The Witcher 3 might be enormous

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I hope this is true

http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/04/03/the-witcher-3-two-of-the-areas-are-over-52-square-miles-by-themselves-3-5-times-larger-than-skyrim/

For the lazy ones and "linkophobic" among us:

CD Projekt Red and Umbra Software held a presentation titled ?Solving Visibility and Streaming in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with Umbra 3? at the Game Developers Conference, and it included a very interesting detail (that I happened to overlook when I first examined the original slides) as discovered by Reddit user fughp.

The slides mention the size of two of the areas included in the game: the city of Novigrad measures 8.5 x 8.5 km for a total size of 72,25 square km, while Skellige is 8 x 8 km, meaning 64 square km. Summed up, the two areas cover 136,25 square km, which convert to just north of 52 square miles.

By comparison, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim?s world has been calculated to measure 14.8 square miles. This means that the two areas named above are already over 3.5 times larger than the whole Skyrim map.

This is actually fairly interesting since back in June CD Projekt RED described The Witcher 3 as 20% larger than Bethesda?s open world game. We currently don?t know if that was just a preliminary estimate, or the Witcher?s world just got bigger since then.

We reached out to CD Projekt RED requesting information to shed light on the issue, and we?ll keep you updated if we receive any relevant answer. In the meanwhile one thing is for sure: the world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is pretty damn big.

Holy crap, right? If this is for real, then we're finally getting a real open world. Not just a shallow playground that doesn't feel real at all that all open worlds end up being. I desperately need CD Project's official response to this.

Your thoughts?

 

[sanquin]

I hope it's true as well. A world even 2x larger than skyrim's would make me happy. But one that's about 7x larger? If this really is true that game will probably my game of the year.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I hope it's true as well. A world even 2x larger than skyrim's would make me happy. But one that's about 7x larger? If this really is true that game will probably my game of the year.

It's not just the size though. It's CD Project we're talking about here. Their attention to detail is infinitely better than Bethesda's, thus the world of The Witcher feels more like a real place than any of the Tamriel provinces. Plus, it's a next-gen game. This is freakin' unbelievable.

 

[Elfgore]

The more I hear about this game, the more psyched I become. Though I'm very worried that my PC won't be able to handle it and I do not have the money to upgrade. I might just end up buying it on PS4 and hoping they give us some options on choosing what happened in previous games.

It's kinda funny looking back on The Witcher games. The first felt very KOTORy, hell almost played like a clone. Now we have a massive open-world game with very player controlled combat. It's come a long way.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

While this is fucking impressive and raises my interest anymore, I just can only hope with the gain in land size that the details and world building won't suffer. I was incredibly immersed by the witcher 2 (especially compared to skyrim, since the reference is made here) based on it's world, getting more of it would be better, but I can only hope what is there isn't fluff and just extra traveling between missions boringly.

 

[Clowndoe]

It sounds cool, but it also sounds way off. Skyrim populated its map with scores of NPCs and dungeons of fairly low importance. But The Witcher has always been about depth over breadth. What could they possibly do with that much real-estate apart from making you travel a whole lot?

 

[Zhukov]

Ugh. So much commuting.

I eagerly await the day when developers realise that spreading the butter as thinly as you can so as to cover the largest possible slice of toast just makes for a really bland and inadequately buttered piece of toast.

 

[sanquin]

A good point there. If they go the route of 'larger, but less interesting things to do' then they should stick with a smaller world like W2. I'd rather have the beauty and attention to detail of Flotsam and it's surrounding forest/swamp in a small area, than the more plain looking world of Skyrim.

But this is CDProjekt so I have a bit of hope that they'll keep at least part of the detail. The small glimpse of the 'open world' they were creating that was posted in...a video (you can probably look it up on youtube) looked promising at least. I intentionally keep how hyped I get in check. As too often it turned out to be over-hype. But still, I have hope that this game will turn out incredible.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Novigrad by itself is bigger than all of Skyrim? Jesus, that'll be a big ass city.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Hey, if there's lots more stuff to do in this much bigger world, then great.

