sex and promiscuity are undercurrents for the series and are apart of geralt as a character. its never explored in depth but its there as a sort of part of who he is. A man so removed from society takes what few pleasures and outlets that society will allow him. Even the women who sleep with him willingly as opposed to just for there job frequently have there reputation in question by mere association. People forget all this in an attempt to downplay the witcher series for whatever reason.
to me cd projeckt red is what bioware tries and hopes to be and what bioware used to be prior to now. from the story to the gameplay I play a cdprojeckt game and feel the way I used to when i picked up the first kotor. I play a good ass game from a company that cares plain and simple. Dragon age and mass effect? well I can understand why a fan of those games would resent witcher as its the antithesis of what they have.
I found it to be far more mature than the vast majority of games. It deals with issues such as racism, depicts warfare in a more realistic manner (ie with the raping and pillaging), and just generally treats sex in a more naturalistic manner. I am assuming the "it's not REALLY mature" attitude stems from American prudishness regarding sex in general.
Probably Fan boys. Both the Witcher and Dragon Age deal with very mature themes. The Witcher portrays life in that kind of world as being dirty, difficult and brutal. Misogyny and racism are big things in the game. Dragon Age does most of the same things.
The thing I could say about Dragon Age is that the romances and sexual encounters come off as forced. They're putting them in because it's expected. In the Witcher, at least in the second game, the only real sexual encounter/relationship Geralt has is with Triss. It's clear that they both deeply care for each other but at the same time they don't expect either to stay faithful due to the large amount of danger they put themselves in on a daily basis, which you can play out by choice by paying woman at brothels.
You could argue in the first Witcher game that all the sexual encounters Geralt have are related to his loss of memory or the setting itself. I'm not confident enough to argue that though.
On thing I could say that the Witcher series does that Dragon Age ultimately fails at is the amount of grey are decisions you're given. The fact that you could be doing something you believe to be the right thing, only to have it backfire and either screw you, get innocent people killed, or screw someone close to you. This, in my opinion, is very mature. It's just like in real life. Not every choice you make has an inherent good or bad outcome to it, because there are times that you simply can't know.
In the second act, when you choose to go with Roche, there's a soldier who claims to be haunted by a ghost at an old shack by the beach. Geralt agrees to investigate. Upon investigation, the ghost claims that he had murdered the family that was living there. If you continue to investigate, you find that the ghost is lying to you, because the father of that home had been the one who killed everyone and as such the quest finishes with you killing the ghost. If you missed this bit of info, there was an option to go back and talk to the soldier for questioning. The very suggestion that he had anything to do with their deaths angers him and he storms off. You return to the beach to find that the ghost had killed the soldier and mocks you for trusting it. Then you fight and kill it
My example hopefully shows that even with good intentions, you don't always get the happy ending.
Dragon Age, and Bioware games in general, fail in this regard. The decision making in Bioware games are almost always binary, black and white. Some of their older games were better, like the KOTOR series, but recently not so much.
There are things that The Witcher series does well while there are other things it doesn't. The exact same goes for Dragon Age (Assuming we're not talking about DA2, in which case it does a lot of things bad.).
Here's a personal rule: any game that has a female character named Trish, is never going to be mature.
( A trailer trash name in a game set in medieval times...?? Right! Next we should have a dude named Trip Nathaniel Travis abbreviated TNT which be tattooed on his neck in old English letters, wearing a sports cap to the side, and with snake bite piercings...lol)
Here's a personal rule: any game that has a female character named Trish, is never going to be mature.
( A trailer trash name in a game set in medieval times...?? Right! Next we should have a dude named Trip Nathaniel Travis abbreviated TNT which be tattooed on his neck in old English letters, wearing a sports cap to the side, and with snake bite piercings...lol)
OT: Eeeeeuuuguguugghghg kinda.
More mature theming than a lot of games but as mentioned, it's kind of the "14 year old" mature. Lots of swearing, rape and sex interrupting the occasional interesting political and social situations that the games attempt to portray.
Of course, I'm saying "games" here but I'm only talking about the second one. First one was abysmal in every way.
As a fan of both Witcher games, no, they are not mature. I'd describe the first game as slightly immature and the second game as low level mature. I base my decision on how the game handles "adult" content. The first Witcher game was enormously chauvinistic and treated all females as sex objects. It's only redeeming quality was Triss, a strong and well realized character. The game also used swearing more frequently than it needed. The plot was "mature" insofar as it dwelled on regional issues rather than "save the princess." It seems to me that the first Witcher in in its prepubescent stage of development.
