Ideally, you’d be looking at the review right now. Unfortunately, due to code not showing up til Sunday and then problems getting it to run, I’m only just digging into The Witcher 3 [official site] myself. The full verdict will be with you as soon as possible, though it’s a big game and I don’t want to do it or you the disservice of rushing through it just to throw words at the screen. However, here’s a few thoughts from my first few hours of witching, on the opening hours, on the controversial graphics, and my displeasure that it features hair technology that hasn’t been named “TrissFX.” Such a wasted opportunity.

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It’s been a long wait for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – four years since The Witcher 2 came out, and two since 3 was announced – but CD Projekt’s open-world monster-slaying RPG is finally, finally here. It unlocked in the wee small hours in the morning and I would very much like to be playing it right now rather than telling you that it’s out. What a noble, considerate, and responsible soul I am.

Our review is still in the works, as review code came late. But look, you and me, let’s watch the launch trailer and pretend we’re playing through what we see, and pretend we’re not at all resentful of the people who’ve already played a chunk already.

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This is why you don’t schedule meetings for 5pm on a Friday. I can just picture the team at Nvidia sitting there, itching to get home. Last item on the agenda. What can we name the new GameWorks hair effects? A pregnant pause and some furtive looks towards the door. Someone at the back eventually pipes up. “…HairWorks?” A growing murmur of approval and some scooting of chairs later, here we are: with a trailer showing off a bunch of cool physics effects in The Witcher 3 [official site] (including, yep, HairWorks) exclusive to those of you with Nvidia cards. Looks like AMD fans are stuck with less luscious locks than their Geforce friends.

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What is a roleplaying game without an extravagant pre-rendered introductory cutscene these days, eh? One I can start playing that much quicker, that’s what. But The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt means to take its place in the RPG premiership, and it’s got the CGI to prove it. Killings! Fire! Vast armies! Decapitated horsies! Devouring earth! Tribal drums! Yodelling! Beardmen!

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Here’s a wee piece of software with an odd status. On the one hand, it’s billed merely as a mod for CD Projekt’s mostly splendid RPG The Witcher 2. Yeah, yeah, people do that for roleplaying games all the time. On the other hand, the mod is made by CDP staffers, so it sort of becomes a sort of kind of official update, sort of. Kind of. “This is a private afterwork project. It is not a patch”, says the description, sternly.

Its primary focus is to remix the way combat works in the game – specifically, “to increase Geralt’s responsiveness and mobility.” We’ve reported on its planned existence recently already, but now we can report on its actual existence. As in, go download this massive sonuvagun right now. (more…)