December 2020 – Dublin

As Cyberpunk is coming this week and discussion have sparked if the game will live up to its hype, I thought its the perfect moment to discuss CD Projekt as company and its capability to create a hype. To strenghten my review, I have played and finished all the games and dcls that CD Projekt has released so far. But before we kick off lets start with the beginning, how did my journey start with CD Projekt?

It all started 10 years ago, if I recall it correctly I saw a preview of Witcher in a Dutch gamemagazine and it just got stuck in my head. During my holidays to Poland I bought the Witcher series and started reading the saga in their original language.

The Saga

I fell in love with the Witcher and stopped reading other books as there was no book who could be a match with Andrzej Sapkowski. Witcher is well written due to use of the language, sacrastic tone, the fleshed out characters , how he handles controversial topics like discriminations and the grey areas in life; there is no right or wrong only consequences.

There was simply no room for mercy in this grim world rape, torture and human nature driven by ambition and greed were vividly described in the book. This strenghted the realism of the book and what the story was about; ”After all how can you count on a happy an ending for a girl who is cursed by her abilities to travel through times, carrying Elder Blood whose bloodline is extinguished making her the most powerful person and on top of that being the throne successor of Nilfgaard.”

”THE WITCHER LORE NEVER SHIED AWAY TO DISCUSS CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS AND BRINGING THEM VIVIDLY ALIVE”

Witcher 1

All these elements were present in Witcher 1. I think for this reason I love the story the most of all games CD Projekt has produced so far.

One of the moments in the Witcher game that reminded me of the book was Toruviel. She has been set up by the elves leader Yaevinn who was pissed off her neutrality. He was the very reason that White Rayla (officer of special forces who has slaughtered countless elves) arrived on the island. In order to stand a chance Toruviel took hostages, forgetting that without these people the elves would have starved to death earlier on. In the meantime White Rayla promised Geraled a fair trail if  the hostages were freed. However she was stripped off her command and the negotations ended up in a bloodbath. It was up to the player to give up neutrality and choose a side.

This made the game so great as there are always two sides of the coin and every side has his own blame for the situation.

In my opinion, making the ‘‘grey area discussion” the core element of the game was a fantastic idea as it gave a chance to get familiar with the Witcher world and make a very mature game at the same time, something that hasn’t been done before.

I loved the story so much that I forgot the long loading times, sometimes 30 minutes. Later on, I replayed the Enhanced Edition and I must say the only thing that was improved was the gameplay; you could cut off limbs strengtehing the core element of the game as the game was more grim and realistic!

”WITCHER 1 STORY WAS ONE OF A KIND BUT IT WAS A JUST CONTINUATION OF A LEGACY”

Witcher 2

Witcher 2 had a great story as well as the above elements were still present especially if you choose the Scoia’tael path. This time it was about Kingslayers.Therefore, it offered enough room to discuss: intrigues of those in power and that you can not trust the closest around you as they are driven by greed & ambition. According to me, it was presented the best at Scoia’tael path. This path had strong fleshed out characters like Fillipa Eilhart, Yarpen Zigrin, Trolls whereas in the Roche part the main characters were partly written by CD Projekt. Also, Vergen was a more charismatic location than Kaedwen Army Camp.

The gameplay was a huge step forward as well, especially the dark mode where you had to gather scarce resources in order to craft special armour. This made the game challenging as you needed the armour to survive. The only thing that were a huge drawbacks:

• CD Projekt need to keep up with the game industry ”mini games.” Sometimes, you had to click like a crazy person on a mouse button to perform a certain action, which was fine with a controller but unplayable on pc.
• CD Projekt wanted to make Chapter 2 interactive by giving you an option to take over a different character. As a consequence, you were stripped off your magical abilities and you had to rely on your swordmans skills. This was a horrific experience as I had only invested in magical skills and I was dying all the time. I managed in the end but it was far more punishing than Dark Souls.

A thing that was a not a big drawback but was missed in the gameplay was the brutality of cutting off limbs like in the Enhanced Edition.

”WITCHER 2 GAMEPLAY WAS MEMORABLE HOWEVER THE STORY STARTED SLOWLY TO CRACK”

Witcher 3

Witcher 3 still had the core elements but is was overshadowed by the size of the game. It was the biggest game back in the time surpassing by 1.5 GTA 5 and 3.5 Skyrim. A pretty impressive achievement, but in my view this was the moment CD Projekt lost its soul with regard to story and gameplay.

