I would say that the Witcher is mature in its portrayal of politics and racism whereas in everything else it just seems to be trying to hard to be "dark and gritty". I feel the problem with this discussion is that everybody has a different definition of mature in their heads which can cause some confusion. I've heard people call Dragon Age childish and the Witcher serious but Dragon Age has similar themes to the Witcher but with racism but applied to the mages, is it okay to persecute people if sometimes your fear is justified. I would say what makes the Witcher mature where other games may not be is that the politics in the game are immensely complicated and intricate to the point that to someone less mature the games plot probably seems convoluted and boring. So uh, yeah I would say that the Witcher 2 is a mature game.
FINALLY someone else that's familiar with Scott Lynch. It's been getting damned frustrating how little known he is despite being such an amazing author. He deserves more attention.
Oh, and mentioning Dragon Age just reminded me of that game. Why is it Witcher 2 is a horrible misogynistic childish piece of shit but Dragon Age gets away with all this crap with barely a shrug of the shoulders:
Are you saying this solely on the sexuality topic that seems to be rampant in this debate, or more in general? because personally i think the whole political intrigue and plots between 1 & 2; along with all the stigmas and cultural differences are quite greatly done and believable, even for a fantasy game.
I'd like to point out that "not mature" and "immature" are different things, too. Think of them mathematically; "mature" might have a value of 1, "not mature" a value of 0 and "immature" a value of -1. Sex and violence aren't immature, but neither are they mature -- those elements have a null value, because they're neutral. While it's true that sex and violence are often associated with game developers and publishers who want to appear mature while taking the easy road, they're not in themselves immature and fall to execution rather than the concept of their content.
Both Witcher games have lots of violence and a bit of sex, but if we accept that those elements have a null maturity value, they can't make the games "immature". But both games gain maturity in content for their handling of player choice, and morality -- especially since there isn't so much good and evil, but "differently good". That's why I consider them such mature games. And I think railing against a game because it contains lots of violence and sex is more reactionary than helpful, but it discounts the possibility that those elements could be used in a mature fashion.
For what it's worth, though, I maintain that the sex cards in The Witcher were pretty immature.
Some people consider nudity, sex, and gratuitous violence immature, so in those people's definition The Witcher series is immature.
I think that these games are mature because they freely explore mature themes - violence, sexuality, and justice, more than any other game (that I know of) in recent years.
There seems to be two main parties when it comes to discussing the Witcher series maturity.
Those who have played both games and appreciated the complex moral and political themes, the characterisation, lore and the appropriately dark and cynical medieval setting.
And then those who have either not played the game or only played it briefly and seem to dismiss it as immature because it has nudity.
Ehm, sorry, but this thread kind of suggests otherwise. There's a variety of opinions, and this is one poor false dichotomy. Could almost be paraphrased as "angry chess kid".
I mean putting it like that you make it sound as if people shouldn't be forming their own opinions. And well, I personally stand by my opinion of "pretentious".
As I said, it tries too hard. At times I got the feeling the game is yelling at me "Have I reminded you how dark and gritty I am in the last 20 minutes? Oh well, just in case, have another guy bragging about rape and murder, so you don't forget how incredibly edgy I am."
Basically, sometimes it seems as if it's trying to force the atmosphere on me as opposed to just letting it be there. And I do not take kindly to that. As I said, by all of my tastes in fiction, I should have liked it, but I didn't.
Depends on what you mean by mature, but for me personally...how does dark and realistic mean mature?
pornography is more realistic then tv shows that have people having sex.
Same with violence and snuff films.
Yet they are both considered Universally less mature then a tv show that shows those things less realisticly.
To me that says that what makes it mature is the reason for subject matter or how it is presented.
Was the witcher 1 mature? no. It was a game that actively rewarded you for trying to bone women (pointlessly). It dealt with less common and more realistic aspects of a fantasy setting (racism being the only one that really comes to mind)
It's a game, games are inherently immature as they are time sinks.
A game that's mature in a sense other then graphic, would have to actually provide some real form of improvement for you personally. Such as games specifically designed to help you increase your memory, skills with math and so on.
Nudity, sex, rape, racism, and having more then just hack and slash story in your game doesn't have anything to do with it being mature or not.
It's definitely mature when it comes to racism at least, too often do I see the issue approached as though it's a symptom of having too little melanin, but in the Witcher it's clear that racist attitudes exist on all sides, we really need to acknowledge that more.
