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Why a sequel with Ciri would make sense
A paper explaining my thoughts on why Ciri will be the lead in the next game. Many spoilers for the books and games. Why A Sequel With Ciri Makes Sense By Noah Strasmann January 20, 2021 Pt 1: Plans for a new game I’ve seen a lot of debate online over what the next Witcher game will entail, and the question that always come us is: “Who is going to lead the next game?” We know that Geralt’s story is over, as CD Projekt Red senior writer Jakub Szamałek said back in 2015: “I think good stories must have an ending…You cannot extend them indefinitely, and we felt that Geralt has had such an amazing adventure, and his saga is already so long and complex that this seemed like a good point to think about an appropriate finale for the story.” This makes sense, as at the end of Blood and Wine, Regis says to Geralt that they have been through a lot and “after all that toil, I believe we deserve a bit of rest.” Geralt replies “That we do” and smiles and looks directly into the camera. This felt like a much more final ending than the main game, especially when Yen, Triss, Ciri, or Dandelion shows up at Corvo Bianco, implying that Geralt will live out the rest of his days, (or at least a little while in some cases,) with whomever shows up. Originally the games were planned as a trilogy. Said Adam Kiciński in an interview with Bankir: "The first three 'Witchers' were by definition a trilogy, so we simply could not name the next game 'The Witcher 4'. This does not mean, of course, that we will leave the world of The Witcher." I couldn’t find a date for this interview, so it is possible that he was referring to the standalone Gwent game that released in 2018 when he said they wouldn’t be leaving the Witcher world behind. As of now, 2021, CDRP has confirmed that there were three studios working on Cyberpunk, and two working on “other projects.” Likely, one of the projects was The Witcher 3: Enhanced Edition, the other remains a mystery. CDPR co-founder Marcin Iwinski has gone on record saying “This is the end…there won’t be any Witcher any time soon – if there ever will be one.” Without any outright confirmation and other smaller Witcher side projects it is very hard to say if there will ever be a triple A, RPG-style Witcher game again. Now we come to the interesting topic. When asked about a “Witcher” game specifically, CDPR makes it seem like there are either no plans for another, or they just say that Geralt’s story is definitely over. But when asked about Ciri specifically, they change their tune. In an interview with VG247, Jakub Szamałek was asked if we would get a game with Ciri as the lead. In response, Szamałek said: “I don’t know…would you like to play a game as Ciri?” In my experience, whenever game developers say “I don’t know” and then ask you a question, it is cause to be suspicious. Another very suspicious quote come from later in the interview: “Due to obvious reasons - well, she’s pretty much gone for two thirds of the game - she didn’t get quite as much screen time as we writers would have liked. But hey, maybe it’s something we’ll get to get back to in the future.” I did find an article from May 18th 2020 claiming that CDPR actually confirmed that directly after the Cyberpunk release, work on a new Witcher game would begin “immediately.” Who knows if this will actually happen, we all know how Cyberpunk’s launch went, and how much work it will take to fix. Adam Kiciński also said that this Witcher game would not be a direct sequel. All evidence points to the next Witcher game featuring Ciri’s two years traveling with Avallac’h through different worlds. This is a pretty obvious choice, CDPR could literally go in any direction with this game, and it wouldn’t be a “typical” Witcher experience. Also, Kiciński mentioned that “we would love to explore more of Ciri’s past,” and Ciri’s past means the opposite of a sequel. Not to mention the fact that Ciri ends up in very different circumstances depending on the ending of Wild Hunt. To make a game led by Ciri set after the Witcher 3, CDPR would have to make one of the endings canon and then take the game from there, right? Wrong! Ciri’s situational endings are actually more similar than you may think. Pt 2: Wild Hunt Endings We all know there are three endings to the main story of the third game: the ending where Ciri becomes a Witcher, the ending where she becomes empress of Nilfgaard, and the ending where she dies. This is the main roadblock from a story perspective, as each previous Witcher game’s storyline flows perfectly into the next. It seems impossible to have a cohesive storyline without a definitive ending, and it would be completely unlike CDPR to make an ending canon. Also, a canon ending would only serve to undermine the other endings of Wild Hunt. It is possible to have a cohesive storyline