Netflix has revealed the episode titles for The Witcher, among other teases.
The Henry Cavill-starring show is set to launch its first season on Netflix, and ahead of time, Netflix took to Twitter to reveal the titles of the first eight episodes.
Alongside each title is a brief description and a gif of its logo, and it's the descriptions that give us an idea of the events and themes the show will touch on.
Xbox Game Pass really is the gift that keeps on giving. Tonight at X019, Microsoft has announced more than 50 new titles headed to the service in the coming months.
From a collection of Final Fantasy games and The Witcher 3, to indie gems like My Friend Pedro and Phogs, it looks like there's a little something for everyone on the way - and a bunch of new games have even arrived on Game Pass today.
And, separately, Phil Spencer has said a cross-platform Final Fantasy 14 is coming.
We've not even been graced with Season One of Netflix's live-action take on Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher novels yet, but already the series has been renewed for a second season.
The news comes directly from showrunner Lauren Hissrich, who revealed on Twitter earlier today that "Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri will be back for more adventures... in Season Two."
"I could not be more proud of what the amazing cast and crew of The Witcher have accomplished," Hissrich continued, "and can't wait for the world to dig in and enjoy these stories with us."
Think back to the first moments of Witcher 3, just after the tutorial section in the witcher keep. Geralt and Vesemir, talking naturally together on the road to Vizima, subtly lay out the backstory, reiterate the mission to find Yennefer and indulge in some playful repartee - the writing feels seamless and uncomplicated, as though it arrived fully formed onto the pages of a performance capture script. According to lead writer Jakub Szamalek, however, it did not.
"I actually checked how many times I edited the dialogue in that scene," he recalls during our interview at Spanish sci-fi festival Celsius232. "I think it was over 120. Sometimes these were minor edits, changing one sentence, but sometimes it was rewriting the whole thing. We did a lot of that: writing something, playing it, tweaking it, scrapping everything then re-doing it. It is just inherent to the process. There are so many moving parts when you're working on a video game, it's unavoidable." It turns out, constructing the narrative behind Witcher 3 - one of the most ambitious and enormous open-world games ever made - was not easy.
Szamalek joined the writing team at CD Projekt Red in May 2012, a few months after pre-production on Witcher 3 had begun. At this point writers Sebastian Stępień, Marcin Blacha and Arkadiusz Borowik had already started to create a master document, a 60-page manual which contained a story synopsis, descriptions of the parts of the Witcher world the story was set to explore as well as background information on the key characters and concepts. The next step was transforming the treatment into a game script. This involved dividing it into smaller parts focusing on the three main hubs - Novigrad, No Man's Land and Skelligeand - then subdividing into quests, writing the dialogue and detail, and linking to other quest and character documents. "It was like a set of Russian nesting dolls," jokes Szamalek.
Stationary, uniforms, maybe a new laptop - that's what we'd usually expect to see in a Back to School sale. Not for GOG, though. Instead, the cheeky focus is on parents who now have some extra time on their hands to game again.
And there are some serious timesinks available for cheap in the GOG Back to School sale. Massive RPGs, engrossing sims and gripping stories are all well represented, with savings of up to 90 per cent up for grabs.
Of course, as we're dealing with CD Projekt here, you can find the entire Witcher series on sale. If you're still yet to play the latest entry, you can get The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Game of the Year Edition for 10.49. This complete version of the game comes with all previously released DLC. That's both the Hearts of Stone and the Blood and Wine expansions, as well as over a dozen smaller content packs.
It seems some Witcher fans just couldn't wait until the release of the Netflix series later this year, so one of them has gone ahead and created a mod that puts Henry Cavill into the PC game.
Modder Adnan on Nexus Mods has created the mod to be "a base for different Henry Cavill variations in the future," he wrote. "With scars, dirt, brown hair with blue eyes etc, but first of all, now I'm presenting a look closer to Geralt in Netflix show".
The mod works with all of the physics that it should in the game, so you're able to change Geralt's hairstyle as it grows - like a weird Superman Barbie doll. It also allows for Geralt's toxicity status from the show, and thanks to some other mods that go along with it, you can have his creepy black eyes too.