The story…

The gameplay…

Basically, how more you played how worse the gameplay become. The very reason was that the environment did not scale up with your skills and armour. After a few sidequest and a bit of main story you became undefeatable. Taking out the challenge and there was no dark mode to save the game. What’s more every sidequest became quite similar to the previous one.

The last thing that annoyed me was Skellige. In this area you had to sit in a boat and try to move forward to get chest or get to an area. It is true that it adds to the realism of the game, however I can’t imagine anyone who enjoyed this element as you had the click countless time to get the boat moving.

”WITCHER 3 FORGOT THAT IT IS THE SOUL THAT MATTERS AND NOT THE SIZE.”

Hearts of Stone

The expansion was a nice improvement as the gameplay was not unbalanaced. Also, CD Projekt did a good job introduce a new culture Ofier. These people have their own clothes, way of speaking, weapons, history and so on. This means new runes, however this was pretty useless. As soon as you could afford them you were done with the game. I also, enjoyed new enemies which were not seen since the first game. The story was kind of interesting where Geralt gets in trouble and has to navigate through the grey areas of live.

Overall, Hearts of Stone is an enjoyable DCL worth the money, however Jaskier was sorely missed.

Blood and Wine

Blood and Wine was a great expansion as well and it introduced a new area Toussaint. And this time it was kind of allright Jaskier was not here as he was not welcome. There was plenty of content as well as Regis was brought back from the dead. Anna Henrietta is a great character too.

I loved the way the story was tackled as again the ”grey area” discussion was strongly present and this time it was not elves but vampyres. The best would be to play the game as describing why the expansion is so fantastic would give away to many spoilers.

Too add something extra to the story your companion will visit you at the estate. This moment of joy became an annyonace as the dialogue was quite short and you can’t sleep anymore in your own bed as you partner just steals your bed.

The gameplay was allright as it was balanced and you needed to create new armour to survive the game.

In short, great expansion however dissapointing that the story falls short to the sidequests.

Thronebreaker

The latest game of CD Projekt reminds me how far how CD Projekt has wandered off from the greatness of the source material with their previous installments.

In Thronebreaker I love the impact that your choices have on events. Like in the source material there is no right and wrong and it discusses controversial topics. For example, I protected an elf as he was being tortured by humans and as a result, my unit was poisoned as the elf was full of hatred and the only thing he could think of was revenge.

Unfortunately, the gameplay is not of the same quality as the cards do not work as they suppose to. For instace the graveyard is suppose to bring back my companies from the dead and deal damage to the enemy. Instead my units are receiving damages and my companions are not brought back from dead. Also, due to immunity I can’t attack enemy units and can not cancel the attack. Therefore, I have to hurt my own units. Another thing, that annoyed me was that there was no clear tutorial about leveling up.

”THRONEBREAKER IS A SMALL STANDALONE, YET PLAGUED BY BUGS LEAVING A BITTER TASTE WHAT IT COULD HAVE BEEN”

Summary

Writing this review and playing all games I realized that my favourite games of CD Projekt are the ones that are very close to the source material: Witcher 1, Witcher 2, Hearts of Stone and Thronebreaker. For this reason, I am bit skpetical about Cyberpunk as this will be the first game that won’t rely on any source material. Also, it will be though for CD Projekt to surpass or even come close to the legacy of Warren Spector ( Deus Ex). At least, I was searching for Deus Ex elements in the gameplay of Cyberpunk and was bit dissapointed with the gameplay footage as there was little room to solve a problem in your own way ( dialogue, sneaking, using your environment to advantage, go fully mayhem etc.)

Another thing, that worries me with Cyberpunk is the time pressure as the game has been delayed multiple times and some elements like you wall running have been cut. It just does not seem they are fully done with the game. I believe that CD Projekt might resolve some bugs and create awesome expansions, but it won’t be on day one.

There is also, some hope for Cyberpunk as CD Projekt have done a lot of research to tweak the game to perfection such as recording car sounds. Keanu Reeves seems really fitting into his role of Johny Silverhand, hinting to an awesome story. The game will be a bit smaller than Witcher 3 and hopefully it will give them enough resources to fill the world with meaningful content. In time there will tons of contents for free which will enhance the game a bit and small fees for expansions to enjoy Cyberpunk longer.

In short, breaking free from the source material gives CD Projekt the possibility to create something unique and fresh. However, it remains to be seen if CD Projekt has the time and resources to make a bug free game and live up the hype on day one.

”CD PROJEKT IS A DECENT COMPANY, BUT NOT ONE WHO SHALL SHAKE THE GAME INDUSTRY TO THE CORE”

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