129 replies to this topic

[WalrusKing]

Hearts of Stone & Blood and Wine - two massive expansions for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

“With the development of Wild Hunt coming to an end, the team has embarked upon the creation of two new really big adventures set in The Witcher universe,” says Marcin Iwiński, CD PROJEKT RED co-founder. “We remember the time when add-on disks truly expanded games by delivering meaningful content. As gamers, we’d like to bring that back. We’ve said in the past that if we ever decide to release paid content, it will be vast in size and represent real value for the money. Both our expansions offer more hours of gameplay than quite a few standalone games out there.”

Hearts of Stone, will take Geralt on an all-new, 10-hour-plus adventure into the wilds of No Man’s Land and the nooks and alleys of Oxenfurt, where he’ll try to complete a contract from the mysterious Man of Glass. Caught in a thick tangle of deceit, Geralt will need all his cunning and strength to solve the mystery and emerge unscathed.

Blood and Wine, a 20-hour-plus tale that will introduce the all-new in-game region of Toussaint, will take Geralt to a land untainted by war, where an atmosphere of carefree indulgence and knightly ritual masks an ancient, bloody secret.

“While we’re offering the Expansion Pass now, we want to make one thing clear: don’t buy it if you have any doubts. Wait for reviews or play The Witcher and see if you like it first. As always, it’s your call,” Iwiński concludes.

The upcoming expansions will offer gamers new adventures, gear and foes and will feature characters both new and dearly missed -- all crafted with maximum attention to detail and quality by the joint forces of CD PROJEKT RED’s Warsaw and Cracow studios.

Hearts of Stone will premiere in October, while Blood and Wine is slated for release in the first quarter of 2016.
Both expansions will be available on all three platforms: Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 4.

For more information on obtaining the expansions, please visit buy.thewitcher.com.

Source:thewitcher

[GasClown]

Think I'll just get the game with the expansion pass. Damn main game is 200 hours already though. haha.

[Axe99]

Oooh, great news Spec, thanks for the info .  More Witchery adventures is a good thing, and the beauty of an open-world set-up is that it's relatively easy to build new stories on top of it.

[SmokeyPSD]

I guess they are actual expansions but still, hard to have this announcement sit well with CD Projekts statements in the past about paid dlc. It is pretty much getting a season pass on release.

[Axe99]

SmokeyPSD, on 08 April 2015 - 03:11 PM, said:

I guess they are actual expansions but still, hard to have this announcement sit well with CD Projekts statements in the past about paid dlc. It is pretty much getting a season pass on release.

Yeah, it is a change in focus from their previous statements about 'all DLC free' - they've been very careful to use the word 'expansions' here instead .  That said, it sounds like two decent dollops of content, so it's probably better they're paid-for, as it'll be much easier for them to manage budget/production costs if cost recovery is more direct (rather than charging more for the base game and hoping it sells enough to cover the expansions as well).

[SmokeyPSD]

Axe99, on 08 April 2015 - 10:00 PM, said:

Yeah, it is a change in focus from their previous statements about 'all DLC free' - they've been very careful to use the word 'expansions' here instead .  That said, it sounds like two decent dollops of content, so it's probably better they're paid-for, as it'll be much easier for them to manage budget/production costs if cost recovery is more direct (rather than charging more for the base game and hoping it sells enough to cover the expansions as well).

Yeah completely agree, it's just it is backtracking and worrying from such a principled developer making strong statements in the past. They are a pretty important voice against drm for one.
With GOG on the rise and issues arising there around regional pricing I hope they don't keep stepping backwards I guess is the big thing.

[Axe99]

Yeah, fair enough too - I totally agree with the hope that GOG continues to have a different vibe to Steam, rather than just be another digital marketplace.  We'll see, I guess, and until then cross our fingers .

[GasClown]

SmokeyPSD, on 08 April 2015 - 03:11 PM, said:

I guess they are actual expansions but still, hard to have this announcement sit well with CD Projekts statements in the past about paid dlc. It is pretty much getting a season pass on release.

At the end of the day, they're a business... can't be handing out everything for free.

[SmokeyPSD]

Yeah very true and they're still light years ahead of other companies.

[SmokeyPSD]

Hmmmm, looking at the announced requirements I'm no longer sure I should get it on pc. i have an Nvidia 670 which seems borderline above the minimum though I do have an i7. What is everyone else doing? Is there going to be some way to input past decisions from previous games for the ps4 version?

[Axe99]

I won't be getting it straight away (been a bit crook lately, so mainly just hammering strat games on PC, and want to play Witcher 3 when I'm a bit more with it), but will deffo grab on PS4.  I can't recall much on past decisions, I'm afraid.  Hopefully they'll do something like the Mass Effect games, but I think they've set the story up to be relatively decision-agnostic (although I'm sure they'll at least have references to the past).

[SmokeyPSD]

Looks like they will have something, in th form of a conversation within the game so that's cool http://www.engadget....tes-cant-impor/

[GasClown]

SmokeyPSD, on 01 May 2015 - 04:40 PM, said:

Hmmmm, looking at the announced requirements I'm no longer sure I should get it on pc. i have an Nvidia 670 which seems borderline above the minimum though I do have an i7. What is everyone else doing? Is there going to be some way to input past decisions from previous games for the ps4 version?

I'll be getting it on PC because it's single player... but I'm with Axe - I'll probably get it later even though it's at the top of my list.

[Axe99]

SmokeyPSD, on 02 May 2015 - 12:41 AM, said:

Looks like they will have something, in th form of a conversation within the game so that's cool http://www.engadget....tes-cant-impor/

That's a pretty cool mechanic .  Thanks for tracking down Smokey .

[DmnOnikage]

I want this, a lot. Anyone getting the collector's edition with all the goodies?

[SmokeyPSD]

A friend of mine is, major witcher fan, that medallion looks great but I can't justify getting the collector's for MGS and Witcher.

Finished Witcher 2 and I'm damn excited about 3 at this point. Apart from Phantom Pain it's probably my most anticipated title right now. Not long!

[SmokeyPSD]

Just a warning guys but release date has already been broken in a few places so spoilers are already out there on the interwebz. Honestly, why would the first thought you have be if your lucky enough to get the game early be to ruin it for others.

http://kotaku.com/th...lers-1703231740

[Aromaci]

Cause people are c****

[GasClown]

I've been on a media lockdown for ages now. I'll just have to avoid any discussions on it as well.

[Axe99]

GasClown, on 10 May 2015 - 09:04 AM, said:

I've been on a media lockdown for ages now. I'll just have to avoid any discussions on it as well.

Yup, plus one to this.  I'm used to playing big games (or watching TV/movies) a bit later than release, so getting quite good at dodging spoilers.  Rubbish that people are going out of their way to spoil it for people though.  Thanks for the warning Smokey .