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.
I’ve sometimes joked that sandbox haulage RPG Euro Truck Simulator 2 is The Witcher 3 for truckers. I feel vindicated now. Thanks to a recent beta patch with only “voice for navigation” listed as a feature, you can have everyone’s favourite white-haired monster hunter guide you to your destination. It’s not just Geralt, of course, but a range of sat-nav voice options, three of which are done by Doug Cockle, Geralt’s English voice actor. He’s perhaps a little out of practice, but the voice labelled ‘Doug (Raspy)’ is as close as you can get to Geralt without angering lawyers. You can have a listen to the voice below and find a link to that (unofficial, made by “theZash”) skin too.
Filming has wrapped for Netflix’s upcoming Witcher series, according to social media posts by its main actor and showrunner. Both also hinted that there could be more seasons in store, but stopped well short of confirming that notion.
Henry Cavill, who is playing the titular Geralt of Rivia, posted a photo to Instagram Thursday that showed him sitting in a makeup chair, with two makeup artists arranging a bald cap on his head as he peers over the top edge of his mobile phone.
“Season 1 of The Witcher has finally come to an end,” he wrote in the caption. “And although I’m pulling a face here it has been an incredible journey!”
Cavill thanked the crew for their work in bringing The Witcher to life, adding “All those 3 a.m. wake ups were worth it!”
Showrunner Lauren Hissrich posted a selfie to Twitter, showing her smiling and seated below a mural depicting a grey wolf.
“That’s a wrap on season one! I have enough gray hair to play Geralt now, but it’s been the best year of my life,” she said.
Both Hissrich and Cavill specifically mention “Season 1” of The Witcher, which would seem to imply that another season—or seasons—are planned for the series. Hissrich finished her tweet with a cryptic “Now, onto…”
No doubt Netflix will see how the show performs before renewing it, but I'm hoping it means even more adventures in store for Geralt and the gang.
Thanks, GamesRadar+.
It's been more than a year since CD Projekt partnered with Dark Horse to give Geralt a relaxing bath. Now, finally, we can all join in that bathtime experience: the statue is available for pre-order on Amazon for $72, to be released on May 29. If all is right in the world, it will sell out very quickly.
Dark Horse describes the statue as follows: "Originally an in-game scene, turned internet meme, turned CD Projekt Red April Fools joke, the demand that this brought to life from Witcher fans became too great to bear. Dark Horse is proud to bring you this marvelously detailed, hand-painted polyresin statuette featuring Geralt of Rivia relaxing and healing from his perilous journeys, in a candlelit bath, complete with his rubber ducky!"
If you're curious, the official Tub Geralt statue measures 8 inches long x 3.5 inches tall x 5.5 inches wide.
Now that one of The Witcher 3's most important scenes has been immortalized as a statue, we await the statue version of Henry Cavill inevitably appearing in the tub in the Witcher Netflix series.
Ray tracing is the hot new thing in video game graphics - so hot in fact that Sony's already announced the PlayStation 5 will be capable of it. So we're starting to see existing games with the tech enabled - with impressive results.
Digital Foundry has already reported on Half-Life 2, Minecraft and Crysis with ray tracing enabled. But I wanted to point to a couple of videos that show what Grand Theft Auto 5 and The Witcher 3 look like with ray tracing.
First up we have Grand Theft Auto 5 with ray tracing. You can really see the improvement in lighting in Rockstar's open world epic, particularly with the car parked under the freeway. I also love what it does to the house interior - the tables look fantastic!
You re a good person, reader, and I will always believe in you, no matter what. No, not you. The person behind you. No, to the left of… No, the other person. The one in the green– No, you, with the… NO. The person BEHIND you, I said. The person with– Oh great they ve walked off now. This whole thing has been a waste of time. My only friend among you is gone because we re several sentences into this intro and none of you can understand how pointing works. I hope you re all happy. Here s your god damned podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show.
