So yeah. I just wanted to get attention on the latest game to draw my eye, The Witcher 2. I heard some good tings about the first, but never got around to trying it out. I shall not be making the same mistake again. And this is totally aimed at Lady Lorraine and Ghavrel. So if one of you are reading this, read on.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (yes, both plural) is a PC-exclusive RPG from Polish developer CD Projekt RED STUDIO, inspired by the novels of Andrzej Sapkowski. It's being released on May 17th, a week from today. The reasons it's drawn my attention:

1. It seems to be a full RPG, rather than an interactive story with RPG-lite progression. I have no proof of this: I haven't read in-depth explanations of gameplay or played a demo myself, but the previews are promising.

2. It is dark, political, medieval fantasy, even moreso than Dragon Age. We've got issues of race, gender, political assassination plots, etc.

3. It's a fairly fleshed out world, with multiple novels, a previous game, and a dev team that understands the importance of a great setting.

4. It's got detail AND scope. One of the videos I'm linking at the end will cover the detail. This quote from IGN's preview should be enough to establish scope:

"If you're breaking out of a dungeon, for instance, you can choose to be stealthy or slash your way out, which can lead to different results. But on a larger scale, it's possible to never even see major cities if you make certain decisions."

5. The previous game got a lot of praise for giving the player important, grey decisions with far-reaching repercussions that the player can't predict. This sequel should deliver the same. I'm a huge fan of this sort of thing, and am wondering how it will measure up to Dragon Age 1 and 2 (the current kings of the grey and morally ambiguous decisions, in my eyes).

6. It is PC exclusive. I'm not one to jump on the bandwagon of hating console influences, but there is no denying that designing for PC as an exclusive platform has a huge effect on the mindset and design philosophies of game devs (and their marketing teams and corporate overseers). Complexity is more commonplace, difficulty and the need for player competence (at least from Western devs) is more likely, etc., etc. I'm interested to see what the Witcher 2 does with this.

7. The game is gorgeous. At least, I think so. I see a lot of people criticizing the graphics. These are mostly gibbering FPS bro-gamers in the comments of online articles. They are also people who don't understand that an RPG tends to have substantially more characters, architectural styles, in-game cultures, creatures, equipment, etc., etc. than an FPS ever dreams of, and that puts a vast strain on art teams.

8. The game has an established avatar character, a character that you don't name, customize, or make your own at character creation. This is practically unheard of in any non-Asian RPG, and I'm interested in seeing what they can do with it.

9. Joystiq tells me that the game has 16 endings. Now, it's easy for a game dev to count minor variations as separate endings, so I'm taking this one with a grain of salt. But it certainly sounds impressive. Then again, the last game that had a truly compelling way of presenting more than 2 endings was Chrono Trigger, so I shouldn't get my hopes up.

If you're not sold yet, I recommend checking out some of this stuff.

Trailer: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-debut-the-witcher/63501

"Gameplay" Trailer (shows some interesting NPC behavior): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JciyoGmnGyo

Gamespot Preview: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/thewitcher2/news/6254071/the-witcher-2-assassins-of-kings-impressions-exclusive-first-look?sid=6254071&mode=previews&page=1

EDIT:
Oh, and the environments look amazing. Check out this one: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gameplay-video-the-witcher/713657