Senior producer Tomasz Gop of
The Witcher 2 CD Projekt RED says that
Heavy Rain was a positive influence and
Mass Effect 2 a negative one in developing the RPG sequel.
"I thought the sex in
Heavy Rain was something that fit the game," says Gop
in a new Gamasutra feature interview. "It wasn't, like, for 14-year-old people who want to see naked women. It was a story of two people getting together."
He says that the Quantic Dream title has influenced the direction the team has taken its romantic interactions in the upcoming RPG. "That was one of the things that inspired us to change the presentational aspect of sex in
The Witcher 2. You don't have collectible cards anymore, basically. It's more story-driven, cinematic."
However, the team was less impressed by the obviousness of the moral compass afforded by
Mass Effect 2's dialogue system. "[
Mass Effect 2's dialogue system] was good and interesting, but we don't do what they do in
Mass Effect where they suggest to you which one is good and which one is bad."
"The main principle is that you don't think about [morality] when you're making a choice in the game. It's a matter of whether the game wants you to recognize that you're good or you're bad, or if it just wants you to think about what you should do if you were the Witcher," says Gop.
The
Witcher universe, named for its title character, is based on a series of Polish novels by Andrzej Sapkowski. "We don't have a generic fantasy world, which is great," says Gop, who says Sapkowski's vision informed the game's more ambiguous morality system.
How does it shake down? Says Gop, "It means that all of these choices have consequences, but they're not based on whether you're good or bad."
The full feature-length interview on
The Witcher 2 is
live now on Gamasutra.
