After its appearance at E3, pretty much everyone in the world agrees that upcoming epic RPG The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt looks absolutely amazing. Some, however, have said that it also looks too easy, based on the five minute gameplay demo shown during Microsoft's press conference.
Speaking to Eurogamer, executive producer John Mamais has set the record straight. The demo was calibrated for maximum impact in the short slot it had. The finished game will be much, much tougher.
"The combat is complex," he said. "What we showed at the Microsoft conference was the easy way to play. We only had five minutes to show, so we had to play on easy and make the fights go really fast. You saw lots of dismemberment. It's not going to be so easy to cut somebody in half when the game comes out. We were showing off some features there. I was reading some feedback after the conference and people were saying, 'oh, that looks so easy,' but it ain't gonna be that easy."
At the same time, newcomers to the series shouldn't be put off by talk of difficulty, or worry that they won't know what to do if they've not played the previous games. The first was only released on PC, and the second on PC and Xbox 360. The Witcher 3, meanwhile is heading straight for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
"What we are doing in Witcher 3 is we're really focused on making a really nice soft learning curve for combat and storytelling," Mamais said. We're going to spoon feed the gameplay mechanics you need to learn. So you're not going to be thrown into the pit of fire like you were in Witcher 2. I think we made a mistake doing that."The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is set for release in February 2015.