This is the second article in the new "GAMING" vertical on my blog. For those of you who are curious as to why I added a new vertical and why it is about gaming, check out the first article here.

In my last article, "Why The Witcher 3 Still Rules," I set out to give an overview of the game and share its origins with both the gaming-curious and fellow devoted fans like myself. This time, I’ll be zooming in on specific aspects of the game. For this one, we’ll dive deeper into one of my favorite elements: its world-building and environment design.

When looking at the world of The Witcher 3, we need to consider three essential parts: Level design, environmental design, and open-world design. To clarify, level design refers to how individual play spaces, such as quests, are architected and structured for gameplay. When it comes to environmental design, we are referring to how the environment is shaped visually, through sound, atmosphere, and ecology, encompassing all elements that shape the mood and sense of place. As for the open world design in games, we speak about the overarching structure that allows players unrestricted access to explore the virtual world in its totality. It adds to the freedom of the player and, in this case, the narrative that is being built around Geralt, the main character.

We have the fundamentals down for this article, so let's head right into it!

The Witcher, also known as Geralt of Rivia, roams The Continent, a fictional world that needs saving from monsters, creatures that threaten the lives of humans and often emerge from parallel and magic-infused worlds. The Continent is designed as an open world that can be explored freely by the player (with a few loading screens in between) and consists of very different locations, from entire and vast regions to enclosed environments such as a palace, cave, or even the sewers of a city.

Constructing an open-world game is an undertaking, to say the least. For game design teams, it often means to divide and conquer. Not only does it introduce technical challenges, but it is also about consistency and creating a world for the player that feels authentic for an ongoing narrative, yet playable. When it comes to gameplay, the designer needs to factor in that players may not go with the intended initial quest line but instead play in a non-linear format. I was wildly impressed with The Witcher 3 when I discovered that the game designers added functionality that would recognize within a pre-programmed dialogue (cut scenes) that I had already annihilated a specific monster and received the cash for the contract without having to engage in a second conversation with the contract giver. That was a beautiful experience and a very rare one.

Another essential element of open world design is that no place can feel empty, or to put it differently, the world needs to be balanced. This refers as much to wildlife and day/night cycles as it does to loot (objects you can find and take into your possession) and NPC (non-playable characters that populate the environment) routines. Distances can neither be too short nor too long. While a player can use Roach, Geralt's horse, and later on a boat to move across The Continent, too close can feel too overwhelming, while too far can feel boring, and players might lose interest in exploring "on foot." While the world is open, discovery needs to feel meaningful to the player, or as Miles Tost put it:

“Players should feel like they’re discovering secrets, not that secrets are being handed to them. The art of open world design is letting players own the story.”
-- Miles Tost, Senior Level Designer, CD Projekt Red

Throughout The Witcher 3, we are introduced successively to a variety of regions. All of them are unique in their own way, yet remarkably consistent when it comes to shaping Geralt's world in its entirety:

• Velen (No Man's Land)
  Velen is a vast stretch of infertile lands depicted as bleak and muddy as possible. Battered and burned villages, as well as wandering refugees, thanks to the Nilfgaardian occupation, accompany the player every step of their way. The first landmark players see in the game is the Hanged Man's Tree, which conveys this emotional backdrop at first glance. Details such as usually overcast skies and ambient sounds of howling winds and crows deepen the oppressive tone. The original inspiration came from rural Poland.

  

• The City State of Novigrad
  Novigrad is a sprawling, teeming city-state inspired by the medieval trade hubs of Amsterdam, with a touch of Venice, thanks to its merchants and labyrinthine alleys. While Novigrad is both cosmopolitan, it is also rife with religious fanaticism, crime, and political machinations. While the city feels consistent, part of the consistency comes from the different layered districts (slums, merchant quarters, aristocratic mansions, etc.). The sound design and NPC routines add to the rich and dense narrative.

  

According to the environment and level designers of CD Projekt Red, it was their first open-world game design. They felt quite overwhelmed at first and decided to use a 2D map to position various symbols with Photoshop to mark different locations/events such as bandit camps, monster spawners, treasures, villages, etc.

To balance the distance, they did test runs to ensure main roads would connect well with side streets and gameplay elements. They ended up with what Bartoz von Ochman (Living World Design) describes as a "40-second rule," indicating that the player should see something move about every 40 seconds. This can be wildlife, a campfire, or merely soldiers going about their way.

Needless to say, the density of Novigrad city led to technical hurdles (see video taken below), and a high degree of optimization was necessary to pull it off. Optimization in game design can happen on various ends, and I believe I have observed all of them in The Witcher 3:

• A classic is the reuse and modular design of 3D assets, think boxes, barrels, house fronts, and even rock formations. What was used as a wooden plank on the docks can be reutilized for a fence in a poor neighborhood or roofing in the slums.