The second Witcher is not much more progressive with how it views women. The undercurrent of sexual promiscuity is mostly gone, but the game lacks any strong female characters. Triss has been reduced to a helpless wench who needs Geralt to do everything for her. The game revels in violence more than its successor, but only slightly. The mechanics of the game were simplified some, compared to the first, which makes it a less mature game. It's slightly more progressive view of women, compared to the first, gives it a slightly more mature feel.
The above are not criticisms. I enjoyed how the first Witcher made Geralt seem like a medieval James Bond, fucking every hot little thing in sight. I missed that when the second Witcher game came out. I hope they bring it back, complete with sex trophy cards.
The Witcher is Low Fantasy - or trying to be. It deals with more "grounded" subject matter like politics and strives to be "realistic".
This is as compared to High Fantasy, where magic is far more common and flashy, and politics take a side seat to big monsters and powerful wizards flinging fireballs willy nilly.
Someone else made the Game of Thrones comparison, and I'd say that's apt - Game of Thrones is also Low Fantasy (moreso than the Witcher, as magic is less common in GoT, but again Low Fantasy is harder to do in a videogame because players want spells).
Many people who dislike fantastic elements in stories prefer Low Fantasy because it doesn't require as much suspension of disbelief. Because it is less fantastic and often more bloody and gritty, many people consider it more "mature".
However, like with all things, maturity and quality have nothing to do with genre. Some people pretend that they do because they want to seem mature while enjoying the things that they enjoy, and they want to make fun of people who enjoy what they don't enjoy, but that is just people being pretentious jerks and has nothing to do with the quality of the actual work being looked at.
IE: The Witcher is Low Fantasy (well, sort of) which is a genre which deals with a more down-to-earth setting, more politics, and less "fantastic" elements. Does that make it more Mature (ie 'better', but not using that word to avoid being shot down on matters of taste) than something more fantastic? No. It depends on the specific qualities of the works in question.
As a fan of both Witcher games, no, they are not mature. I'd describe the first game as slightly immature and the second game as low level mature. I base my decision on how the game handles "adult" content. The first Witcher game was enormously chauvinistic and treated all females as sex objects. It's only redeeming quality was Triss, a strong and well realized character. The game also used swearing more frequently than it needed. The plot was "mature" insofar as it dwelled on regional issues rather than "save the princess." It seems to me that the first Witcher in in its prepubescent stage of development.
The second Witcher is not much more progressive with how it views women. The undercurrent of sexual promiscuity is mostly gone, but the game lacks any strong female characters. Triss has been reduced to a helpless wench who needs Geralt to do everything for her. The game revels in violence more than its successor, but only slightly. The mechanics of the game were simplified some, compared to the first, which makes it a less mature game. It's slightly more progressive view of women, compared to the first, gives it a slightly more mature feel.
The above are not criticisms. I enjoyed how the first Witcher made Geralt seem like a medieval James Bond, fucking every hot little thing in sight. I missed that when the second Witcher game came out. I hope they bring it back, complete with sex trophy cards.
Out of interest, have you only played through the Roche path of the game? Because on the Iorveth path, you meet Saskia and Philipha Eilhart, both very strong female characters. The latter is even said to have totally dominated Radovid's court for a long, long time, with King Radovid mentioning that whenever his father gave an order, the court would look to Eilhart for her permission. At one point when given a quest to retrieve a bunch of magic items, Philippa just goes and gets half of them herself without any help from Geralt.
And seriously, what is with this obsession with how the games portray sex? Yeah, the sex cards were immature, but even in the first game there are a number of female characters that refuse to sleep with Geralt, including one random waitress that practically laughs him out of the bar for suggesting it. But there's a lot more to the games than the optional ability to have sex with a lot of the characters. Does the presence of sex in the game wipe away the complexity of the game's moral choices or the political maneouvering that makes up so much of the second game's plot?
Out of interest, have you only played through the Roche path of the game? Because on the Iorveth path, you meet Saskia and Philipha Eilhart, both very strong female characters. The latter is even said to have totally dominated Radovid's court for a long, long time, with King Radovid mentioning that whenever his father gave an order, the court would look to Eilhart for her permission. At one point when given a quest to retrieve a bunch of magic items, Philippa just goes and gets half of them herself without any help from Geralt.
And seriously, what is with this obsession with how the games portray sex? Yeah, the sex cards were immature, but even in the first game there are a number of female characters that refuse to sleep with Geralt, including one random waitress that practically laughs him out of the bar for suggesting it. But there's a lot more to the games than the optional ability to have sex with a lot of the characters. Does the presence of sex in the game wipe away the complexity of the game's moral choices or the political maneouvering that makes up so much of the second game's plot?
