Its proper tutorial offered a far better introduction to the game, and additional content sprinkled throughout the rest. The Enhanced Edition went a long way to fixing these issues of course, and hurrah for that. To Witcher fans, I'm aware that complaining of things like, say, not knowing the strategic importance of the Pontar valley or the nature of dragons and magic in this world is as petty as sitting down in front of a Star Wars game and going 'What's this Force thing everyone keeps talking about? Darth WHO?' Going in cold though, just basic things like whether or not the struggle over the Pontar Valley is actually important is easily missed, to say nothing of all the factions whose schemes were often either lost or seemingly dropped depending on the paths chosen in the game.

This was also the case in the original Witcher, but that game was far more aimed at existing fans than the sequel, which shot for a far bigger audience. This also badly affected much of the story, which simply assumed that everyone playing would have at least a decent understanding of the world and characters and mechanics. Codexes are for players looking to dig into lore, not for devs to avoid presenting it properly. Assuming knowledge of the world geography and kingdoms, or where it was present, burying it in a boring codex. Poor conveyance of mechanics during the boss fights, most notably the appalling Kayran encounter early on. Not taking any time to explain the magical Signs properly before dumping the player into an extremely tough fight. Incorrect map locations for instance, which could only be missed if everyone was running to where they knew the thing actually was. My first hint of this was at a preview event, where the producer was running around telling everyone to use the medallion to find secrets, but when asked what the hint was that there was something to find, falling back on (paraphrase) 'Because I just told you.' Sitting down in front of the full game, it quickly became obvious that too much of it had been built like that. If The Witcher 2 had one fatal flaw, it was that it very obviously didn't get enough fresh eyes on it during the later stages of development. This is really more looking at issues to hope won't be repeated by The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, allowing it to be all we want it to be.

The game was awesome, and many of the balls it dropped to the ground were at least pretty well gathered up by the Enhanced Edition. While this will inherently be negative, it's not to bash the game. Where did things go wrong? Before we start, a clarification. So, last time we looked at The Witcher 2 in all its glory.

The witcher 2 tutorial