The Witcher 3: Two Areas Are Over 52 Square Miles by Themselves; 3.5 Times Larger than Skyrim's Map

CD Projekt Red and Umbra Software held a presentation titled “Solving Visibility and Streaming in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with Umbra 3“ at the Game Developers Conference, and it included a very interesting detail on the size of the game's map.

[Snookies12]

Wow, just... Wow...

[Crazyglues]

-You beat me too it...

I was just about to say that, I mean this is crazy big... Wow..

It seems they have spent there time well, I hope this game turns out to be as good as it sounds.

Would really love to have a huge game to sink my teeth into on my PS4. -Something that will last a pretty long time- Like remember when it use to take you a few months to beat a game, not days... LoL
-(or hell these days, it only takes a few hours, to beat the entire campaign)

This though, looks like it will be a really good one.. Can't wait.

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[ZodTheRipper]

They are certainly raising the bar for next gen RPGs ...this generation is going to be breathtakingly amazing =)

[Prime157]

How big is too big?

I think it sounds awesome, but sometimes I think when a game is too big I get unmotivated in single player games, lol

[raWfodog]

I still got Witcher 2 unopened at home, begging me to play. I need to hook up the 360 this weekend and get started on it so I can be ready for this game. It looks to be bestial.

[Thehyph]

Why don't they compare it to Daggerfall instead of Skyrim?

It would be a good way to gauge open world games if they just said what small fraction of Daggerfall's world size they've reached.

[Ashby_JC]

I nice deep RPG is must needed on these new consoles!!

I only played W2 for a short period of time. I liked it.

Im sure I will like this game.

[CJDUNCAN]

To be fair @Zod, CDPR raised the bar on RPGs way before this. I didn't get a chance to play the first Witcher game, but the second one was a masterpiece.

[Pro_TactX]

@stevehyphen

Daggerfall's world is 62 square miles. According to this article, two areas in Witcher 3 equal 52 square miles by themselves. It is reasonable to conclude that the entire world map will be larger than Daggerfall's.

[SilentNegotiator]

Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better. If they don't do anything interesting with 3/4 of the map (and unless they give the game an extra couple years of dev time, they won't), who really cares?

[Patrick_pk44]

But will the whole map be detailed nicely? Skyrim had a lot of useless and non-used space.

[aliengmr]

@Pro_TactX

Umm I'm pretty sure Daggerfall was quite a bit larger than 62 square miles. Like a lot larger.

Daggerfall was like 62,000 square miles.

Just Cause 2 was 400 sq. miles.

So regardless, Witcher 3 isn't even in the same ballpark.

The title is a bit misleading as this was not actually confirmed by CDPR.

[DOMination-]

Yeah the daggerfall map was comparable in size to the uk in real life. Pretty big.

[fenome]

Daggerfalls map was over 62,000 miles squared. Here's a map comparison, it's kind of old though so unfortunately it doesn't have newer titles like GTA V or skyrim on it..

http://i.imgur.com/uBWCz.jp...

[GribbleGrunger]

Twice as big as Skyrim would be mind blowing but 3.5 times bigger ... 3.5 TIMES BIGGER? That's insane.

[Snookies12]

Yeah, and that's not even the whole game. That's just two of the areas in it.

[Abriael]

Gotta consider the fact that Skyrim really wasn't very big. It used a lot of visual tricks to make you FEEL like it was big, but like oblivion, that was mostly illusion.

[GribbleGrunger]

Any news on:

How many main quests
How many side quests
How many errands
How many tasks

... and

How many caves (I love caves)

[Abriael]

They only said 50 hours for the story and 100 for the whole if I'm not wrong.

Speaking of caves, they said at GDC that they created a special tech to have "holes" in the map in order to seamlessly put caves in it.

[whitefang1988]

I just hope the ps4 can handle it, my PC sure can't!

[aliengmr]

Well, lets not jump the gun here. CDPR originally said it would be 20% larger than Skyrim.

Not saying they couldn't have made it larger, but from 20% to 350%? I don't know.

There's the fact that these "maps" were used to discuss something (somewhat) unrelated to the actual game itself but a small part of it. Meaning it could have been that they were using tech and assets that they are using in an exaggerated way to show off the system the talk was about.

I don't know. Point is, lets wait for CDPR to confirm a 350%+ increase in the map size. I'm skeptical at this point.

