

So, no more updates at all? "Nothing I can really comment about," he said. "right now we feel that this is the most polished and refined version of The Witcher 2. I don't think there's going to be a need to change something. I think this time we improved everything we wanted to."

Marek explained that the additions made by the Enhanced Edition are targeted at addressing players' biggest complaints, namely that the third act didn't quite deliver on the promise of the first two.

"That is the feedback we often had from the people, that act three is not as big and satisfying," said Marek. "People were expecting more from the game, so we definitely wanted to address that through making new cutscenes, a new outro movie, adding new adventures, to improve the experience at the very end of the game, because it's a very important part of the game."

Feedback from players and reviewers has formed an important part of all the changes that CD Projekt have made to The Witcher 2 over the course of the last year. "If you're the type of fan whos brave enough to write a mail and have suggestions and know what can be done in a different way, then that's totally great," he said, "because you as a fan or a journalist share your experience with us, and we know how to improve the game. We get a lesson for the future."

Marek wouldn't be drawn any further on what the future will hold for CD Projekt RED, but it's been a good year for the developers. We learned in February that The Witcher 2 sold more than a million copies in 2011. They'll no doubt shift a few more units on PC with the release of the Enhanced Edition, and still more on the consoles. If you have a copy of The Witcher 2, it should update to the Enhanced Edition automatically through the game's launcher, if not, grab it from The Witcher 2 site.

Isn't The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings big enough already? "NO," say CD Projekt Red.

But your RPG is already quite large, and you've added loads of new stuff over the course of the last year, like new quests, a clearer tutorial, an arena mode, combat updates, a difficult "dark mode" and lots more, now you're releasing a 10GB Enhanced Edition update for free as well?

"YES," say CD Projekt Red, embodied in the form of a giant iron robot for the sake of this post. "OUR QUITE LARGE RPG IS NOT QUITE LARGE ENOUGH. WE ARE NOT DONE WITH YOU YET, HUMAN."

Yikes. So now we can pre-load the massive Enhanced Edition update ahead of release next week, whereupon we will receive four hours of new quests and some fancy new cinematics like this one?

"THAT IS CORRECT."

Have you ever thought about ... charging money for these updates?

"DOES NOT COMPUTE."

Maybe, bundling them in as DLC packs, adding microtransactions in boxes that you need to buy keys for and all that?

"WHAT IS THIS EMOTION YOU CALL "MICROTRANSACTIONS"?"

Nothing! Nothing at all. Forget I said anything, just carry on just as you are. We'll all just relax here and look forward to the release of the free Enhanced Edition update alongside the console release next Tuesday.

Speaking to Eurogamer, CD Projekt Red head of marketing Michal Platkow-Gilewski has revealed that the Witcher developer will be giving away a "legendary" PC RPG for free on Thursday. The giveaway will run alongside the company's spring conference, which begins at 5pm GMT.

"CD Projekt RED and GOG.com have prepared something very special for all the PC fans of The Witcher 2 Assassins of Kings, who already have the game, as well as for all those who will buy one any time in the future" Platkow-Gilewski said.

We've got no idea what the game in question will be, but the smart money is on the first Witcher, the Enhanced Edition of which scored 81% back in PCG 193. The Witcher 2 was one of last year's sleeper hits, so giving more players the opportunity to try the original would make sense. That does mean that CD Projekt Red are referring to their own game as "legendary", however, which is either a little bit arrogant or suggests that they don't believe it really exists. Either way, it's possible that the giveaway could be something completely different.

There'll also be an "extraordinary" announcement made during the spring conference, which is reportedly not connected to the free game. Your wild speculation is as good as ours, readers. An expansion for The Witcher 2, maybe?

"I don’t want Witcher to be sold by crappy stores which don’t care about the consumers." That's what the impressively titled Marcin Iwinski - co-founder, Member of the Board and Business Development at CD Projekt Group - had to say at GDC last week.