You are summarizing my entire post to "sex." No, sex alone do not make the game immature. The combination of the vast number of mistresses Geralt can court, sex cards, the lack of any strong female roles besides Triss, and vulgarity for the sake of vulgarity makes the game immature and not much different from most video games in terms of over all maturity. The plot is the only mature thing going for it, and even then I didn't think the plot was particularly mature.
A good example of a completely mature game not so different from The Witcher would be Deus Ex, the original. Everything about that game exuded maturity without subtracting from its humor.
The content, by most standards, would be considered mature, yes. The one area where it is lacking is the portrayal of sex but given how minor those plot points are with the respect to the greater narrative, I'll let it slide.
The second Witcher is not much more progressive with how it views women. The undercurrent of sexual promiscuity is mostly gone, but the game lacks any strong female characters. Triss has been reduced to a helpless wench who needs Geralt to do everything for her.
Triss gets captured and so is gone for most of the game but when she isn't I wouldn't say she helpless wench and what about Philippa, Sile and Saskia?
Edit: oh I see, you only played Roche.
Most the stronger female characters are on Iorveths path. Unfortunately so is most of the more annoying fan service.
It's certainly an M rated game because you have to be of a certain mindset to understand what's going on. The content alone warrants the rating, and I actually feel that it should have gotten a stronger rating for the sex scenes (all of which you can view on YouTube without bothering to play the game yourself).
The thing is that there are other games without the M rating that have strong women, themes dealing with government treachery, racism etc. It's the blood and the sex that give it the mature rating, not all that other intriguing stuff that people have posted here. Beyond Good and Evil had all that stuff with cartoony characters and a really decent woman lead.
The first problem I see here is that you are taking information from BSN, aka the worst fanbase website this side of No Mutants Allowed.
If you wanted a comparison between The Witcher 2 and Dragon Age 2, the woeful latter lacks a quarter of the complexities in terms of plot, character motivation or visual storytelling that are rife throughout the former.
I hesitate to throw the word Mature around, because in Video games that's the equivalent of a teen wearing black makeup to look edgy. But I will say that it has a fairly tight story that is told well and deals with some heavy theems, such as racism and misogyny. Dragon Age 2 deals with similar themes, but the difference is in the presentation. Witcher 2 treats its source material a lot more seriously than Dragon Age 2, it doesn't sugar coat the violence or revel in it (see exploding SUPER GORE DA2 execution moves), and it doesn't shy away from the fact that some people just want to fuck. I'd say that Witcher 2 handles its material more "tastefully" than Dragon Age, if that makes sense.
Well, it is mature in the sense that it contains adult content, including violence, nudity, drugs, etc. I don't think that is what is being asked here though.
Now, is it mature in the sense that it approaches these adult topics with a certain degree of sophistication in order to prop up an atmosphere and elevate discourse on the subject material? I say no, HELL NO. I mean come on! What are some of the scenes in the opening act of The Witcher 2? A guy running in and yelling out, "What the ass fuck is going on here." The game depicting a town square where the topic of greatest interest was the impotence of an unimportant guard. Nudity for the sake of nudity. Giving a whore money to preform oral sex on a guard in a corner (you can see the animation) so you can sneak past him. All of this crap is just silly. I don't see it building toward an atmosphere or stimulating conversation; it's all just thrown in there for the sake of being there. I'm not offended by the material in the game, but let's just say it was frivolous to say the least.
Dragon Age Origins on the other hand managed to approach topics like racism, religion, and politics without using any profanity and without constant sexual innuendos... Yeah, I'd day Dragon Age was a far more mature game and a better game than The Witcher 2 on most accounts.
It's certainly an M rated game because you have to be of a certain mindset to understand what's going on. The content alone warrants the rating, and I actually feel that it should have gotten a stronger rating for the sex scenes (all of which you can view on YouTube without bothering to play the game yourself).
The thing is that there are other games without the M rating that have strong women, themes dealing with government treachery, racism etc. It's the blood and the sex that give it the mature rating, not all that other intriguing stuff that people have posted here. Beyond Good and Evil had all that stuff with cartoony characters and a really decent woman lead.
Actually, I didn't answer the question from the perspective of rating; rather, on if the game itself handled mature ideas in a proper manner. It frankly depicts issues of racism, nationalism, and sexism and handles such things remarkably well. The portrayal of sex is more than a little naive as it approaches it more as pornography (i.e. sexual fantasy) than anything else.
That said, sex was handled far better given many of the key encounters actually make a fair amount of sense given what we know of the characters in question, given they include a long term mistress, a fellow warrior, a person who's life you've saved etc. All present plausible reasons why a sexual relationship would transpire but the fact that Geralt hops from fling to fling is the problem. It stands in relatively stark contrast to his demonstrated loyalty to friends and relations.