following Ciri after the events of the third game without having to make any ending canon. Remember how cool it was to load your Witcher 1 and 2 saves into the next game and be able to meet characters and have unique interactions based on the decisions you made in the previous game? I believe that a sequel with Ciri leading the game will adopt this strategy, but to a much larger degree than we saw in Wild Hunt. We can see the strategy that could be employed with the release of Cyberpunk. One of the coolest things about that game (at least before launch,) was the idea of multiple lifepaths. While done before on a much smaller scale, I believe that this idea could be the future of RPGs in general. Obviously, once Cyberpunk was actually released, it quickly became apparent that the beginning lifepath didn’t really matter to the rest of the game, and only gave you a unique opening. But that could be exactly what the Witcher 4 (I’m calling it that, but we know it won’t be titled “The Witcher”) needs. A unique beginning based on your Witcher 3 save that has you beginning the game in a different area of the world with a unique intro that only lasts maybe 30 minutes to an hour. Ciri’s “lifepath” would be an introduction to what happened to her after the third game, and how she makes it to the events of whatever the fourth game has in store. People were disappointed with Cyberpunk’s lifepaths because they had no noticeable effect on the game’s story, only really giving some new dialogue options in conversations. This would not have been too much of an issue if the game’s marketing had not overemphasized how much of a difference these lifepaths would have on the main story. This wouldn’t even be a problem for the Witcher 4, however. New dialogue and a different starting point are all that would realistically be needed, although the company could make more story-altering changes to the lifepaths if they wanted to. The reason I do not expect this though is that it would be a lot more work to write differing stories that branch away from each other, and people would always just pick the same stories anyway, as with the third game, I always pick the Witcher ending because I just can’t bring myself to get the bad ending (lol.) If there is no marketing saying how different the game will be depending on the Witcher 3 save you have loaded, there will not be any backlash if that difference is not felt in any more ways than a different intro and different voice lines. Now the obstacle for a Ciri-lead sequel to Wild Hunt comes down to the endings themselves. I’ll break down each ending separately. I’ll also be assuming that Ciri is the one coming to Corvo Bianco, since her voice lines there are very important in deducing what happens to her in the future. Ending #1: Ciri Becomes a Witcher This ending is referred to as the “good ending” by most of the fanbase, so I will call it that from now on. This ending is probably the easiest to make a sequel out of. Geralt tells Emhyr that Ciri has sacrificed herself to save the world from the White Frost, and that the body will never be found. Emhyr then tells Geralt that he never wishes to see him again, and they part ways. Geralt then meets Master Ort, a swordsmith in White Orchard who has made Ciri a matching silver sword that is also named Zireael (cause who chooses The Flash That Cuts, I mean come on,) the same name as the sword she gets from Esterhazy in Baptism of Fire. It is almost identical to her steel weapon and is meant to show her starting her life on the Path. In the ending slideshow, it says that Ciri and Geralt started out on the path together and then parted. In Blood and Wine, Ciri explains why she left Geralt and told him not to try to find her. I find it hard to believe that Geralt didn’t go look for her after she left, because let’s be honest the entire story of the books and third game is basically Geralt looking for Ciri. Anyway, she shows up at Corvo Bianco and tells Geralt that the reason she left was because she didn’t want to live in his shadow and had to prove that she could be a successful Witcher on her own. They go up to the hillside and Ciri remarks that she could “stay here forever.” When the option “What’s stopping you?” is chosen, she remarks that there is really nothing stopping her. This ending suggests that Ciri will stay in Toussaint for a while. This is the easiest ending to make a starting lifepath for another game out of, because Ciri is free to do whatever she wants and can go anywhere she wants. Nothing is making her stay in Toussaint, she is only staying because she wants to, contrary to all of the third game and the books where she is forced by the circumstances of the plot to go to certain places. Anything could draw her away from Toussaint, the CDPR writers would just have to make sure that it was a problem big enough to make her want to leave the easy life at Corvo