#The witcher 2 enhanced edition Pc

Wandering through the undergrowth between Flotsam’s towering trees remains an utterly captivating experience, a little taste of the work CD Projekt would go on to do in The Witcher 3. But the game’s grubby gem remains Flotsam, the muddy, murky trading post surrounded by a lush, ancient forest. The sight of the hundreds of tents sweeping into the distance is utterly breathtaking. At the game’s outset, you step outside of Triss Merigold’s tent into an an enormous army camp besieging a nearby castle. Playing The Witcher 2 in 2020 at 4K resolution with Ubersampling maxed out, it stands up brilliantly, visually speaking.

#The witcher 2 enhanced edition Pc

Like the recent PC port of Red Dead Redemption 2, The Witcher 2’s highest settings were meant only for absolute top-end PCs. In fact, the studio’s refusal to compromise on pushing the envelope actually got the game accused of performing poorly on PCs when it first released. Their new RED Engine was state-of-the-art stuff, with cutting-edge lighting tech, unprecedented detail on character models (including some wonderfully ridiculous medieval outfits), and ultra-high-end graphics settings like its infamous Ubersampling. CD Projekt did remarkable work future-proofing this second title. This effect works in large part because, nine years on, The Witcher 2 remains an incredible looking game. Now, I like the original Witcher, as I spent several articles explaining, but going from The Witcher to The Witcher 2 is like falling asleep in Bolton and waking up in Athens. All you need do is play the first Witcher and then play the second one right after it, which is what I did. It’s possible to rekindle that wow factor. It offered complex characters, a brilliantly imagined world, and some of the most dramatic storytelling choices yet seen in a role-playing game.

The third game in particular casts such an enormous, industry-defining shadow that it can be hard to recall the impact Assassins of Kings itself made when it first launched back in 2011.Īt that time, The Witcher 2 was also one of the best RPGs ever made, a visually stunning, narratively rich, and generally absorbing adventure. However, between the fascinating wonk of The Witcher and the brain-exploding brilliance of The Witcher 3, the second game isn’t always remembered in the way it perhaps deserves. It would be absurd to describe The Witcher 2 as CD Projekt’s “forgotten” game.