I find, by comparison, the Witcher series to be one of the most mature franchises out there.
As has been expressed by a poster earlier in this thread: their world is not our world. Their world is a feudal setting. In The Witcher I Geralt is faced with a world where he has become somewhat obsolete and is dismissed as a freak and "human but not" in a world that despises non-humans. The Witchers are not needed as often as before because they have been TOO successful in their task. Now they're a bunch of supercharged warriors with strange practices and no political affiliation who financially benefit from the presence of monsters. The average peasant isn't going to look too favourably upon such death machines. They suspect them to be firemen who are also arsonists to keep themselves in business.
The Witcher II involves a series of small kingdoms in the face of an encroaching Empire seeking to expand its dominion by intrigue rather than physical force. A non-human rebellion has been given a significant morale boost due to the assassination of a few kings, one assisted by a group of guerrillas on the extreme side of the non-humans. Meanwhile a dynastic vacuum has appeared and the 3 other kingdoms are squabbling to obtain it while the Empire also eyes the squabble as a good starting point for another invasion or a way to split the alliance that defeated it before.
These are deep and adult themes that the game handles with the kid gloves off. Every aspect of a feudal society is embraced to its fullest extent. Social and political norms (for the setting) are displayed to us at every opportunity, the player is made to understand exactly what this world is like. The game isn't trying to promote sexism, rape or any other terrible crime one can perform on another. It contains FAR more racism than sexism but you do not see anyone decrying it for that. Feudal society hardly ever fair or just for women of the West, why would it be for a game written from a Polish perspective at the onset of the Holy Roman Empire? Life was shit for women then so it's also shit for women in the Witcher.
The sex cards? I actually believe they serve two purposes, to place you in the character of Geralt - he was a womaniser. To him the women he slept with WERE conquests. He's the James Bond of the era and those cards are just notches on his belt. The cards then serve the purpose of being 'collectables' to encourage most gamers to fill that aspect of Geralt. Don't like collecting cards? Well don't have Geralt sleep with them, nobody forces you to.
Now, is it mature in the sense that it approaches these adult topics with a certain degree of sophistication in order to prop up an atmosphere and elevate discourse on the subject material? I say no, HELL NO. I mean come on! What are some of the scenes in the opening act of The Witcher 2? A guy running in and yelling out, "What the ass fuck is going on here."
Such an example is not precisely a mark of a lack of maturity but rather an attempt to characterize. Your example isn't particularly common and it comes from a character where such a reaction is consistent and reasonable.
alphamalet said:
The game depicting a town square where the topic of greatest interest was the impotence of an unimportant guard.
Which isn't particularly out of line for the setting and time period. People are social creatures and the lack of sexual viability of a member of the community would be a matter of interest. Thus this becomes setting appropriate and not simply added for the purpose of titillation.
alphamalet said:
Nudity for the sake of nudity. Giving a whore money to preform oral sex on a guard in a corner (you can see the animation) so you can sneak past him.
The paying a whore to do precisely that is again setting appropriate. While one could certainly avoid confronting the subject directly, placing the act in the open diminishes most of it's power. By contrast, the ability to engage a whore's services personally would fall into the category of needless nudity as there is no advantage to this course of action and it calls into question both Geralt's abilities as a womanizer while simultaneously acting in stark condemnation of his otherwise staunch loyalty to friends.
alphamalet said:
All of this crap is just silly. I don't see it building toward an atmosphere or stimulating conversation; it's all just thrown in there for the sake of being there. I'm not offended by the material in the game, but let's just say it was frivolous to say the least.
By and large most of the things you cite are appropriate for the setting. I feel that the player's sexual escapades are where the game demonstrates a more adolescent sensibility.
alphamalet said:
Dragon Age Origins on the other hand managed to approach topics like racism, religion, and politics without using any profanity and without constant sexual innuendos...
The use of profanity and sexual innuendo is perfectly legitimate so long as it serves a purpose beyond being simply sordid. In most cases in the Witcher, this is accomplished. Indeed, in many cases the use of profanity demonstrates a stronger commitment to realism; people curse in regular conversation and more often when in a stressful scenario. Like most things it is not that cursing is immature; using a curse regularly for the sole purpose of titillation of the audience is immature. Just as it is immature to completely avoid the use of commonly used words because they happen to be on the naughty list.
alphamalet said:
Yeah, I'd day Dragon Age was a far more mature game and a better game than The Witcher 2 on most accounts.
I'd give you that on the first one. The second did not hold my interest as well largely because a handful of really odd design choices largely related to encounter management. Where the first game placed a premium on maneuver and positioning, the second undermines this with regularly use of enemies materializing from the aether.
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