With little over a fortnight until its much-anticipated bow, developer CD Projekt Red have unveiled a trio of new screenshots for The Witcher III: Wild Hunt that pay particular attention to the threequel’s HUD, exploration and other gameplay elements.
Stepping into the shoes of Geralt of Rivia once more, players will chart the vast in-game map, encompassing a variety of different environments including the Northern Kingdoms and the not-so-welcoming Skellige Islands. It’s an open-world that the Polish dev want players to lost themselves in, and one facet that will help Wild Hunt accomplish that feat is the fact that the title won’t feature any load screens in the traditional sense. Outside of booting the game up for the first time, dying and fast travelling, budding explorers won’t find themselves staring passively at miscellaneous items while the software loads the next area.
Speaking to GameSpot recently, CD Projekt RED’s Jonas Mattsson touched upon how important it was to deliver a rich experience that was as seamless as it was unobtrusive.
“No, there’s no loading times. Only when you actually start the game, when die and load the game, or when you fast travel. That fast travel loading time depends on how far you have to travel of course. If you just fast travel a little bit, it’s a really short loading time.”
The Witcher III: Wild Hunt is creeping ever closer to its global release on May 19, when the conclusive chapter in Geralt’s saga will debut on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.