This week saw the release of CD Projekt Red's Blood and Wine, the final piece of DLC for The Witcher 3.
In Blood and Wine, Geralt travels to Toussaint to hunt down a beast randomly killing knights, but he soon learns that the bright and cheerful Toussaint harbors a lot of dark secrets. Can Geralt uncover those mysteries and slay the beast? Can he help the people of Toussaint with their various side missions?
In an interview, Karolina Stachyra, Senior Writer at CD Projekt Red, spoke about Blood and Wine, including offering details about what players can expect from gameplay and about what changes the DLC offers to the game.
How big is Blood and Wine, in terms of The Witcher 3 game?
Simple answer is that it's roughly as big as Ard Skellig or No Man's Land. The more complex answer, and one I like a bit more, as it really portrays what we wanted to do with Blood and Wine, is that it's as big as you thought Wild Hunt was when you finally visited Skellig in the middle of the game and saw how much play time is still ahead of you. Toussaint is exactly that big. About 30 hours big.
How does Blood and Wine add to the story of The Witcher 3?
In terms of story, the expansion is very similar to Hearts of Stone. It's not tied into Wild Hunt, but it's a separate tale. Where it differs from Hearts of Stone is how this story is told — while Hearts was, in a way, a collection of standalone stories that served to complete one bigger story, what happens in Blood and Wine is continuous.
What can players expect with gameplay? Will there be any additional gameplay elements added to the DLC?
Yes, definitely. We have Mutations that greatly enhance the New Game + mode and allow you to create even more custom builds of Geralt, we've added armour dyeing, we've even included a special home away from home for Geralt, his very own vineyard — Corvo Bianco.
As this is the last DLC for The Witcher 3, concluding Geralt's story, what do you want players to take away from the entire franchise after all this time?
I think that we'd be really proud if gamers thought about us in context of memorable open-world games, and games which have an ambition to tell good stories.
