The Witcher 3's story director says an ideal quest is 'constructed in such a way that the player puts the controller away, stands up, and starts walking'
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"Then [the player] goes back, and then the player picks one of the choices."
The Witcher 3, being one of the best RPGs of its era, naturally has a lot of very good quests—quests with weighty, significant choices that give you pause to think. In speaking with PC Gamer's Joshua Wolens, story director Marcin Blacha says that pause is a sign that he and his team have done something right in a story choice.
"First of all, the choice has to make you think," Blacha says, "So it cannot be obvious. You cannot simply go after one of the choices by simply pressing A all the time, so that's the first thing. Second of all, in addition to having this balance, it needs to have its own gravitas. It must be serious. It must make you think about either life or humans or this particular problem or the difficulties that the characters may have right now.
"I always repeat that when you have a really big choice in The Witcher 3, it must be constructed in such a way that the player puts the controller away, stands up, and starts walking, thinking about the choice, and then goes back, and then the player picks one of the choices."
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Which tracks—when I think back to the most impactful choices of the RPGs I've played, there's usually at least been a jarring, 'sit back and think' moment that's knocked me back into my chair, if not off it entirely:
"So it is about thinking," Blacha continues. "It is about making the player immersed into the game and the problems that characters have, but also saying something about either who we are or how the world works, or how difficult life can sometimes be."
In regards to the upcoming DLC, Songs of the Past, and whether it'll have any hard choices to make? "Obviously. I mean, we are not trying to avoid difficult choices, and we are not avoiding making players uncomfortable. So I can promise that you will have both in Songs of the Past, and sometimes you will regret [your choice] and you will need to load the game to repeat your choice."
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