The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an utterly impressive RPG that wowed us at E3. We awarded Geralt’s final journey with our E3 2013 Best RPG award, but I couldn’t help but think past the next-gen demo and wonder how the game would look running on PS Vita with Remote Play.
In an exclusive post-E3 interview, I asked The Witcher 3 game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz how CD Projekt RED’s next-gen RPG would play on Sony’s fledgling handheld. What kind of control challenges does his studio face when thinking about PS Vita compatibility? "Everything is a question of the design philosophy you adopt during the early phase of the preproduction process," he said. "We designed The Witcher 3 to be a very streamlined experience as far as control and the interface go. Remember that interface differences are not only the case for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita–as a multi-platform developer we also need to take into account the differences between all the platforms."
"This means we need to introduce solutions that are flexible and universal so the game runs smoothly and provides a similar experience on all platforms, including the Vita."
Tomaszkiewicz added that, because features are still being added to the game, the console control scheme is still being hammered out. "Our first and main objective is to lock the final control scheme on the PlayStation 4 itself," he said. "Only when this is done can we provide support for alternative control modes later on. Since we’re still adding functionality to the game and testing the friendliness of our control schemes, we can’t say much about the Vita yet."
For more on CD Projekt RED’s ambitious next-gen RPG, stay glued to PSU.com for Witcher Week and my full interview with game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz.
It’s Witcher Week on PSU.com! Check out our hub article for exclusive stories and our The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt game gallery for videos, screenshots, news, and more.
Kyle Prahl is a PSU Managing Editor and Communication Studies major at the University of Minnesota. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook.