Witcher 3 - Preview @ PC Gamer

Four quest designers worked on the original Witcher. Its more refined sequel had six. The conclusion to the trilogy, which promises 100 hours of content and a 50-hour story, has more than doubled that. “We have about 14, I think,” says lead quest designer Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz.

Nor have CD Projekt Red simply padded out The Witcher 3’s Skyrim-exceeding open world with unimaginative busywork. They’ve systematically banished fetch quests from the game—or, at least, as much as a team can when making a high-fantasy RPG. It’s one of the ways the Polish developers are refining their identity through the creation of The Witcher 3, where quest and narrative design is being meticulously worked and reworked right up until release. The philosophy is, if you need to have a fetch quest, make sure the story does a damn good job of hiding it.

“When we do have these situations, which is rarely, we compensate for it with the narrative,” writer Jakub Szamalek explains. “It’ll definitely be an interesting story in itself – you’ll be intrigued by the NPC’s motives, and where this is all leading. Even when you have a simple structure it’s something we’re compensating for in the story.”

The reason for abolishing fetch quests? CD Projekt Red don’t like them much either. “We are trying very hard to limit such interactions of structures to a minimum because we don’t think they’re interesting.” Instead, they want to be radical.

The studio’s ambition is to further the RPG on all fronts – from big, sprawling decisions that impact the world to the very basic principle of handing an item from one NPC to another. It’s a sign that The Witcher 3 could complete the developers’ ongoing evolution from rough RPG debutantes to best-in-class.

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