Maciej Kwiatkowski – The man who gave Livia Geralt life in three games on CD Projekt RED through motion capture explains the design philosophy behind the witcher’s fighting style in an interview.
The stuntman and combat director explains why the "wizard style" is specially created specifically for the game.Many players and swordsman enthusiasts often criticize Geralt for the exaggerated spins and turns that he makes during the battle.Kviatkowski is familiar with this kind of criticism, but he believes that this kind of criticism is inappropriate.The main reason for stylized combat is aesthetics:
"The primary guiding principle in video games and movies, especially in stylized action design is aesthetics. That is, the action should first make the audience look pleasing to the eye and trigger an emotional reaction. If all the "fancy moves" and performance elements of the battle are removed, the rest will be an extremely optimized and practical style, but it has two key drawbacks for you (the player): boring and invisible"
In addition to aesthetics, technical limitations and gameplay are the main determinants of combat style.Kviatkowski recalled his experience in developing the first Witcher game, when his team proposed some ideas for attacking actions, but was rejected by the developers.
Therefore, when Geralt slashed through a group of water ghosts in a dashing manner, every rotation and every slash was not only for the performance, but also for the purpose of deliberately providing players with a combat experience that is as impressive and clear as possible.