Chances are, you'll never play CD Projekt's latest fantasy RPG epic, The Witcher 2 : Assassins of Kings. Chances are, even if you do, you'll give up before the first two hours. Maybe you won't get past the game's brutally challenging prologue, which has you going up against a full-grown dragon within the first few minutes, with nary a chance to master the basics of combat. Maybe the lack of any real tutorial will make you flounder around in panic for a few hours before giving up in frustration. Maybe the complexity of the role-playing system will prove too intimidating and leave you running for cover, into the comforting arms of friendlier, cuddlier titles.
More's the pity, because with Witcher 2, CD Projekt has done what few publishers in mainstream gaming have the cojones to do today-make a game that is a love letter to the hardcore role-playing fan, and the newbies be damned. And unless you're willing to put in the hard yards up front, you'll miss out on one of the finest RPG experiences in over a decade.
If, like me, you're old enough to remember the Konami Code and IDDDQD and MEMMAKER and the rest of that jazz, you'll remember that skill gaming used to be a thing. Before there were 'easy' modes and automatic checkpoint saves and online game guides, videogames used to be hard. Mastering a game took many hours (days, months) of dedicated practice before you could reach the zen-like state to beat a game like Super Mario Bros or Donkey Kong or Contra. And you usually had to do it without even saving-die and start over. From the very beginning. And no cookie. So beating a game would make us proud. Completing a game wasn't a commonplace achievement. Only the most skilled (and persevering) players could boast of actually completing a game.
Everyone knows what happened next- gaming exploded, new markets emerged, games needed to be easier in order to appeal to new gamers, yada yada yada. Don't get me wrong-that was, and continues to be, a good thing. Action, sports and racing games (among others) are all the better for having adjustable difficulty and more polished learning curves.
But the role-playing and strategy genres have always been the preserve of the hardcore gamer-the sort who enjoys number crunching, decision making and discussing nerdcore elements of the lore into the wee hours. It's a skilled game designer who can simplify gameplay in these genres without sacrificing the richness of the experience. These are the genres that gave us Starcraft, Baldur's Gate, Civilization and Fallout. I'm not sure any of those games would have been better off without their inherent rich complexity.
Yet they try and give us 'dumbed down' experiences such as the stupefyingly disappointing Dragon Age 2.
Let's stop for a minute and talk about Dragon Age 2. Bioware was responsible for that. The same Bioware that gave us Baldur's Gate and KOTOR. And even the first Dragon Age, which wasn't half bad.
And then they decided to go and 'dumb down' the experience- ripping out anything they condescendingly deemed too difficult or challenging for typical console players. They ended up with a boring, plodding title that had a decent story, marginally interesting characters, a semblance of role-playing and almost no compelling gameplay. The first three hours of Baldur's Gate have more epic role-playing gameplay in them than the whole of Dragon Age 2 and all its DLC. Bleh.
In fact, let's digress for another minute and talk about Bioware's other blockbuster RPG franchise, Mass Effect. I have always been in that vocal minority that believes that the roleplaying in Mass Effect is also dumbed down and inferior to that found in Bioware's earlier classics. The combat is merely competent, the stat and skill system is as dull as ditchwater and the equipment and inventory is a joke. However, Mass Effect is a game that transcends its traditional role-playing shortcomings thanks to its fantastic fiction-Bioware created an incredibly rich fictional universe with an epic storyline, memorable characters and superb interactive storytelling mechanics which the player had a great role in influencing. Almost all player talk around Mass Effect revolve around its story and character, not the combat, classes or equipment. Contrast this with forum talk around Baldur's Gate or Fallout, and you'll see what I mean. Without great fiction to back it up, Dragon Age 2's gameplay shortcomings become all too obvious.
Thanks to Witcher 2, the hardcore is back in role-playing. It features some of the most incredibly well fleshed-out fiction since ... er... Mass Effect, superb, challenging and visceral combat, much role-playing geeky goodness (Alchemy, Crafting, Spells) and hours of exhilarating and rewarding gameplay. You could argue that Oblivion has all of those, but Witcher 2 has something Oblivion doesn't-a soul. In fact, in recent memory, only the superb Fallout: New Vegas comes close to rivalling Witcher 2's quality. But the latter is a superior and more complete role-playing game by far-and hence top of the pile. And that is a wonderful thing. We need games like this- games that refuse to pander blindly to perceived market demands to focus instead on just how high quality the game experience can be. Cinema needs films that only the most learned of film buffs will appreciate as much as it needs summer blockbusters. Book publishing needs literary classics as much as it needs popular pulp. Likewise, gaming needs titles that are meant for the hardcore elite-titles that will be spoken of fondly in the future, decades after we have all forgotten the pulp.
More power to the likes of CD Projekt-among developers, the company is indeed The Assassins of Kings.
