The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review

The structural swing here has never really been repeated. At the end of the first act you side with one of two figures, and the entire second chapter changes: a different city, a different cast, different quests and a different view of the same conspiracy. It is an enormous amount of content most players will never see, and the studio built it anyway, which tells you what they were about at this point. Combat became a genuine action system with dodging, signs and preparation, and it is punishing early in a way that filtered a lot of people out before it clicked.

The engine was built in house and the results were startling, with a forest and a siege that were among the best looking things on a computer that year. Politics drive everything, with kingmakers, spies and an assassination plot that treats its factions as having real interests. The launch was rough, the interface asks a lot, and the final act visibly compresses. As a leap from a clumsy debut it is one of the largest any studio has ever made.