Five of the Best is going to be a series! Every Friday lunchtime, UK time, we're going to celebrate a different incidental detail from the world of games. The kind of thing we usually just WASD past, oblivious. But also the kind of thing which adds unforgettable flavour if done right.
Potions! We've been drinking them for years. In games I mean! I hope you haven't been knocking them back in real-life, they're bad for you. Imagine drinking something which alters your behaviour - how ridiculous! But potions we've been drinking for years. Red ones, blue ones... They're so common they've become a universal language. We don't even really see them any more. We just slosh them back when needed. Gulp!
But every so often, we do see them. Once in a while, a memorable potion pops up. Maybe it was a potion which typified a game for you - the port-key to remembering an adventure. A tonic from BioShock, perhaps. Or maybe it was one which made a character drastically more capable, or one which changed who - or what - we were. Can you think of any now? Good - hold onto that! Because I want your input below.
After months of teasing, cast announcements, and costume reveals, Netflix's television adaption of Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher novels has received its first trailer, giving fans the best indication yet of what to expect from the finished article.
As you'd imagine, the new trailer - rather modestly described as a "teaser", despite being almost two minutes long - offers a decent slice of The Witcher's principal characters in action, meaning the internet will no doubt soon be alive with debate on whether Henry Cavill (as Geralt of Rivia), Anya Chalotra (as Yennefer) and Freya Allan (as Ciri) are up to the task.
As someone with only limited experience of the characters in either their game or book forms, I couldn't possibly speak to the authenticity of their portrayals, but the atmospheric trailer certainly looks the part, sporting the kind of lavish production you'd expect from Netflix - and would certainly want in order to do justice to The Witcher's epic fantasy spectacle.
What fine rump Henry Cavill has - a super bottom, you could say - so why not slap it on the poster for Netflix's new Witcher TV show?
Exactly. Which is why Cavill, turned away from camera, decked out in full Witcher garb, is the lead image for the show. And it's a clever shot, because bum aside, it's how you see Geralt (the character Cavill is playing) for hours and hours when you play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt video game. It's familiar. It's saying, "This is the character you know."
Oh, and his carrying only one sword in place of the two you're used to seeing him with in the games? As people have pointed out in the comments below: Geralt carries one sword in the books, leaving the other with his horse Roach for when he needs it. And the show, remember, is based on the books, not the games.
On the face of it, the notion of Nintendo Switch hosting a conversion of CD Projekt RED's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt seems almost ridiculous. The original release pushed the current-gen consoles hard and the notion of the game transitioning across to a significantly less powerful mobile-orientated platform almost beggars belief. And yet, the rumours surrounding a Switch port are gathering pace: Chinese retailers have shown packaging and even a special edition console, and when Eurogamer approached CDPR about the game, the firm declined to comment when erroneous rumours could have been categorically ruled out. Nothing is confirmed, but the possibility remains open - and I couldn't help but wonder how such an ambitious port could be achieved.
Of course, the Switch itself has played host to a number of impressive technological showcases, and it has done so since launch with the arrival of Fast RMX - a hugely impressive work-out for the Tegra X1. But the notion of challenging current-gen fare receiving viable Switch ports really kicked off with the arrival of Doom 2016, translated across to the mobile chipset by the brilliant Panic Button, who've since impressed us still further with conversions of Wolfenstein: The New Colossus and Warframe. Other developers have pushed Switch hard too, with QLOC's impressive Hellblade port and Shiver's Mortal Kombat 11 bringing current-gen console experiences into the palm of your hand.
The Witcher 3 though? The scale of this project is a class apart: we'd be looking at the conversion of a massive game that challenges hardware on many levels. First of all, there's the concept of bringing a current-gen open world across from systems with significantly more CPU power and a lot more memory. Then there's the density of the visuals - The Witcher 3 delivers a very rich sandbox within which to play. And finally, there's the issue of memory bandwidth: the PC version of the game (likely the major donor towards a potential Switch port) really does like bandwidth, and Switch is somewhat limited there.