Bianco. A very open-ended ending, and a starting lifepath for a new game could really go in any direction with this one. Ending #2: Ciri becomes empress of Nilfgaard I will call this one the “sad ending,” because when I got this ending, I had a lump in my throat the entire time. It begins with Geralt, Dandelion, Zoltan, and either Triss or Yen in the inn at White Orchard. They have been traveling together for some months with Ciri and are making for the Blue Mountains, though it is never mentioned why. Everyone is very happy, and it’s an altogether joyful scene, all the friends have finally defeated the Wild Hunt and are free to roam the Northern Realms together. Geralt goes to find Ciri and chats with her as they go to see the site where the griffin Geralt kills at the start of the game has its nest. Geralt is talking about how the future is bright and Ciri is answering in monosyllabic phrases, indicating that there is something bothering her. As they walk in the woods, Ciri and Geralt play in the snow, and walk back towards the village. When they get there, a Nilfgaardian envoy is parked in the middle of the road, and Ciri tells Geralt that she has decided that she is going to Nilfgaard because she believes she can do the most good as empress. After an emotional farewell, she gives Geralt her sword and rides away with the Nilfgaardians. The ending slideshow says that Emhyr is preparing to crown Ciri empress. When Ciri shows comes to Corvo Bianco, Geralt is surprised because he never thought he would see her again. There is a nice moment where she says that she likes coming back into this life. They go up to the hill again, and the dialogue is different on the hill. I don’t think that Ciri every will actually become empress in this ending. The ending slideshow’s exact quote is: “After years in exile, Ciri returned to Nilfgaard, her paternal home, where Emhyr prepared to name her as his successor.” There are a few strange things about this quote. First of all, Nilfgaard is not her paternal home, Cintra is. Second of all, it says “prepares to name her as his successor” and not “names her his successor.” I believe that the developers originally intended her to become empress, but after the massive success of the game they wanted to keep the possibility of a sequel open. With the release of Blood and Wine, CDPR hints that Ciri will actually never take the throne. First of all, she returns to Geralt. The fact that she comes back to him at all was doubtful with the base game ending, as she tries to get him to come to Nilfgaard with her. The second piece of evidence that she will never be crowned is what she actually says to Geralt on the hill. She has the same voice line where she says she could stay forever, and when Geralt asks what stopping her, this time she says “Obligations, duties. I’m only here because Papa, I mean, Emhyr concluded I must get to know what I’ll rule once I take the throne. So I’m on a tour of the provinces with a small swarm of advisors.” This quote makes little sense to me. Why would a tour of Nilfgaard’s provinces even take Ciri to Toussaint? Yes, Toussaint is technically a vassal state of Nilfgaard, but it is not actually governed by the emperor. In Lady of the lake, Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen explains exactly how vassal states of Nilfgaard work when discussing what will happen to Dol Blathanna after the empire pulls out of the north. He says that Dol Blathanna will become a duchy, like Toussaint. They have to pay homage to Nilfgaard but will be able to make their own laws and have their own court system. Thaler also mentions this after Radovid is killed in the third game, how Temeria will become a vassal state and be self-governed. So Ciri would never actually rule over Toussaint as she says. Also, when Geralt first comes to Toussaint, Reynart de Bois-Fresnes, the first knight errant Geralt ever meets is slaughtering Nilfgaardians to help Geralt and his companions. Not to mention the fact that Stefan Skellen hides out in Toussaint after his attempt to kill Ciri because he says that the duchy is the only place in the world where he could be sure he would be safe from Vattier de Rideaux’s spies. The only place in the entire world there would be no Nilfgaardian spies. Think about that. Not only is Toussaint disregarded by Nilfgaard, but the rest of the world largely ignores it as well, thinking of it as “the place we get wine.” Ciri says some other things on the hill too that make it doubtful she will ever ascend the throne. She mentioned how she is stalling for time in Beauclair by telling her advisors her knowledge would be incomplete until she has tasted each of the year’s wines. The reason she gives Geralt for this stalling is, and I quote: “Though actually, just between you and me, I’m not certain I’m cut out to rule, govern, all that…” Geralt asks her if she is going to give it up, and