I recently bought the Witcher 2, and I have to say... I wouldn't call it a mature game.
I kinda set it down because it really wasn't holding my attention and was terribly written. Whoever wrote some of the dialogue options I feel really has never actually had a conversation with a woman before. It was a tad bit misogynistic.
So books, movies, plays, travelling, hanging out with friends, and every single other aspect of life that doesn't revolve around staying healthy and working is inherently immature? Hurray, we've successfully determined that almost everything in life is immature. Seriously dude, that's a... weird thing to say, to say the least.
On the topic at hand, I do not believe the Witcher or the Witcher 2 are immature. The second game has some of the most morally grey decisions to make I've ever encountered in a game (and the first isn't far behind, not to mention being the better of the two at hurling unexpected consequences for your actions at you later down the path), and it explores its concepts of medieval politics and racism in a way that makes the Dragon Age games look hilariously childish in their simplicity. I don't believe the presence of sex in the games, even the ridiculous sex cards from the first one, just cancels all of that out. Not to mention that the only compulsory sex scenes are treated in a considerably more respectful manner, so if a player is sleeping with everybody then, as I see it, they're the ones behaving in an immature manner. The developers just gave them that option, and good on them for catering to different personalities.
I recently bought the Witcher 2, and I have to say... I wouldn't call it a mature game.
I kinda set it down because it really wasn't holding my attention and was terribly written. Whoever wrote some of the dialogue options I feel really has never actually had a conversation with a woman before. It was a tad bit misogynistic.
Misogynistic? It's a game with strong women, with weak women, with honourable women (heck, the only truly "good" character I met in the course of my first playthrough was a woman), with despicable villainesses, and men of every stripe as well. It is, of course, set in a society that is decidedly misogynistic, but that doesn't mean the game itself is and the way it portrays the wide range of different female characters was pretty novel, frankly, compared to just about any other game on the market.
Yes, what you encountered was just garden variety fanboyism. See, after Dragon Age 2 went down the gurgler and The Witcher 2 was a hit, there were some people hailing CDProject Red (developers of The Witcher) as "the new Bioware" or "like Bioware but better". To a hardcore Bioware fan, this would be akin to a needle under the fingernails, so they respond by hating on The Witcher games with all their might.
As for whether or the Wither games are mature.... hahahahahaaa... nope.
The first one was laughably immature. Surely we haven't forgotten the Gotta Bonk 'em All collectable sex cards.
The second one was a bit better. But it's the kind of maturity you'd expect from a 14 year old boy who wears his father's pants, desperately shaves his bumfluff and swears loudly in the schoolyard. "Hey, hey, have you noticed how totally mature I am? Here, have some more cussing! Ohh, and I'm dark too. See, here's implied rape scene number four!"
Well, there's this deal, "mature" and "rated M" are not the same thing. As far as Witcher goes, yeah, it's dark, it doesn't sugarcoat stuff, but at times it just seems as if it's trying too hard to be "mature" and comes across as pretentious. Let's just say that considering my taste in gaming, by all criteira, I should have liked the Witcher series, but I just couldn't enjoy the games.
I recently bought the Witcher 2, and I have to say... I wouldn't call it a mature game.
I kinda set it down because it really wasn't holding my attention and was terribly written. Whoever wrote some of the dialogue options I feel really has never actually had a conversation with a woman before. It was a tad bit misogynistic.
Misogynistic? It's a game with strong women, with weak women, with honourable women (heck, the only truly "good" character I met in the course of my first playthrough was a woman), with despicable villainesses, and men of every stripe as well. It is, of course, set in a society that is decidedly misogynistic, but that doesn't mean the game itself is and the way it portrays the wide range of different female characters was pretty novel, frankly, compared to just about any other game on the market.
People just love to throw around the "M" word these days for the smallest reasons. I agree with you completely, I have yet to finish the game, but it comes across to me as more mature then most. Dragon Age had a far less mature feeling to it, not one I feel I can explain, not to say it wasn't fun, but its tone wasn't as dark considering the subject matter.
The Witcher has some more mature themes going on, sure. But it's not intellectually mature. It's simply more gritty than your usual fantasy RPG and morality system is better than in most games because it asks you to decide based on what you believe.
I think the only really intellectually mature RPG of this generation is Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Meh, worrying about whether or not something is "mature" is incredibly childish. The way I see it you either like something or you don't, everything else is moot.
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.).
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