Witcher 2's story picks up a month after the conclusion of the first game. After saving King Foltest from an assassination attempt, Geralt has been drafted into being the king's bodyguard. Unfortunately, Geralt is unable to stave off another assassination attempt and he's even framed for Foltest's murder. Geralt escapes custody and embarks on a quest to find the real killers.
With the first game becoming a sleeper hit, CD Projekt Red moved on from the Aurora engine and created their own, the REDengine, for the sequel, giving the new game an immediately obvious jolt in graphics and faster, more action-oriented gameplay. Cutscenes are impressively directed and performed. The first game never made it to a console release, despite some plans, but Witcher 2 seems to have been designed to be console-friendly. The mouse-driven interface of the first game was replaced with a series of lists (lists in big, brutal font on top of a putrid yellow background) that could be navigated with a modern gamepad.
The game feels more like an action game in that its combat follows modern trends in third-person gameplay: quick/fast attack, slow/strong attack, block, dodge (one of those really exaggerated dive rolls seen in so many games), and some alternate actions such as the use of magical signs or secondary weapons (bombs, traps, and ranged weapons like throwing knives). However, the developers seemingly didn't want to wholly abandon the action-RPG roots of the first game and kept the action rooted in "under the hood" mechanics like percentage-based "dice rolls". It's hard not to notice and be a little frustrated when Geralt clearly slices through an enemy and not only fails to get a response but fails to even damage the enemy because the game calculated that you actually missed, contrary to what your eyes saw. Fortunately, the game doesn't have level-scaling, so whatever Geralt struggles with in the early game will become little more than an annoyance by the closing chapter, so the combat's flaws become more tolerable as the game proceeds. Unlike the first game, where Geralt's early-game futility could be chalked up to his amnesia, in Witcher 2 he's simply a level 1 weakling at the outset. Potions can now only be consumed during meditation, but they and blade oils don't last very long and they seem less effective compared to the first game.
It also doesn't take long to notice that a lot of the environments, particularly the forested area around the town of Flotsam, are comprised of narrow pathways with dreaded invisible walls keeping the player from wandering off. The camera can be difficult, especially in combat, as it can swing around behind trees, completely blocking the player's view of the action. The game also includes quick-time events, particularly for boss fights or major setpieces, and the presentation is so heavy with visual and aural details that it can sometimes be hard to discern what the game wants the player to do to overcome situations like the kayran battle. There are also occasional stealth sequences that feel underdeveloped. As an action game, or at least an action-RPG, Witcher 2 is mediocre. The combat in the first game may not have provided an action-packed, adrenaline-soaked thrill ride, but at least it was reasonably comprehensible and consistent through the whole game.
It's in the storytelling that the game makes its impression. The designers clearly tried to push the concept of choices and consequences as hard as they could, most obviously in the story branch that occurs in the second of its three chapters. At the end of chapter 1, Geralt can accompany one of two parties and whichever is chosen will cause a different version of chapter 2 to play. Geralt can choose to join Vernon Roche, a special forces operative pursuing the scoia'tael terrorists, sort of a fantasy version of the kind of ruthless G-men that J. Edgar Hoover would dispatch to take out public enemies. Or Geralt can join Iorveth, the bloodthirsty leader of the scoia'tael Roche is after. Joining Roche causes Geralt to end up in the camp of King Henselt while Henselt's armies attempt to conquer a disputed province. Joining Iorveth puts Geralt in a dwarven city on the opposite side of the province, among an unruly army of human peasants, nobles, and nonhumans hoping to carve out a free kingdom. Although the stories are distinct from each other - not merely opposing halves of the same story - playing both versions will provide the player more insight into the characters on both sides; e.g., if you play on Roche's path, you might find yourself confused by the rebel army's Joan of Arc-like commander Saskia and her relationship to the dragon that appears in the first and last chapters, but playing Iorveth's path helps you get to know Saskia a little in person. You can still pick up enough of what's going on, but actually replaying and making the opposite choice makes things more explicit. And this chapter branch is only the biggest choice to make; the game is loaded with many decisions that can have ripple effects that are reflected later in the game, on top of whatever major choices were made in the first game, assuming the player imported his final save from it. It's not perfect - there are definitely some continuity errors that crept in despite the designers' efforts - but the amount of detail accounted for is very impressive.
The story itself, whichever path is taken, is heavy on the in-universe politics, for better or worse. There are some little pockets in which the folklore of the original stories makes it through, such as a memorable subplot in which Geralt has to deal with a troll living under a bridge outside of Flotsam, but mostly Geralt is focused on clearing his name, rescuing Triss Merigold, and unraveling the assassination conspiracy. Stuff like the witcher contracts, the boxing, and the gambling (somehow worse than in the first game) subquests make a return, but they feel slightly out of place, like the designers just wanted to make sure Geralt had some vestigial witcher stuff to do in between his primary missions. Compared to the first game, in which Geralt just had to explore a particular region and hope to hit on leads to follow while making ends meet, Witcher 2 has a much more insistent story that sweeps him along. And as dark as the first game could be, Witcher 2's emphasis on politics leads to even murkier outcomes regardless of what choices are made. A player could get through the first game and feel satisfied that even if he couldn't save the whole world, at least he could make reasonably informed choices according to his ethics, but Witcher 2 is more likely to sucker-punch the player by revealing how choices made with reasonable intentions can still result in mass murder, cities aflame, and evildoers getting off scot-free. There isn't really a lesser evil to be chosen, just equally bad endings with different origins.
An impressive game in many ways, and a must-play for fans of Sapkowski's stories, but with some real flaws, too.
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