The diversity of video game retailers is a contentious issue at the moment. UK retail chain GAME's share prices are at an all-time low. If the cover of industry magazine, MCV is anything to go by, they're already dead. Marcin has been predicting the decline for years: "It’s funny because I’m speaking at the conferences, lectures and whatnot for the last six years of saying 'digital, digital, digital' and nothing happened. Then... kaboom! We're at the tipping point and off we go."

"Look what have done with Steamworks," he continued. "They’ve offered a lot of stuff and are forever linking the developers with the platform. All of their offering is free so... is there any better strategy? No. Give a lot of value."

Marcin says that other digital distribution platforms need to innovate, not immitate if they're to succeed: "Look what the other guys are doing 'Oh, we’ll copy Steamworks.' GOG has a unique offering because we go a totally different way, we offer free downloads of free additional materials, and we sold over 40 000 copies of The Witcher 2 on GOG. It was the second biggest market for us."

Marcin also confirmed that The Witcher 2 will eventually end up on EA's rival distribution platform, Origin.

"It will be on Origin. I'm a big pilot of the user experience so I’m checking along the platforms; is it good, is it friendly?"

"DRM does not protect your game. If there are examples that it does, then people maybe should consider it, but then there are complications with legit users." That's what Marcin Iwinski, CEO at CD Projekt, had to say to Joystiq last night.

The value of digital rights management protection seems to be a contentious issue at the Polish developer. Back in December, CD Projekt's VP of Business Development talked up breakthroughs in DRM technology, saying they had achieved 100% accuracy in detecting pirates. They even sent letters out to thousands, demanding cash.

A few weeks before that, Marcin told us "DRM does not work and however you would protect it, it will be cracked in no time. Plus, the DRM itself is a pain for your legal gamers."
But last night, Marcin's message was was clear: "Every subsequent game, we will never use any DRM anymore. It’s just over-complicating things."

We talk about DRM a lot. It stops us playing the games we've bought and sometimes hides whole programs from us. Gabe has recently said that it doesn't affect sales one bit. A few days ago, Notch expressed a similar sentiment at GDC.

The Games Developers Conference has just begun in San Francisco. Devs from every corner of the industry are congregating to talk about their craft. It’s a very exciting time.

GDC is less console iteration and booth babe than E3. It's more about quiet announcements and candid industry chatter. That said, this year’s show is already shaping up nicely, especially for us PC gamers. We have men on the ground, sniffing out scoops in real-time.

Will Valve open the Pandora’s box that is the Steam Box? What’s the mystery game that EA are due to announce on Tuesday? What will Sid Meier have to say in his keynote speech? Are Hitman Absolution’s crowds extremely good or a bit good? Read on for the highlights.



The conference begins low-key but unpredictable. Today, we’ll be attending various talks from indie developers and meeting up with Paradox Interactive. Tuesday is a similar affair, though some Planetside 2 news might break later on.

Things get really exciting on Wednesday. Lord of Civ, Sid Meier is doing a talk on Interesting Decisions, Notch is having a Fireside Chat, Square Enix are talking Deus Ex and Valve are talking TF2. There’s also rumours of a mystery game getting announced by EA in their Game Changers conference. It could relate to more Sim City news, or something even more exotic. IO Interactive will also be unveiling Hitman Absolution’s outstanding-looking crowd tech.

We’ve got a bundle of interviews on Thursday with some of your favourite devs, but we can’t give away too much yet. We’ll also be attending postmortems on Portal 2, The Old Republic, Fallout, The Witcher 2 and League of Legends. It’s going to be one hell of an insightful day. Keep an eye on our GDC 2012 tag for more.

Bioware kick off Friday’s schedule with a talk on Contrast and Context in Story and Cinematics. There’ll also be discussion from Zynga and PopCap, an analysis of recent Indie hit Dear Esther, along with chats on experimental play sessions, game dev parent’s rants and the nature of game reviews. We’ll almost definitely have something to say about all that.

And then it’ll be over. The most exciting developments won't be on the schedule, so keep an eye on our GDC 2012 tag for more. Excitement!