The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Previews

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Written by BuckGB on June 22nd, 2010

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Though it may appear at times to be an action-oriented game, story, characters, and how they fit together in the world provided the strongest motivation to develop their own game engine. As with many modern role-playing games, how the story unfolds depends in large part on player-made choices. But unlike the typical question of whether to follow the good or evil path, the choices are less clear-cut, and become a matter of considering what the consequences could be down the line.

For this to work, the new engine gives every single character in the game their own unique personality and an awareness and response to the game world as it evolves based on those decisions. So while it might be expedient to defy the local law to help a friend right now, this may wind up leaving your character feared as a vigilante. Depending on your approach, that may or may not be a problem. Some characters might see you as a potential solution to sticky problems they don't want the law involved with but others may clam up and be unwilling to share a quest they could have.

Once the conversation is over we get to see the new combat engine in action. In the first game you had three stances to choose from that were each strong against certain types of enemies. By timing mouse clicks with your strikes, you could string attacks together and make them more effective. The Witcher 2 does away with the stance system in favor of a more console-like combo system. There's a heavy attack, light attack, magic attack, block and a dodge button.

Cadence and timing still matter when stringing attacks together; you just won't be manually shifting from a fast attack mode to a heavy attack. Instead, you'll just hit the heavy or light attack button (or key) depending on who you're in front of. It's not quite as automatic as something like Batman: Arkham Asylum -- but you can definitely flow your strikes from one enemy to the next in a pitched battle.

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