Tomasz Gop, Senior Producer at CD Projekt RED, recently took time out of his busy schedule to fly to sunny Los Angeles for the E3 Media & Business Summit, where he spent three days demoing The Witcher: Enhanced Edition to journalists from around the world. Writers loved the effort we’ve put into the game, and those who were very familiar with The Witcher were even more excited about the improvements. Check out previews based on the E3 demo.

1Up (http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3168879)

“CD Projekt is releasing The Witcher: Enhanced Edition to fix these two primary problems, with superfast load times and roughly 5,000 rewritten and re-recorded lines of dialog. The game will be a free download for those who bought the original, but it will also be a new retail release for those who never bought it. The retail package will have a bunch of new goodies, including an official soundtrack CD, a CD of Polish heavy metal music "inspired by The Witcher" (oh, yes), an official walkthrough guide, a map, and a short story from the first Witcher novel.”

The Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/07/18/game_for_anything_at_industry_summit/)

“E3 also marked a comeback for Atari, which has been through everything from management changes to financial woes. Its lineup of games included The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, a director's cut of the critically acclaimed role-playing game; three great portable games; and Smash Court Tennis 3.”

FIDGIT The Witcher: (http://fidgit.com/archives/2008/07/the-witcher-enhanced-edition.php)

“A re-release of last year's RPG, but this time with a better inventory interface, some re-recorded dialogue with presumably better voice actors, and NPCs with randomized parts so you're not adventuring in a world of clones. You'll get all this in a patch if you already own The Witcher, but you'll miss out on this release's "collector's edition" goodies.”

Gamersinfo.net (http://www.gamersinfo.net/articles/2254-e3-2008-the-witcher-enhanced-edition)

“Did you buy the original version of The Witcher? Atari loves you and wants to reward you by giving you a copy of the new "Enhanced Edition" for free! Did you not buy The Witcher? Well, here's a good excuse to do so, because with the new enhanced edition you'll find that the game has been considerably...uh...enhanced.”

Gamer Tell (http://www.gamertell.com/gaming/comment/e3-enhanced-by-the-witcher-enhanced-edition/.)

“The Witcher: Enhanced Edition is going to be quite a package. The game tweaks mean that, along with 5,000 dialogue lines rewritten and rerecorded, there will also be 200 new dialogue animations for characters. Also NPCs will be more varied, the inventory system will be improved (the alchemy use will be better), the load times will be decreased and the combat system has been improved.”

GameSpot (http://e3.gamespot.com/story.html?sid=6194526&pid=950892&tag=top_stories;title;5)

“The Witcher was a great game. The Witcher Enhanced Edition, predictably, is even better.”

GAMESPY (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-witcher-enhanced-edition/891916p1.html)

“The Witcher: Enhanced Edition enhances the original game with improved graphics, retouched gameplay mechanics, speedier loading, and added dialog and character gestures.”

GAMETRAILERS (http://www.gametrailers.com/player/37088.html?r=1&type=wmv)

Interview: The Witcher Enhanced Edition

Gaming Nexis (http://www.gamingnexus.com/FullNews/E3-2008-Atari/Item9321.aspx)

“While these are great improvements, I think the best one is the subtle changes in-game that you’ll notice immediately, whether it be the automatic stacking of inventory items or the different rendering of color of enemies that you’ll come across.”

IGN (http://pc.ign.com/articles/891/891228p1.html?RSSwhen2008-07-16_160900&RSSid=891228)

Keen and Graev Gaming Blog (http://www.keenandgraev.com/?p=1144)

“They actually did a pretty darn good job on this. Big props to them for listening to the players and making changes - For free.”

Kotaku (http://kotaku.com/5026324/atari-witchers-rpgs-cooks-and--deer-hunters)

Rock Paper Shotgun (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/07/16/rps-ish-at-ish-e3-day-two-atari/#more-2133)

RPGFan (http://www.rpgfan.com/features/e3-2008/index.html)

Best Re-Release of E3 2008 - "Both current owners and newbies to the game should have a blast with CD Projekt's enhanced title in September."

“Brilliant”

Sci-Fi (http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=57737)

VG Blogger (http://www.vgblogger.com/?p=3457)

“The developer walkthrough only shows the improved dialogue and character differentiation system, but strangely fails to touch on many other far more important upgrades, such as load times promising to be 80% faster, an overhauled inventory system, and overall improved game stability. The Enhanced Edition will also come with the D’jinni Adventure Editor and two add-on adventures, and if purchased at retail it’ll come in a sweet box set containing the official soundtrack CD, a bonus CD of music inspired by The Witcher, an official game guide, The Witcher short story penned by Andrzej Sapkowski, a Making-of DVD, and a map of the game world. But best of all, if you don’t want to purchase the game all over again for all the extra pack-in goodies, anyone who bought and registered the original version will be able to download the Enhanced Edition completely free of charge!”