she says “I can’t say just yet. But I’m not willing to rule it out.” Geralt also asks her about how the coronation preparations are coming along, and she responds with: “Not at all. I told him I’m in no hurry.” She later tells Geralt she could make him “Court Witcher” which could suggest that she may become empress after all, but this comment was made more as a joke than anything else, and I don’t believe that “Court Witcher” is a title in Nilfgaard or any other province for that matter. The third reason I don’t think that Ciri will ever become empress is that it is antithetical to her outlook on the world. All she ever wanted, through the games and the books was for people to leave her out of their schemes so she could make her own decisions. I know everyone will say it was her decision to go to Emhyr, but she is sort of manipulated by into becoming his heir. We know Emhyr has wanted to capture Ciri for a long time because of the books, where literally every king wanted to capture her so that they had a ruler of Cintra that could be manipulated easily. The other reason he wanted to capture her was so that he can marry her and produce a son that will rule the world. Yeah, her father wants to marry her. It’s messed up. And Ciri knows this was his plan. So why does Ciri go to him instead of staying with Geralt in the sad ending? We will never know what happened in the conversation with Emhyr and Ciri, but we do know that they argued, and then she got a letter at some point either after she entered Tor Gvalch’ca or shortly before. She then made her decision to go and be empress, because she felt like she could do the most good there. Then when Geralt says “You could have told me,” Ciri says: “I wanted to, but I didn’t know how. I’ve been happy here.” It is so unlike Ciri to leave a situation where she is finally happy. There are so little of them that she always wants to stay to be happy as long as she can. In the books, she stays with the gang the Rats, and when Geralt dreams about her it is mentioned that he feels her happiness. The reason why she leaves is only because she wants to find Geralt, the person she is literally leaving in the sad ending ending! (Yes, also it’s because the Rats all get killed by Bonhart, but she leaves them before that.) The only other time she leaves a situation where she is reasonably happy and safe is when she leaves the Cyberpunk world to come back and find Geralt and Yennefer. (That is the reason she gives when Geralt asks about it in the hut.) Ciri says that being empress is what she wants, but it’s really exactly what Emhyr wants. Ultimately, all she ever wants is to make her own decisions, but she forces Geralt to make the decision that ultimately decides her future, whether or not she should go to see Emhyr directly after the events at Kaer Morhen. Also, Geralt can decide if Nilfgaard will win the war or not. This forces her down the path of either Geralt’s actions or Emhyr’s actions determining her future. And while Geralt will make her want to stay with love, respect, trust, and the bond developed even before she was born, Emhyr will draw her away with wordplay and manipulation. I mean, how do you think that Ciri came up with the thought that she could do the most good in Nilfgaard, by herself, or through what Emhyr said to her in the letter? All Ciri’s life, she has only wanted people to leave her out of their plans and have freedom, and she loses that by becoming empress. For these reasons, I believe that even though this ending is known as the “Empress ending,” there is almost no chance that she will actually take the throne. This leaves CDPR in the same situation story wise as the good ending. A new game with this ending could have Ciri about to be crowned when something happens, or she can give up and refuse to rule for some reason, because I don’t think that a game with Ciri as tied down as empress would be as interesting as one where she is free to wander the world. Ending #3: Ciri “Dies” This ending begins with Geralt hunting down the last crone to retrieve Vesemir’s medallion. He meets a werewolf who tells him that it is not worth the risk to fight the crone, as she is dangerous, and tells Geralt to find another trinket for his daughter. Geralt replies “My daughter’s dead.” When he finds the crone, she tells him that he will not survive this fight. Even if he kills her, the swamp village is completely surrounded by monsters and he won’t get out alive. Then she tells Geralt that Ciri is dead, which is not news to Geralt as he already knew that. Geralt kills the crone, and then in anger trashes the inside of the shack. He finds Vesemir’s medallion in a box and holds it, while monsters surround the shack from the outside. We know that Geralt does escape though, because it is canon that the events of Blood and Wine happen after the Wild Hunt is defeated. Geralt actually has different voice