The Witcher Panel focused on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and took place on Thursday, July 24 at the San Diego Comic-Con 2014 (SDCC2014). The panel was moderated by Geoff Keighly (SpikeTV). The panelists in attendance were Damien Monnier (Senior Gameplay Designer), Doug Cockle (voice of Geralt of Rivia), Rafal Jaki (Witcher Franchise Director), Michal Plaktow-Gilewski (CD Projekt Red Head of Marketing), Nick McWhorter (VP Licensing, Dark Horse) and Paul Tobin (writer, The Witcher: House of Glass, Dark Horse Comics). The audience was shown approximately 30 minutes of gameplay footage, which was commentated by Rafal Jaki, and was allotted a short Q&A session at the end of the panel.
The panelists mentioned that The Witcher: House of Glass storyline is complete and available for all to read in full. McWhorter, the Dark Horse Comics representative, said there were more announcements to come in February. Geralt of Rivia voice actor, Doug Cockle thinks The Witcher 3 will be huge and noted that he’s still recording some material for the game.
During the 30 minutes of gameplay footage from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Geralt traveled through various environments from cities, to forests, to marshlands and an enclosed cave-like area. Geralt was shown riding a horse, interacting with other characters, swimming, using magic, his witcher abilities and lobbing the heads off of enemies with his sword. There was an unfortunate audio drop out during the work-in-progress demo. The voice of the main character and some of the ones he interacts with cut out. Luckily, the voice of Geralt was on hand to help out live. Rafal Jaki also assisted in describing the progression of plot where needed.
Geralt’s main goal is to track down an ashen-haired maiden. In order to accomplish this, he must follow leads and take on a series of side quests to acquire the information he needs. The demo starts outside of Novigrad as Geralt rides into the the city on his horse. He travels to an inn near the fish market where he’s tipped off about a boy named Johnny who might be able to provide him with more information about the maiden.
After locating Johnny, he discovers that the boy is actually a godling who seems to have lost his voice. Geralt sets off on a short quest to find the potion that will resolve the godling’s predicament. Once his voice is restored, Johnny takes Geralt to visit a woman he calls, “Gran.” Gran lives in a wooded area with cabins and children playing in the vicinity one of them.
