No Gwent, traveling to Night City and Fallout mechanics: early version of The Witcher 3 dismantled by datamineers

Modders have found a database with The Witcher 3 development texts that reveals an alternative version of the legendary game.

A group of modders released the first volume of the project What Lies Unseen is a 584-page book about the history of The Witcher 3. It tells about an early version of the game in 2012, which was planned to be three times longer than the final version. YouTuber xLetalis made a three-hour video analyzing all the findings.

Here are the main changes and surprises of The Witcher 3 (2012):

• The game was subtitled «A Time of Sword and Axe» instead of «Wild Hunt.
• The Witcher 3 had a targeting system similar to VATS from Fallout, which allowed you to target the weak points of monsters.
• There was a lot more traveling between Velen, Skellig, and Novigrad, and the stories of the characters that took place in one region in the final game were set in the entire game world over several acts in the first version.
• The player’s choice between Yennifer or Triss would mean that the other wizard would be absent in the last third of the game.
• Jorveth from The Witcher 2 appeared and played an important role.
• Novigrad had a multi-stage loot quest that required allies, as did the siege of Caer Morin.
• The story of the Blood Baron was very different and lasted until the late game.
• The endings were much more ambiguous and melancholy.
• In one quest, Geralt and Avallax teleported to Knight City from Cyberpunk 2077.
• There was no Gwent in the game, but arm wrestling and dice from the first and second «Witches» returned.

The quest about a serial killer in Novigrad was supposed to reveal the existence of a secret vampire society similar to Vampire: The Masquerade. Shani from the first «The Witcher» was supposed to help in the investigation. These ideas were later used in additional content.

The reason for the content reduction is obvious: even the final version of The Witcher 3 has a reputation for being a difficult game to complete. A version with a 150-hour main story (a rough estimate by datamineers) would have been too burdensome for players and developers.

According to the researchers, until now, the community has only gleaned information about the game’s development from interviews and incomplete data leaks.

As a reminder, modders recently found the cut ending of The Witcher 3, where Yennifer betrays the sorceresses.

Source: PCgamer