lines in this ending when he is talking with Regis about Ciri. When Regis asked if he ever found Ciri if you got one of the endings where Ciri survived, he says: “Back then, yeah. But we parted again soon after. And when the time was ripe, she returned and we defeated the Wild Hunt together.” But if you get the bad ending, he only says: “Back then, yeah. But we parted again soon after” in a sad voice. So he survived the swamp because he still believes Ciri to be dead. Yes, he has no epilogue, but it really wouldn’t make sense for him to die in the crone’s village since technically every ending is supposed to be canon with Blood and Wine. We know that he survived that ending…but did Ciri? It is hinted at a few times throughout the game that Ciri will die at the end. There is this soothsayer in Benek who tells Geralt that Ciri knew that she was going to have to sacrifice herself to stop the White Frost. The crones tell Geralt that if he finds her, she will die shortly afterwards. There are also many voice lines from the sorceresses and Avallac’h telling Geralt that he needs to stop controlling Ciri and let her make her own decisions or he will regret it. Ironic that Geralt’s decisions ultimately decide Ciri’s fate anyway. I think that the question of whether Ciri survives come down to a few factors: number one being the White Frost itself. The White Frost in the books is an inevitable event that happens due to the northern hemisphere of the earth tilting further away from the sun. In the games, it is more of an entity, a force that blows through multiple worlds and times, burying everything in ice. The way that Avallac’h wanted Ciri to stop the White Frost in the books was to maker her have a son with the king of the Aen Elle, who would be much more powerful than she. Then the son would use his powers to teleport the population of the Aen Elle’s doomed planet to another. Avallac’h also says that he will save the humans and the Aen Seidhe living on the Earth when the time comes as well. In the games, it is not clear what Ciri must do to defeat the White Frost, but we do know that Avallac’h needs to make Ciri stop it as quickly as possible, which is made clear by his lab notes. He actually hates Ciri, as she reminds him of his love for Lara Dorren, who spurned him for a human mage. He only wants her to stop the White Frost so his world will be safe and then he will be able to get rid of her. The question now arises, is it necessary for Ciri to die to stop the White Frost? In my opinion, even though the ending is very ambiguous, the evidence the game does give us points to no. Ciri tells Geralt that she will come back if possible when he implores her not to enter the portal in the tower. She believes she will survive. Also, while Geralt watches the portal, it eventually closes. The portal was opened by Avallac’h so that Ciri could slip away while Geralt was busy fighting Eredin and Caranthir. It is likely that Avallac’h told Ciri what to do to stop the White Frost, since she seems very sure of herself when she enters the portal. She does not have to die though, in order to stop it. The way I see it, she probably stopped it one of two ways. One, The White Frost is an actual being and she fought and defeated it in combat. This doesn’t seem very likely, as even though the White Frost in the games does appear as more of an evil god or a demon than a force of nature as in the books, I don’t think it likely that she would just stab it with her sword and it would die. It could have been some curse she had to break, but even if this is the case it would not require her to sacrifice herself. Two, Ciri isolated the worlds that the White Frost was blowing through, cutting off passage between the worlds that were affected and the ones that weren’t. This makes a little more sense, as the elder blood gene is supposed to control passage between worlds. But it doesn’t explain then how the world of the Aen Elle, not to mention the earth are saved, as the White Frost was already blowing through both of those worlds. I believe that the since the White Frost is a more of a being in the games, it was probably residing in one world and then blowing through to others from there. Ciri could have cut off the world it was residing in, causing it to be trapped there forever and saving the worlds that were affected by it. This theory seems like the most plausible, but there is one problem with it. We know Ciri stopped the White Frost, as the portal in the tower closed before Geralt and Avallac’hs eyes, but if travel was cut off to whatever world the White Frost was residing in, how did Ciri escape that world? There really seems to be no explanation, because we know that she succeeds no matter what ending you get, and she is able to travel back to the witcher world afterwards in the good ending and the sad ending. It really doesn’t matter exactly how she did it, it only