Honestly.>
Ol’ Geralt has gone tumbling through another magical portal, this time travelling from the world of The Witcher 3 to Monster Hunter: World. The crossover event lets us play as Geralt to track and murder a Witcher monster, the leshen treeman, with his usual Witching ways. Do so and you can get his armour and sword, plus a gruesome outfit for your Palico catfriend. A second, tougher part of the crossover starring Ciri will follow later this month with her gear as rewards, but only for a few weeks.
CD Projekt Red has opened an online merchandise store that features T-shirts, hoodies, and various swag from across the studio’s titles—although naturally, you’re mostly going to find Witcher-related gear.
There’s a limited collection of Cyberpunk 2077 T-shirt designs, but the really neat stuff is found in The Witcher category. CD Projekt has a Wolf School emblem bracelet, a leather-bound notebook featuring the five magical Signs, and a rather stunning 12” polystone statue of Geralt reimagined as a ronin samurai. There’s also a huggable talking plush version of Shupe the Rock Troll, who tosses around card kegs in Gwent.
For the time being, the store is only shipping to territories within the European Union, but CD Projekt Red says it plans to open up orders to addresses in the United States, Canada, and other locations in the near future.
One strange omission, though? We can't find this thing anywhere.
It seems that the major filming for season one of Netflix’s Witcher series is coming to an end. Several key cast and crew members on the production have bid their farewells to the main production site in Budapest on their various social media channels.
The blog Redanian Intelligence has been following the production of The Witcher series, and collected the actors’ and crew’s parting thoughts in a May 2 post. Based on what they’ve observed, it seems a wrap party was held at Budapest’s Hotsy Totsy bar in late April. Since then, there’s been a slow but steady trickle of key staff away from the production site.
It's possible there’s still filming to be done, however. Redanian Intelligence also believes some reshoots are in the offing due to some recasting. We've reached out to Netflix to ask about any changes behind the scenes.
But with principal photography out of the way, the series can move into post-production, which is where they’ll be adding in what we hope are all those gnarly monsters Geralt spends so much time around.
The Witcher is set to debut on Netflix sometime this fall.
Thanks, PCGN.
Geralt deserved a restful retirement to the peaceful vinyard life after his final adventures in The Witcher 3: Blood & Wine, but who said that really had to be the end? Modder memr clearly wasn't ready for The Witcher 3 to be over and done with, as they've released a new project, called Radish Modding Tools, which is "a collection of in-game mods and external tools aimed to enable the creation of new quests by mod authors."
The Witcher 3 doesn't have an especially active mod scene these days, and most of the best Witcher 3 mods focus on overhauling combat or making quality of life changes. That's partially because the official mod tools were disappointingly limited compared to The Witcher's and The Witcher 2's.
These new Radish Modding Tools can't replace a powerful toolset from CD Projekt, but should be a lot better than nothing. As memr writes, "Although only a smallish subset of all possible features is supported it *should* allow to create non-trivial, story-based quests—just don't expect clicky-pointy-done workflows."
Radish Modding Tools is still a work-in-progress, and memr writes that "The tools will be updated/published as a package once the most pressing bugs are worked out." In the meantime, there's an example mod on the Nexus that shows what the tools are capable of. Memr built a new area for Geralt to travel to, and the mod shows off Radish's ability to create in-engine cutscenes.
Memr elaborates a bit in the mod's comments: You can't create or import new animations with Radish, but you can create new terrain. And you can use all the game's existing animations, which is a hell of a library already.
"The most difficult aspects for 'real' quests will be the actual planning and laying out of the quest," memr writes. "I can create a go-there-pickup-n-of-generic-thingie-bring-it-back-sprinkled-with-generic-attacking-monsters quest without scenes on vanilla hubs in a weekend—but that would be a pointless, generic quest, wouldn't it?"
If you're not the mod-making type, but hope to see some new quests trickle out of the modding community a few months from now, keep an eye on Nexusmods' Witcher 3 Quests and Adventures category.
Below I've included a few screenshots of the mod tools in action.