The Witcher 4 director wants tough choices in RPGs, “even if the emotion in the end is sadness,” because “we want players to feel rewarded”
The Witcher 4 director wants tough choices in RPGs, “even if the emotion in the end is sadness,” because “we want players to feel rewarded”
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I’ll take feeling sadness and grief over feeling nothing at all for 50+ hours in Bethesda and Ubisoft games
There are four things I trust will come true in a CDPR game:
– a great story with satisfying choices and consequences
– relatable characters who I care about
– an amazing soundtrack that I’m always humming
– the need of a lot of patches after release
My life is already filled with enough tough choices and sadness
Sadness and tough choices are what give a story character and depth. Wish more games followed suit.
Hope they dont make it like dark souls where everyone dies. Oh and the only way to get that cool talisman you want is to kill the poor npc who didn’t cross you.
I prefer more games like this tbh
I don’t feel alive unless I’m being emotionally devastated by fiction so bring it on.
That’s stupid, I prefer choices and dialogue trees that ultimately don’t matter and leads the same path.
Spoilers for Clair Obscur
>!The ending choice is the perfect example of a hard decision to make in an rpg that ultimately ends the epic story in a sad but rewarding way. The only real choice in the game and it contextualizes the entire journey and narrative.!<
Dude just finished an expedition
I’ll believe it when I see it
One of my favorite choices in a game is the end of the Bloody Baron’s questline in the Witcher 3. Simply because both choices are morally gray. It’s not a decision of good vs evil, it’s a decision of what you consider to be the “lesser evil”.
I guess it was supposed to be sad, but i loved throwing Gale to the Nether Brain in BG3.
As long as it hits your emotions in some way it’s good. Played Rogue Trader and most of the choices had some negative consequences but it got me really invested.
Oh now that Expedition, Baulders Gate, and Mass Effect previously did it, all of a sudden, everyone wants to.
I love tough choices in games. Except where the consequences seem random and unpredictable. E.g.
Do you want to a) kick the puppy or b) feed the puppy?
B! BBBBBBBBB!
You chose to feed the puppy… to the grizzly bear.
[me, sitting there in shock. Lip quivering]
I just hope performance wont be dogshit and visuals blurry like with 99% of all UE5 games
Clair Obscur does this and it’s wildly successful.
My toughest choices in the Witcher games boil down to which sword am I going to use to stab things with.
I definitely felt quite sad when my decisions ended up with me having to kill Kiera(?) in Witcher 3.
I had to fight myself to not save scum
This should’ve been the standard in RPGs a long time ago.
When I finished Expedition 33 I was mentally drained, that’s what I want from an RPG. Make me cry if you can, CDPR.
Been playing Clair Obscur recently and some of the stuff in the game is absolutely crushing and things are so much more… grey rather than black and white, if that makes sense? But because it fits the context and the world it just adds depth and nuance to the world. Sort of creates peaks and valleys in the script that pull you in.
Big games often adopt the generic Hollywood writing that is very bland and inoffensive so im glad to see more big games are going in a different direction.
I feel like this comment doesn’t make sense when we’re playing as Ciri in the Witcher 4 while possible player choices from The Witcher 3 could’ve literally killed off Ciri. No hate from me with Ciri as the MC, this comment just doesn’t vibe with me
I don’t want every choice to feel good. I want it to feel right, even if it sucks. That’s what made Witcher 3 hit different. You chose who died, and then had to live with it. Not everything needs a gold star and a happy cutscene.
Sure, but if your idea of “tough choices” is a fucking snowball fight like in 3, you can fuck right off lol.
For those unaware, witcher 3’s ending was based on like 6 dialog choices made mostly throughout the second half of the game. They didn’t seem very consequential at the time, and the game never indicated they were important.
Many people, myself included, made the “wrong” choices without even realizing it, and got the bad ending despite doing all the side quests and saving countless people. And you can’t really go back and redo it without replaying the last 20-40 hours.
Again, I’m fine with tough choices, but don’t do some rugpull bullshit like “oh the most important choices were whether or not you adhered to our definition of what a good parent is, nothing else you did matters actually”.
IMO, fallout New Vegas is still the gold standard for your choices mattering and having an impact on the end.
They definitely made me feel something with that depressing as fuck ending they added to CP2077 with phantom liberty.
Yes, please.
I was very bummed with the fact that Final Fantasy 7 Remake series is trying as hard as they can to prevent players from feeling bad. The tragedies from the OG feel way less tragic – whether is because every character in sector 7 survive something that was supposed to kill them, dead characters appear alive, or a very important death is not shown on screen. It’s not a happy game, so why is the sadness being filtered?
I thought maybe I was to blame, maybe I’m too old to feel stuff playing videogames?
Then I played Expedition 33 and it made me sure of the obvious: It’s notmy fault, it’s just that if you’re playing a game with a tragic story, you need to feel the tragedy, not have it filtered.
Good art isn’t afraid to make you feel negative emotions.