What brings Geralt out of retirement for The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past? The last time we saw The White Wolf, at the end of Blood & Wine, he was preparing to settle down for his retirement in Toussaint. Now, he's been dragged to a whole new corner of the continent for a new expansion that CD Projekt Red says will rival The Witcher 3's original two. The catalyst, as with many of Geralt's (mis)adventures, is his chaotic friendship with Dandelion
Specifically in Songs of the Past, however, that's Dandelion in his role Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove. At the start of my hands-off demo, Geralt has traveled to his friend's noble seat in Letten. Waking up after a wild night of partying to celebrate the Belleteyn, it's immediately clear that something is wrong. Dandelion is missing, he's lost his flute, and a threatening dream suggests to Geralt that this is no ordinary hangover.
Heading to Dandelion's family estate for breakfast, Geralt's fears for his friend are founded further by a heated conversation between his grandmother, and Dandelion's cousin, Lilla. She links Dandelion's absence with the details from Geralt's dream, pointing directly towards the mysterious Garden of Thorns and a scandal that engulfed a distant ancestor, and it's not long before Lilla and Geralt are riding off in search of Dandelion.
Developer: In-house, Fool's TheoryPublisher: CD Projekt RedPlatform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch 2Release date: 2027
In this scripted demo, there's relatively little chance to explore Letten itself, but lead level designer Miles Tost says it's a "fully realized open-world which you can explore freely". It's similar in scale to Blood & Wine, and there's a comparably dreamy, fairytale feeling to this new region to what we saw in Toussaint. At the same time, Tost says that there's a desire to bring this 11-year-old game into a more modern era. The new features that are launching with The Witcher 3 Remastered are most keenly seen in combat, but Letten also looks better than I remember the base game looking, with improved lighting and vastly denser environments bringing its villages to life even as you gallop through them.
That vibrancy is something The Witcher 3 has always done well, but it's clear CDPR has pushed it further here. Tost suggests that NPCs have more detailed routines and more dialogue. The world around Letten is teeming with the stories of the night before as Geralt rides Roach through its lakeside villages, inspired this time by the countryside of England and southern Poland. As the fog rises slowly off the lake and the sunlight diffuses gently through it as partygoers drag themselves back to their daily lives, Songs of the Past harks back to The Witcher 3's greatest strengths while bringing it forward into a new era.
That's felt later on too, as Geralt's monster-slaying silver sword is put to work. In the Garden of Thorns, it's very little time before the local flora and fauna turn against the new arrivals. All three fights I'm shown in Songs of the Past offer something fresh – even the one enemy type that's reminiscent of a Drowner or Nekker has a signature mechanic that requires Geralt to work around its core identity. Thankfully, Geralt has some new moves of his own. Some are subtle – improved combat animations and camera angles let his signature pirouette-style swordplay shine through while helping combat flow a little more naturally. Others are baked into the wider game – an overhauled upgrade system is now far more like an actual skill tree than a linear upgrade path.
Others still are new toys entirely. Geralt's chain – a nod to his very first adventure in the books and a mechanic cut from The Witcher 1 – is an alternative to the base game's crossbows. Flinging it out towards enemies drags them towards Geralt, closing gaps against ranged foes or, in this instance, dragging them out of their defenses to quickly dispatch them.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/the-witcher/the-witcher-3-songs-of-the-past-takes-the-best-of-cdprs-rpg-and-pushes-it-further-in-geralts-new-final-chapter/
