With Witcher 3 [set to
be released] on 19 May in the UK, epic fantasy author Marc Turner looks at Skyrim and Dragon
Age: Inquisition to
determine the elements that go into making the ‘perfect’ fantasy RPG.
If I said the words ‘fantasy
role-playing video game’ to you, which titles immediately spring to mind? For
me, the two most enjoyable of recent years have been Skyrim and Dragon Age:
Inquisition. Skyrim and DA:I set the standard by which Witcher 3 will be judged, so where did
those two games go right and wrong, and how might Witcher 3 compare?
Exploration
Everyone who enjoys fantasy likes to lose themselves in a
new world. When it comes to role-playing game-worlds, size is important. I
don’t have any statistics to back this up, but Skyrim’s world felt a lot bigger than DA:I’s. Skyrim is an ‘open
world’ game, which means that you can go where you like, when you like, and
choose how and when to approach missions. Set off in a random direction, and you’ll
always find something interesting. Until it kills you, that is.
DA:I on the
other hand is a bit more linear, in that the world is split into regions, and there
are some areas you can only visit later in the game, either because they’re not
available or because the enemies are so strong. Whilst you could never call the
world in DA:I small, it doesn’t quite
have the scope of Skyrim. In DA:I’s favour, you get more variety in
landscape (from a forest to a bog to a desert). But I think it’s fair to say
most people don’t play a game to admire the scenery, and I actually preferred
the continuity of theme with the frozen tundra of Skyrim.
Witcher 3 is
going to follow the Skyrim open-world
model rather than the DA:I regional one.
The world is going to be even bigger than Skyrim’s
– around twenty per cent bigger, in fact. Developers claim it will take two
hundred hours to complete everything in the game. Two hundred hours! But who
needs sleep, right? With twenty-four hours in a day, you could be finished in
just over a week . . .
Companions
Skyrim and DA:I took very different approaches to
companions. In Skyrim you can enlist
a companion, but I spent most of my time travelling alone. In DA:I you can travel alone, but I spent most
of my time with companions. So which is better? No sitting on the fence from
me, I’m going to come straight out and say . . . both?
In DA:I, the conversation
of your companions can make travelling around so much more enjoyable. At key
points in the story they give opinions on your decisions. From time to time they
engage in banter. Sometimes it’s amusing, sometimes it’s informative, but it’s
always entertaining – provided you pick the right followers to travel with, of
course.
In Skyrim, by
contrast, your companions are not so much people as walking pieces of
furniture. They say next to nothing. For example, the contribution of your
housecarl, Lydia, is generally limited to a warning of ‘I’ve got a bad a feeling
about this’ just as a dozen giant spiders drop down from the ceiling. Thanks,
Lydia, whatever would I do without your premonitions? That gave me a sense that I was really facing
the world alone, but I liked that. I liked the emptiness and
isolation of Skyrim. It made the game more dramatic, more
menacing.
From what I’ve seen, Witcher
3 will again be following in Skyrim’s
footsteps in that you’ll be spending most of your time alone. As to whether
there are meaningful characters that you can team up with, only time will tell.
Gameplay
One of the aspects I liked about Skyrim was how much variation in gameplay you get from playing
different character classes. The experience of playing as a two-handed warrior
is completely unlike that of playing as, say, an assassin. And if you want to
blend the classes a little, you can do. Sword in one hand and spell in the
other? No problem.
On the other hand, I thought the combat in DA:I was far more enjoyable, especially
the dragon fights. In Skyrim, when
you reach a certain level, killing a dragon is no more taxing than drawing your
sword. In DA:I, it’s far more
challenging (even if one or two of the character classes are overpowered). You
need to choose the right companions and the right tactics – and it can still go
horribly wrong.
Plus the dragons in DA:I
‘feel’ more real. In Skyrim the
dragons just stand there and slug it out with you, whereas in DA:I the dragons will flinch when you
land a powerful hit, swat you with their legs and tail, and so on. In DA:I, a dragon fight is an epic
encounter. In Skyrim, it can become
little more than a nuisance.
What will Witcher 3
offer? No dragons for a start, I think. On the plus side, though, there will be
a huge array of monsters, and it’s said that when you go hunting them you have
to pay attention to what time of day it is and even to the weather. That
suggests a complexity of gameplay that is very far from the ‘hack and slash’ found
in some titles.
Story
Another aspect in which DA:I surpassed Skyrim for
me was the story. I thought Skyrim’s
main storyline was one of the weakest parts of the game. A story should end
with a bang. The tension should build, the stakes should mount, and the final confrontation
should be the most thrilling and challenging part of the game. In Skyrim, it wasn’t. The bad guy went out with
a whimper. Victory cost you nothing. And in the aftermath, life pretty much went
on exactly as it had done before. ‘Oh, so you saved the world, did you? Now go
and fetch me ten of these herbs.’
Many of the same charges could be levelled at DA:I, I suppose, but at least there were
a couple of epic moments along the way. Like the fight to save Haven, for
example, and the time when you find Skyhold in the mountains and are appointed as
Inquisitor.
As to what Witcher
3 will deliver, we will have to wait and see. It certainly seems to have all
the right ingredients for a great storyline: a main character with supernatural
abilities; a backdrop of war; a quest to eliminate a powerful enemy called the Wild
Hunt. But those ingredients by themselves are not enough. It’s what the game-makers
do with them that counts. Great worldbuilding only takes you so far. A great
story will make the difference between a fun game and a memorable one.
What I have
heard about Witcher 3, though, is
that it is said to have thirty-six different ending variations. The one you get
depends on the choices you make in the game. So I guess if I’m not happy with
the ending, I’ll only have myself to blame . . .
Marc
Turner was born in Canada, but grew up in England. His first epic fantasy novel,
When
the Heavens Fall, is published by Tor in
the US and Titan in the UK. You can see a video trailer for the book here
and read a short story set in the world of the novel here. The short story has also been narrated by
Emma Newman of Tea and Jeopardy fame, and you can listen to it free here. Marc can be found on Twitter at @MarcJTurner
and at his website.