• Another element is LODs (Level of Detail), where meshes and their resolution are introduced gradually to the player. Distant buildings and decorations are rendered as simpler models with lower mesh resolution, seamlessly swapping for high-detail versions as players approach.

• In the same category are the draw distances, which were carefully tuned per asset, meaning that rooftops, signs, and market stalls faded in or out depending on the player's position, helping control rendering load times.

• Texture optimizations can significantly enhance gameplay, which led The Witcher 3 team to utilize texture arrays for Novigrad. This technique allowed them to minimize individual texture use and instead, many objects shared visual data.

• While Novigrad is brimming with NPCs and their unique routines, the dedicated design team built in functions that would trigger those only in the player's direct vicinity, minimizing the number of simultaneous simulations.

While I enjoyed each and every area of the map for its own unique right to exist, I draw a personal favorite here: The duchy of Toussaint. Toussaint is a sun-drenched gem on The Witcher 3 map, with golden vineyards, pastel-painted villages, and mist-kissed mountain ranges. The atmosphere is filled with music, spring blossoms, and celebrations. It's a beautiful and lighter addition to the core game map and is worth every minute played.

While the core game plays within Geralt's "real" world, the expansion packs of The Witcher 3 lead into invented ones. Well, to be precise, also in Geralt's world, we leave The Continent for several parallel worlds when on the "Through Time and Space" quest with Avallac'h, but the expansion pack ones work very differently and have been specifically designed for their individual narrative.

In "Hearts of Stone," the player is pulled into a haunting "Painted World" as part of the main quest line called "Scenes from a Marriage." It is a surreal yet nostalgic manifestation of one of the main character's (Iris van Everec) memories and emotions. What makes this world so appealing, even though the quest is quite saddening, is the visual translation into muted and brushstroke textures, reminiscent of a faded oil painting. Fun fact is that this painted environment is not part of the open world architecture and can only be visited once. I would assume the reason for this is performance (and narrative), as many different effects had to be layered to get to the final result.

Another illustrious world is introduced to players with the "Blood and Wine" expansion pack, playing in Toussaint. During the "Beyond Hill and Dale..." quest line, Geralt enters a magical fairytale play world through a book. The young duchesse and her estranged sister used to play in this magically conjured world when they were children. Players learn fast that this world of fables comes with unique twists and a healthy sense of humor. In contrast to Toussaint, this world uses exaggerated colors and surreal lighting. At the same time, the environment is often rendered in cartoonish, out-of-proportion scales, such as oversized mushrooms and exaggerated building structures. Fun fact around this mini world is that many novel elements had to be introduced to give it its whimsical and uncanny feeling. Part of those adaptations concerned monster designs, NPC behavior/routines, and the rules of physics. Similar to the other world within world design, this one can only be accessed once and is not part of the open world architecture.

When I was working on this article, I already had a good amount of previous knowledge on The Witcher 3. Nonetheless, I figured I should go the extra mile for you. I am linking some of the fantastic resources I came across here so you can crack down on the details. These will provide further insights specifically for people who are interested in game design:

• "Designing The World of The Witcher 3" by /noclip - A crowdfunded documentary on the world-building of The Witcher 3.

• "Why Does The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Environment Art Look Like This?" by EMC3D - Game Art - A dedicated video solely on the artwork, resolution of meshes, and all the technical juciness of the game.

• Building breakdown by Maciej Caputa, Senior Environment Artist at CD Projekt

• "The World Of The Witcher: Map & Geography | The Witcher History & Lore" by World of Westeros - A detailed review of The Continent.

• "A Civil Engineer Explains Why The Witcher 3’s World Feels Alive" by Jaspher Vergara - A unique review of the buildings and infrastructure in The Witcher 3.

• "Video Game Cities Are Weird" by Razbuten - Great comparison on how fellow video game cities feel off while Novigrad feels quite right.

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I hope you enjoyed our first deep-dive in my new GAMING vertical as much as I did. The goal here is to inspire some of you to play the game and others to keep optimizing their game design/development journey. Learning from the struggles or solutions of others can be a helpful addition to learning the technical basics. Eventually, I will be linking the entire series in every article. Here is the overview:

• Why The Witcher 3 Still Rules - From Epic Acts Of Heroism To Moral Challenges

• Crafting The Continent - The Creative World-Building Of The Witcher 3

• Witcher 3 Character Builds - For Players Who Love The Lore

• Fashioning Geralt of Rivia - Decoding The Witcher School Outfits & Gear

Let me know if you want me to look at a specific game in the future. I am definitely open to it and will see you in the next one!

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