matters that she did because that is one thing that we know happened. The portal closing, the conjunction of spheres stopping, and Ciri coming back (in 2 endings) all happened for sure. We can assume she succeeded in her task. So then, why does she die in the bad ending? I find it hard to believe that she just committed suicide by staying in the frozen wasteland just because she doesn’t like Geralt anymore. She actually has tried to commit suicide before in the books, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. I’m not sure why she would finally succeed in her task, be free from all the people trying to use her for their own purposes, and then freeze to death just because she thinks that Geralt doesn’t believe in her anymore. But Geralt truly believes she is dead in the epilogue. The crone says it as well, but the crones have made bogus predictions before, such as them actually saying to Geralt earlier in the game that they would be the reason for Ciri’s death. The crone knew Geralt was distraught and angry, and she could have taken advantage of this by telling Geralt that Ciri died in order to make him more angry and less focused on the fight. Also, when Ciri tells Geralt she will come back to him, she says “if I can.” We know now that she is able to, and yet doesn’t, so it would make sense for Geralt to believe her to be dead. So what actually happened to her? It is not clear, as she doesn’t have an ending monologue like Geralt when you get this ending. The next game could see her anywhere, just trying to figure out why Geralt made her feel as if she couldn’t stand up for herself and that he was making decisions for her. But it wouldn’t make sense for her to be able to stop the White Frost and then just die. It is much more plausible that she decided not to return to Geralt. Other Arguments Against A Sequel With Ciri #1: Too Overpowered I’ve seen some people argue that after the events of the third game, Ciri is an incredibly strong fighter and would easily defeat any opponent she came up against, making fighting in the hypothetical sequel uninteresting and boring. It also wouldn’t make sense to nerf her abilities in the next game, as it would go completely against the lore, and would almost be an insult to her character to dumb down her abilities for a new game. The thing that most people don’t realize is that Geralt of Rivia was already an extremely overpowered character. The witchers are much stronger fighters than humans, able to take on multiple foes at a time with relative ease. Geralt is the strongest of the witchers, having the most mutations and has had almost a century of experience by the time of the games. Triss Merigold thinks to herself at one point when she is heading to Kaer Morhen in Blood of Elves that Geralt was the greatest fighter she had ever seen. Yen also remarks in the books that there are only a few people in the world that could have a chance of beating Geralt in a fight. Likely one was Vilgefortz, who Geralt makes no mistakes at all against and still gets beaten in only a minute or so. The other was probably Leo Bonhart, who never actually fought Geralt, but we know he has killed at least three witchers because he carries their medallions with him. Not to mention he fought the entire gang of Rats at once and killed them all in a one versus six battle. The only way Ciri was able to defeat him was by luring him into a very specific situation in the ruined part of Stygga Castle and using the pendulum trick she learned at Kaer Morhen to make him fall. Summing up, it doesn’t make sense to say that Ciri is too overpowered to have her own game, because we got three games with Geralt who was already one of the best swordsmen in the world even in the first game. I think that CDPR could definitely balance the difficulty of combat in a sequel with Ciri as they already did with Geralt in the trilogy. #2: Character Creation Another thing I’ve seen people saying is that they want to create their own witcher to play through a new game. I guess I can understand the roleplaying potential of a game with a customizable witcher, but I don’t see how this will fit the lore at all. There are so few witchers that it wouldn’t really make sense to all of a sudden bring out a new witcher who was in hiding or something into a world where their trade is declining. Also, if the game was set as a prequel when there were more witchers around, it wouldn’t make sense that the wolf school witchers from the first and third games wouldn’t be able to refer to this past witcher by any identifying features because every playthrough’s witcher would be unique. Also, we know from Marcin Iwinski that the next game won’t be called “The Witcher.” I find it highly unlikely that the third game will be about any of the witchers, or a new one that we don’t know about yet. I also think it very unlikely that we will see a standalone game with either