Witcher 3 dev looks to Skyrim for inspiration

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt draws inspiration from the gorgeous open-world of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but CD Projekt aims to top the Bethesda RPG's "generic" quests and characters.

Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz wasn't just trying to start a flame war; he said CD Projekt Red "for sure" has a lot to learn from Bethesda, especially how to make open worlds with huge vistas with ambience and adventures, but that Skyrim missed an opportunity to be immersive.

"Thinking of the lesson were learned on Skyrim is that you need to care about immersion with the game all the time," he told GameInformer in a video interview.

"You can’t show that you got some generic solutions or generic stuff in the game and Skyrim - it was generic. You could make the same quest a few times, and every time, an NPC didn’t spot that you made it for him previously."

Tomaszkiewicz said that in order to maintain immersion, every quest has to be designed in such a way that NPCs react to what the player is doing. He said that in The Witcher 3, players will see evidence oif every choice they make in the world around them - NPCs will talk about things the player has done, and react with anger or approval.

By combining Skyrim's beautiful open world with CD Projekt's emphasis on consequence in the game world, Tomaszkiewicz said, he hopes The Witcher 3 will be the "perfect RPG".

CD Projekt has already made it clear it wants to outdo Skyrim and other RPG rivals with The Witcher 3, which is the first in the series to go open-world.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is expected in 2014, likely on next-generation consoles and PC, although platforms have not been officially confirmed.

Thanks, Kotaku.