The Witcher 3 sold 4 million in two weeks
CD Projekt's RPG series takes its place among the biggest games of 2015
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt sold more than 4 million copies in the two weeks following its launch, making CD Projekt's RPG one of the year's one of the biggest launches.
The Witcher 2 was a popular game, but the sense that The Witcher 3 had found a new level has been growing ever since the unanimously positive reviews first emerged. We already knew that it was the biggest UK launch of the year, beating out Battlefield Hardline by more than 50 per cent, but this is the first clear impression of its performance.
Selling four million units in a fortnight isn't quite on the level of Skyrim, say, but it represents a huge step forward for CD Projekt, the Polish developer that launched the first game in 2007. To put it in context, the first and second Witcher games sold six million units combined by the end of 2013. The Witcher 3 is already 66 per cent of the way there and it's barely a month old.
"Since day one, you have given us tons of positive feedback and support," said Marcin Iwiński, CEO and co-founder of the studio, in an open letter released today. "The sheer volume of emails we've gotten since launch simply congratulating us for our efforts is both epic and heartwarming, and I wish every developer comes to have such a fantastic community.
"In terms of media reception, we're really humbled by the scores the game has received all around the world. With an average of 90+ on every platform, Wild Hunt is our dream coming true."
Edited 3 times. Last edit by John Karageorgiou on 9th June 2015 5:49pm
Bethesda know what an RPG is about, and they do it better than anyone else. Although they need to concentrate more on the richness of the character interaction imo -- Obsidian outshone them with Fallout: New Vegas in this area by a mile.
I also have to disagree with the idea that "the whole premise" of an RPG is creating your own character. Although this helps a lot in making the game last (I have six differen characters in Skyrim) it is not the whole epicenter of an RPG. A lot of classic games like Willow, Phantasy Star, Alundra, Suikoden, Plane Scape Torment or pretty much any Final Fantasy do not have this option and those are referents of how a good RPG is done. The premise on those was the immersion; playing in the darkness of your room until starting to fall asleep because it's 4:00am.
That's how I see it. Still you are not alone there, so I would not be surprised if the modder community releases soon some kind of character editor ;)
Imo, the difference between RPG and action adventure is not whether I get to chose who is the protagonist. Whether you play Skyrim or the Witcher, you are consuming a piece of fantasy entertainment. It is a popular genre regardless of whether you get to decide the looks of the main character or not. The gameplay itself does not change, so why split genres at such an arbitrary distinction?
Personally, being reigned in by the game determining the look, allows the Witcher to do a lot of great things with the story that Skyrim cannot, or could only at the expense of having an exponential growth when it comes to doing quest-variants for all player configurations and a ton of extra voice work and localization.