Triss or Yen as the lead, because picking only one of them as a protagonist will leave fifty percent of the fanbase disappointed. This kind of leaves Ciri as the only choice, because I would find it hard to believe that most of the fanbase would not want to see a game about her. I just wanted to add these at the end because I wanted to address the issues that some of the community would have with a Ciri sequel. Do I actually think the next game will be a sequel starring Ciri? Well, evidence right now points to no. I just wanted to compile some ideas about why a sequel would make sense though, because I have a feeling that a prequel game with Ciri will unfortunately not be an open world RPG. I think that the obvious story to tell is what happened to Ciri right after she dropped Geralt off at Kaer Morhen with his memory wiped. It would be heartbreaking to see Ciri trying to get Geralt to flee the Wild Hunt with her, but he doesn’t remember who she is and so she has to leave him in the woods and run away without him. Then the game would follow her through all the worlds she jumped through to escape Eredin. This does not sound like an open world game, since there would be so many worlds in it! I’m not saying that a game like this would be bad by any means, I’m just saying that I would rather have a game like Wild Hunt, but in a new area (like Cintra maybe,) and starring Ciri.
An in-depth breakdown explaining my thoughts about why Ciri should lead the next game. Many spoilers for the games and the books. Why A Sequel With Ciri Makes Sense By Noah Strasmann January 20, 2021 Pt 1: Plans for a new game I’ve seen a lot of debate online over what the next Witcher game will entail, and the question that always come us is: “Who is going to lead the next game?” We know that Geralt’s story is over, as CD Projekt Red senior writer Jakub Szamałek said back in 2015: “I think good stories must have an ending…You cannot extend them indefinitely, and we felt that Geralt has had such an amazing adventure, and his saga is already so long and complex that this seemed like a good point to think about an appropriate finale for the story.” This makes sense, as at the end of Blood and Wine, Regis says to Geralt that they have been through a lot and “after all that toil, I believe we deserve a bit of rest.” Geralt replies “That we do” and smiles and looks directly into the camera. This felt like a much more final ending than the main game, especially when Yen, Triss, Ciri, or Dandelion shows up at Corvo Bianco, implying that Geralt will live out the rest of his days, (or at least a little while in some cases,) with whomever shows up. Originally the games were planned as a trilogy. Said Adam Kiciński in an interview with Bankir: "The first three 'Witchers' were by definition a trilogy, so we simply could not name the next game 'The Witcher 4'. This does not mean, of course, that we will leave the world of The Witcher." I couldn’t find a date for this interview, so it is possible that he was referring to the standalone Gwent game that released in 2018 when he said they wouldn’t be leaving the Witcher world behind. As of now, 2021, CDRP has confirmed that there were three studios working on Cyberpunk, and two working on “other projects.” Likely, one of the projects was The Witcher 3: Enhanced Edition, the other remains a mystery. CDPR co-founder Marcin Iwinski has gone on record saying “This is the end…there won’t be any Witcher any time soon – if there ever will be one.” Without any outright confirmation and other smaller Witcher side projects it is very hard to say if there will ever be a triple A, RPG-style Witcher game again. Now we come to the interesting topic. When asked about a “Witcher” game specifically, CDPR makes it seem like there are either no plans for another, or they just say that Geralt’s story is definitely over. But when asked about Ciri specifically, they change their tune. In an interview with VG247, Jakub Szamałek was asked if we would get a game with Ciri as the lead. In response, Szamałek said: “I don’t know…would you like to play a game as Ciri?” In my experience, whenever game developers say “I don’t know” and then ask you a question, it is cause to be suspicious. Another very suspicious quote come from later in the interview: “Due to obvious reasons - well, she’s pretty much gone for two thirds of the game - she didn’t get quite as much screen time as we writers would have liked. But hey, maybe it’s something we’ll get to get back to in the future.” I did find an article from May 18th 2020 claiming that CDPR actually confirmed that directly after the Cyberpunk release, work on a new Witcher game would begin “immediately.” Who knows if this will actually happen, we all know how Cyberpunk’s launch went, and how much work it will take to fix. Adam Kiciński also said that this Witcher game would not be a direct sequel. All evidence points to