[joab777]

My thought exactly. And unlike Skyrim, it wont level with you making leveling and combat pointless (with absurd difficulty spikes that made no sense). Also, on top of this, it will have a great story. Yeah, Skyrim has amazing lore but the same 2 ppl voice acting 100's of npc's gets old.

I cant wait for this.

[on_line_forever]

this is good news

but we sure want fast travel , really really game play , combat system and rich world with something deserve to look for in this big world

[Rickgrimes95]

http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

Article says there are 3 areas in total, remembered reading it awhile ago an I found it again. So that's another 25 square miles in the game I'm too tired to do the math but if two maps alone are 3.5x bigger then skyrim then I would guess if you included the 3rd area in total it's probably around 5x-5.5x bigger then skyrim an that my friends is amazing

[Magicite]

anything bigger than skyrim is...HUGE!

[Flipgeneral]

GOTY in any year it releases

[Anon1974]

Looking forward to seeing more about this game, and that size is truly impressive.

Offtopic: Maybe this is just me being an old gamer, but does that picture remind anyone else of Sinistar? When I saw this article I initially went, "Cool! Sinistar!" before realizing that's not what it was. :)

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/S-XEI...

[creeping judas]

That's huge!!! Wasnt Witcher 2 less of an open world game? I can't seem to recall?

[Abriael]

It was. It had some pretty open areas, but was definitely not open world. According to CDP 3 is 35x the world of 2 in size.

[Lilrizky]

I don't see this game doing anything wrong. So far everything on it has been positive.

Can't wait.

[whitefang1988]

I know I keep thinking the same thing, I just don't know how it looks so good compared to the competition. I just hope beyond hope it doesn't get a major downgrade for consoles, can't wait to play it though

[mezati99]

3.5 times bigger with no loading times....I AM THROWING MONEY AT THE SCREEN BUT NOTHING HAPPENS!!!!

[gamertk421]

Save your money for the in-game escorts.

[Kennytaur]

But is there content, or will the vast space just be filler? I wonder how detailed it'll be.

[Lilrizky]

By going off how the previous Witchers were and from what the developers and journalists are saying it's going to be pretty filled with things to do

[on_line_forever]

the content must be moderate not so much

for example : i don't want to search every single foot steps and at the end find something not useful

just make it ( moderate ) with ( valuable ) content

this will not make the player bored when he play it .

[ArbitorChief]

Mother of god... I loved Witcher 2, but Witcher 3 is going to be like the new Ocarina of Time.

[Stoppokingme]

I am glad that the devs are taking their time to polish this game, because it's definitely a game to get excited about.

[elhebbo16]

wait is the witcher 3 completely open world or is it divided into large chunks?

[MadLad]

So, the Witcher series has in-depth combat, branching story paths, strong writing and now an extremely large open world to boot.
Again, I question why Bethesda, a developer three times the size of CD Projekt, whose development times tend to still be longer than that of CD Projekt, can only muster the large open world and little else.
There is no doubt that CD Projekt is the big dog of the western rpg at the moment.

[DFray919]

My excitement for this game is crazy high!!!!! too bad we have to wait till 2015. i need to stop reading about this game. im punishing myself lol

[Ashby_JC]

I could have sworn I read that the maps werent going to be large but more depth as in things to discover etc.

IM all for larger maps but not larger maps that end up being annoying to have to go from one point to the other. Or maps that just are not filled with hidden caves, buildings etc.

Take GTa5 for example. I so dreaded missions etc that I had to drive all the way north from the south.

[barb_wire]

What's in that area though..? a lot of Skyrim (Oblivion, Fallout 3, NV) was freaking devoid of anything.. oh look, another rock!.. trees!

[Belasco]

I still wish I could make my own character, otherwise this is a day 1 purchase for me.

[Mr Tretton]

I'm pretty satisfied playing as Geralt of F'n Rivia.

[Belasco]

I wish that mainly because my wife likes playing as a female, I know it would not fit the story though. Now that Elder Scrolls is fubarred, she won't really have much choice.

[aliengmr]

Ummm I think this might be a mistake. 20% to 350% is a rather big jump. There could be a misunderstanding here.

[aLiEnViSiToR]

Words cant explain the feeling of just how much more space there is...

http://persephonemagazine.c...

[maniacmayhem]

That's a lot of game!