The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is only two months away from release, and some very interesting gameplay details have been revealed by German magazine Gamestar. The Gamestar staff were able to play for two days without any limitations.

• since the January press hands-on, CD Projekt heavily enhanced the combat. It’s extremely fluid and accurate now with a gamepad, though mouse and keyboard still feels a bit squishy (but CD Project Red promised to correct it before release)
• switching from a gamepad to a mouse automatically changed the on-screen display
• difficulties (easy, normal, hard, dark) are always changeable. The difficulty changes the enemy intelligence (for example monsters evade less often on the lower difficulties), but not the hitpoints
• there’s a lot of customization, including the deactivation of quest-markers and points of interest markers. You can even experience Geralt’s adventure completely without any on-screen display
• bargaining with people about monster- hunting rewards will be done in a minigame. There will be a separate window, in which you type the gold you want. At the same time you can see how angry the npc is; if you overdo it he/she will cancel the negotiation and you have to accept the minimum reward
• Kaer Morhen and surroundings are about as big as the prologue area (4-5 hours of gameplay)
• horse items: saddlebag (more space), blinders (less chance to be dropped off the horse), sattle (for the horse stamina)
• heavy usage of the surroundings. An enemy with a skull symbol (too difficult to fight) was dispatched thanks to a nearby hive; the player shot it with the crossbow-> the bees attacked the enemy and he run off
• Geralt can blow down bottles, break fences or even make blinds swing with his aard sign
• the boat has a damage-model (didn’t say anything about if it’s visual)
• many choices with huge consequences
• players will spend between 5-10 hours playing Ciri (no character development while playing her, whole focus on the story)
• Ciri can blink. There will be even more powerful abilities later
• there will be 5-6 smaller, more linear regions during the story; they are very different visually
• only three bugs during these 2 days

Ciri's segments are more action oriented than Geralt's in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

During a recent livestream, the Gamestar staff answered questions, from which members of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt forums have compiled most of the useful information.

• you cannot enter every house in Novigrad but it’s cleverly masked if you can’t enter one
• no button for opening doors anymore, all doors are swinging doors
• extremely lively interiors, every interior tells a different story
• fluid gameplay on 1080p with everything on maximum +nvidia hairworks on GTX 980 -> looks insanely good for an open world game
• two big cities with Novigrad and Oxenfurt (which is really big as well)
• there are towns in the game of the same size of Flotsam
• cities have a realistic eco-system and surroundings with real suburb parts in which craftsmen are located, like in medieval times
• last active skill-slot at level 50, level cap could be even higher
• diving is still not optimal in terms of controls, but you can dive everywhere
• it’s still too easy to rob people, robbing system in general is lacking
• whole game is consequently open world so pacing could be difficult for some
• passages with Ciri are like a linear action-adventure, not like a RPG, plays differently and more action-fueled than Geralt’s passages
• side quests are great and each tells its own story with people actually reacting to Geralt
• sound and subtitles can be combined freely from different available languages
• there will definitely be a day-one patch
• high-grade of visual violence with dismemberments with a higher gore-level than TW1 or TW2, but still feels organic and consistent
• items can be crafted and decomposed
• best items in-game must be crafted
• Novigrad and No Man’s Land are connected and they are much bigger than Skyrim. Only loading time happens between main land and Skellige
• game world can change based on your decisions
• there was indeed no slider or adjustment option for the draw distance/LOD but according to the journalist he was happy with it
• there is the cleverly constructed illusion of a realistic world but traveling is never boring and there is always something to discover
• even if you disable markers for quest givers on the map the game gives you audio-visual hints like people screaming for help
• the journalist never had the feeling that the world is “empty”
• no sudden changes of environments (e.g. desert to humid regions), organic and consistent world
• “sandbox elements” and random stuff is limited, so no fights of townpeople against dragons like in Skyrim, you can only influence the world to a certain level
• as far as the journalist has experienced it there will be little to no enemy respawning, enemies haven’t returned during his two days in the game
• the game is open world but actually almost everything is “controlled” and “planned” by the developers
• many things are commented by Geralt e.g. when he tracks down leads with the Witcher senses
• mutagens can be very powerful, like 40% damage enhancer for signs
• very different enemy types that feel and play differently
• no “clone” NPCs, every NPC in Novigrad for example looks differently
• every potion and bomb must only brewed/crafted once
• potions have different quality levels, can be improved, e.g. Swallow can offer more healing and more slots
• crafting is extensive; you can for example increase the inventory limitations of your horse by crafting bigger saddle bags, but you must actually go to your horse to be able to have access to these bags
• every region has its own color setting and feel
• clouds cast real-time shadows
• bad weather like storms can happen everywhere
• game loading time is extremely short on the high-end PC used for the test
• some huge buildings and story-relevant special areas have loading times, normal buildings do not

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt provides smooth performance at 1080p with everything maxed out on a GTX 980

There is indeed some very interesting information revealed from the folks over at Gamerstar. Most notable are that Novigrad and No Man’s Land are connected and they are much bigger than Skyrim. Only loading time happens between main land and Skellige, no loading when opening doors either, as all doors in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, are swinging doors and require no button press. Fluid performance on 1080p with everything on maximum +nvidia hairworks on GTX 980. Said to look insanely good for an open world game. Playing as Ciri is more like a linear action-adventure, not like a RPG, plays differently and more action-fueled than Geralt’s segments.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will release on May 19, 2015 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. We will bring you any new information on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as soon as it becomes available.

You can read more on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in our previous coverage, here and here.