Is The Witcher 1 Open World?
The Witcher is a franchise of novels and short stories written by the author Andrzej Sapkowski. The Witcher novels have been adapted into video games. The Witcher video games have been praised for their atmosphere, meaningful choices, immersive gameplay and deep storyline. Most of the video games of The Witcher franchise are role-playing games (RPGs), in which the player is able to control Geralt of Rivia, the main character of The Witcher novels. The first The Witcher video game, The Witcher (2007), was developed by CD Projekt Red and by CD Projekt, and was published by Atari and by CD Projekt. The Witcher (2007), often referred to as The Witcher 1, is an RPG in which the player character, Geralt, is able to accept and complete quests, fight monsters, talk to various NPCs (non-player characters) and adventure in the world of The Witcher video games. Considering that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an open world video game, RPG players and The Witcher fans may wonder whether The Witcher 1 is also an open world video game, and how would its game world compare to the game world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
The Witcher 1 is not an open world video game because there are loading screens between its enviroments, and some locations are locked during certain moments. However, its environments are quite large.
The Environments of The Witcher 1
The Witcher (2007), or The Witcher 1, features a variety of environments, including interior and exterior environments. The Witcher 1 also features large environments, such as cities and outskirts. Due to the large environments of The Witcher 1 and its hub world design, some players describe it as an open world video game. However, The Witcher 1 game world is similar to the game world of other RPGs of the late 2000s, such as Mass Effect (2007) and Dragon Age: Origins (2009). While these video games allow the player character to travel to different locations, most location changes involve loading screens, and the environments of these video games often have several barriers. Moreover, certain environments of The Witcher 1 are only accessible during certain chapters of the video game, and the player character may not be able to go back to previous locations after the story has progressed to certain points.
The Hub World of The Witcher 1
While The Witcher 1 is not a linear game, in the sense of video game that can only be played in a certain way, The Witcher 1 does not feature an open world sandbox environment such as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt or classic open world video games such as Grand Theft Auto V (2013). Classic open world video games often feature a sandbox environment, in which as long as the main character is not participating in a main story mission of the video game, the character is able to adventure in the open game world, with freedom of movement in expansive environments. This type of gameplay is seen in many classic open world franchises, such as Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Grand Theft Auto, Just Cause, Red Dead, Saints Row, Watch Dogs, among others. In the video games of these franchises, while there are main story missions and side story missions that can be completed, as well as collectibles, the main character is able to adventure in the open game world, and in most cases there are no loading screens between different locations. This is different from The Witcher (2007), or The Witcher 1, and most of the other single player RPGs released during the late 2000s, such as Mass Effect (2007) and Dragon Age: Origins (2009).
Hub World vs Open World
There are players who describe hub world design as open world. There are franchises of single player RPGs with various video games with hub world design, such as Deus Ex and Dragon Age. While the hub world design can be considered open world if compared to linear design, video games that feature hub world design often feature a very different gameplay from classic open world video games such as Grand Theft Auto III (2001), The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (2011), The Witcher: Wild Hunt (2015), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017), Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), among others. Traditional open world video games typically include a day and night cycle, weather effects, abscence of loading screens, among other characteristics. While The Witcher (2007) features a day and night cycle and weather effects, considering that it features loading screens between different environments and that a considerable amount of locations is locked after the story of the video game is progressed, it may be considered a hub world video game, but its description as open world video game is disputable if open world video games are considered video games with a gameplay similar to Assassin's Creed, GTA, Just Cause, and other classic open world video games, such as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015).
Not Open World, and Not Linear Either
While The Witcher (2007), or The Witcher 1, may not be considered open world in the same sense as video games as Grand Theft Auto V (2013) and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015), it is not a linear video game either. The Witcher 1 features large and immersive environments, with multiple NPCs and enemies, different quests, including main story quests and side quests, as well as atmospheric effects such as day and night cycle and weather effects. Moreover, while The Witcher 1 is not open world such as classic open world video games, it allows the player character to travel between some locations, which is why it is accurately described as a video game with a hub world design. In the aspect of gameplay, The Witcher 1 is not a linear video game, due to the effect that this video game allows players to choose different ways of solving quests. Quite often in The Witcher (2007), Geralt is able to resolve situations through one of multiple choices, with considerably different outcomes. For this reason, The Witcher 1 may not be an open world video game, and it is not a linear video game either.
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