If all it means is that I have to walk further looking at more pretty trees just to get to the next place then it can fuck right off.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I hope it's true as well. A world even 2x larger than skyrim's would make me happy. But one that's about 7x larger? If this really is true that game will probably my game of the year.

It's not just the size though. It's CD Project we're talking about here. Their attention to detail is infinitely better than Bethesda's, thus the world of The Witcher feels more like a real place than any of the Tamriel provinces. Plus, it's a next-gen game. This is freakin' unbelievable.

Pretty much this. I love Skyrim but this game is sounding more and more like it will be head and shoulders better than anything I've ever played before.

 

[Saetha]

Hmm... I always get wary when people start saying "Our game does this thing better than the game that's famous for being awesome at this thing!" Well... I mean, basically, hype in general makes me rather wary. It always feels like I'm being set up for disappointment. So, to be honest, I'll believe it when I see it. But if it's true... hey, cool. But I'd like some hard evidence that this is a rich, large, detailed world, and not a few major cities scattered among an ocean of trees and hills - or an outright lie.

 

[Augustine]

The size of the area is not what I want to see - its the richness of the world they have is what's important.

Daggerfall is a good example of this point - it is massive. We're talking HUNDREDS of cities. Landmass that would take WEEKS to cross of foot (real-time weeks, folks). But... Not that impressive when you look closer(well... not as impressive as it sounds, anyway).

Rich, vibrant world. Barren, empty one is of no use to anyone, except to serve as a tech demo, perhaps.

 

[DementedSheep]

Eh....it's it weird that I'm not stoked for that? I don't want to speed that much time on one game but I also don't like missing content and want to get to the end of the main at least. I also question that they could make a world that big not feel samey and just there to pad/ increase travel time. I would prefer a smaller more concise game.

 

[Smooth Operator]

That doesn't actually sound good to be honest, there is only so much one team of developers can put in a game and the more you stretch the size of that game the more that content suffers from dilution... that is why most parts of TES games really blow.

Upside is that CD Projekt Red themselves only said 20% bigger then Skyrim, which hopefully means they actually plan a nice array of content packed useful areas and stuff on the sides is for show.

 

[endtherapture]

With the Witcher 2, unlike Skyrim, the world was slightly more boxed in. Like an MMO.

In Skyrim for example you can walk EVERYWHERE, on rooftops, unp the sides of mountains and down cliffs, and into water. With The Witcher 2 you're set to certain paths with areas which you physically can't walk on like in an MMO. Invisible walls and such.

Therefore I expect TW3 to be a very big game with a lot of spectacle but also have large areas of the game "walled" of and only there for spectacle. Not a bad thing.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Novigrad by itself is bigger than all of Skyrim? Jesus, that'll be a big ass city.

I love Skyrim but if there's one thing I hate about it and other RPGs that do this, its the idea that a town or city can consist of 20 people, plus a few guards. If this "Novigrad" proves to be both physically huge and stuffed to the brim with people and things going on, LIKE A REAL CITY, I will be very, very impressed.

This just makes me want to give The Witcher 2 another a chance. Then I remember I traded it in and my 360 is dead....

 

[Xdeser2]

Oh my god...yes!

One of my biggest problems with a game like Skyrim is the size of the cities (if you could even call them that). The great Imperial Capital of Skyrim, Solitude? Yeah it has like 7 houses and 30 people walking around it, including the guards. The docks that facilitate trade across the continent? They hold about 3 ships in port.

The rumor that the city of Novigrad is larger than the entirety of Skyrim...makes me happy to say the least. Of course, it doesn't do to examine the Witcher 3 solely in comparison to one other game and because of one feature of it. I'm sure it will be incredibly good for a number of other reasons... but seriously guys, it feels good to think about an RPG that feels big again lol.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Ugh. So much commuting.

I eagerly await the day when developers realise that spreading the butter as thinly as you can so as to cover the largest possible slice of toast just makes for a really bland and inadequately buttered piece of toast.

Though I won't play this game I do appreciate this sentiment and it's my worry too for such games in general. Sprawling words are all nice and dandy, and I'd welcome them too, but only if there's actually enough to do in them. Plenty of butter for all that toast.