Witchfire’s world isn’t closed or open; the steampunk shooter is right in the middle
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Filled with furious dark knights, vibrant magic, and a truckload of weapons, Witchfire looks like a hectic, fun time, especially if you’re into steampunk-style shooters. But if you’ve been following development, you might be wondering why it took the team so long to make the game. We finally have an answer.
Originally announced in 2017, developer The Astronauts has explained what caused the significant delays: they made Witchfire semi-open world.
Initially, Witchfire was going to be a strictly closed world experience. “Witchfire offered you these vast regions to play in a specific, very rogue-lite way,” creative director Adrian Chmielarz said in a new blog post (opens in new tab). “You enter an area, fight some monsters and then have a choice: take this reward and go left, or take that reward and go right.” Hades is a good example of this choice-based storytelling that The Astronauts tried to emulate.
However, the developers of Witchfire decided to step up a gear and test their limits by implementing a semi-open world. “I realized I hated the barriers,” Chmielarz said, and so the magical barriers that were meant to keep the player trapped in certain locations were dropped.
We also see this on some gaming websites… #Witchfire did NOT become an open world game. Levels are big and now you can explore them freely, unlike the old design, but that’s it. That’s why we called it “semi-open world” in today’s blog post… Hub-based? Closed world? https://t.co/fq9MOmZX9kOctober 12, 2022
It may sound simple in theory, but the change of direction created a huge amount of work for the team. With the original barriers, if you chose a direction, all enemies and environments along the path you didn’t travel would be thrown away. But with no barriers, the team now had to figure out what to do with all those creatures. ‘Should the enemies stay? Should they follow? But what if the player runs to another new area and causes even more spawns? Should both groups of monsters merge?” Chmielarz said.
Fortunately, the feature is reportedly now 95% implemented, according to Chmielarz, so we shouldn’t have to wait too long. Soon we will be able to see for ourselves whether barriers could have been useful or whether this newfound freedom is something to enjoy.
Graphic galore
Until then, it looks like we’ll have to satisfy our Witchfire hunger with all the recent trailers that have been released.
The Astronaut has largely provided us with dark and epic trailers, not to mention the most recent gameplay trailer uploaded by the publisher Epic Games. This showcased all the best of Witchfire’s combat that we can expect to see in the game. Wading through demonic foes while armed to the teeth in aesthetic medieval firearms seems like a great idea.
I don’t want these trailers to get me too excited about Witchfire; hype is never good. However, I look forward to seeing how the changes made to the world system will affect the many battles that look horrifically fun.