The Witcher:
Rise of the White Wolf

You might not have heard of Geralt — the silver-haired swordsman starring in a series of novels by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski — but his hack-and-slash monster-hunting adventures as The Witcher have captured the imaginations of PC gamers. Good news, then, that Atari recently announced that the game (which earned an Editors’ Choice award from our sister publication PC Gamer) will be coming to Xbox 360, completely rebuilt with an updated engine, brand-spanking-new graphics, and a whole hunk of new content.

One of the major criticisms of the original version was a slightly awkward and unintuitive combat mechanic, and with the move to a control pad, it’s one of the first things on tap to be overhauled. “We had to rewrite the whole code of the game, line by line,” says project lead Adam Badowski. “We’ve designed a new combat system [and] redone the whole user interface.”

We’re expecting a very direct, very visceral third-person swordfighting system, and we’ve been promised plenty in the way of decapitations and other pleasingly gooey violence. (It’s worth noting that the PC original is pretty hardcore all around, as it also included ample female nudity.) The combat will now be motion-captured as well, giving Geralt’s blade-whirling combos more lifelike fluidity.

Mechanics won’t get all the attention, though. The PC version of The Witcher was praised for its elaborate branching storyline, and the 360 edition will surely have an equally complex plot. But CD Projekt is working hard to ensure you won’t have to sit through reams of dialogue, and you’d be wise to guess they’ll be one of the first developers to “borrow” Mass Effect’s excellent conversation system. That’s a good move, given the importance of your chats — in The Witcher’s world, the consequences of your actions and choices may not be immediately apparent, meaning you’ll often have to live with decisions you made several hours in the past.

Our only current concern is that the PC original was released in a sorry state, with dreadful translation and several immersion-breaking bugs. CD Projekt ended up releasing a free patch and an Enhanced Edition that solved all the problems, but those took time. Of course, Bethesda once had the same reputation…

Otherwise, with a sequel to Oblivion no doubt a ways off, we’re perfectly happy for someone new to try their hand at an enormous sprawling RPG. With the quirky, literate nature of the novels in its corner, plus a sprawling storyline and combat that has Atari crowing, The Witcher could be brilliant.