the next Witcher game featuring Ciri’s two years traveling with Avallac’h through different worlds. This is a pretty obvious choice, CDPR could literally go in any direction with this game, and it wouldn’t be a “typical” Witcher experience. Also, Kiciński mentioned that “we would love to explore more of Ciri’s past,” and Ciri’s past means the opposite of a sequel. Not to mention the fact that Ciri ends up in very different circumstances depending on the ending of Wild Hunt. To make a game led by Ciri set after the Witcher 3, CDPR would have to make one of the endings canon and then take the game from there, right? Wrong! Ciri’s situational endings are actually more similar than you may think. Pt 2: Wild Hunt Endings We all know there are three endings to the main story of the third game: the ending where Ciri becomes a Witcher, the ending where she becomes empress of Nilfgaard, and the ending where she dies. This is the main roadblock from a story perspective, as each previous Witcher game’s storyline flows perfectly into the next. It seems impossible to have a cohesive storyline without a definitive ending, and it would be completely unlike CDPR to make an ending canon. Also, a canon ending would only serve to undermine the other endings of Wild Hunt. It is possible to have a cohesive storyline following Ciri after the events of the third game without having to make any ending canon. Remember how cool it was to load your Witcher 1 and 2 saves into the next game and be able to meet characters and have unique interactions based on the decisions you made in the previous game? I believe that a sequel with Ciri leading the game will adopt this strategy, but to a much larger degree than we saw in Wild Hunt. We can see the strategy that could be employed with the release of Cyberpunk. One of the coolest things about that game (at least before launch,) was the idea of multiple lifepaths. While done before on a much smaller scale, I believe that this idea could be the future of RPGs in general. Obviously, once Cyberpunk was actually released, it quickly became apparent that the beginning lifepath didn’t really matter to the rest of the game, and only gave you a unique opening. But that could be exactly what the Witcher 4 (I’m calling it that, but we know it won’t be titled “The Witcher”) needs. A unique beginning based on your Witcher 3 save that has you beginning the game in a different area of the world with a unique intro that only lasts maybe 30 minutes to an hour. Ciri’s “lifepath” would be an introduction to what happened to her after the third game, and how she makes it to the events of whatever the fourth game has in store. People were disappointed with Cyberpunk’s lifepaths because they had no noticeable effect on the game’s story, only really giving some new dialogue options in conversations. This would not have been too much of an issue if the game’s marketing had not overemphasized how much of a difference these lifepaths would have on the main story. This wouldn’t even be a problem for the Witcher 4, however. New dialogue and a different starting point are all that would realistically be needed, although the company could make more story-altering changes to the lifepaths if they wanted to. The reason I do not expect this though is that it would be a lot more work to write differing stories that branch away from each other, and people would always just pick the same stories anyway, as with the third game, I always pick the Witcher ending because I just can’t bring myself to get the bad ending (lol.) If there is no marketing saying how different the game will be depending on the Witcher 3 save you have loaded, there will not be any backlash if that difference is not felt in any more ways than a different intro and different voice lines. Now the obstacle for a Ciri-lead sequel to Wild Hunt comes down to the endings themselves. I’ll break down each ending separately. I’ll also be assuming that Ciri is the one coming to Corvo Bianco, since her voice lines there are very important in deducing what happens to her in the future. Ending #1: Ciri Becomes a Witcher This ending is referred to as the “good ending” by most of the fanbase, so I will call it that from now on. This ending is probably the easiest to make a sequel out of. Geralt tells Emhyr that Ciri has sacrificed herself to save the world from the White Frost, and that the body will never be found. Emhyr then tells Geralt that he never wishes to see him again, and they part ways. Geralt then meets Master Ort, a swordsmith in White Orchard who has made Ciri a matching silver sword that is also named Zireael (cause who chooses The Flash That Cuts, I mean come on,) the same name as the sword she gets from Esterhazy in Baptism of Fire. It is almost identical to her steel weapon and is meant to show her starting her life on the Path. In the ending slideshow, it says that Ciri and Geralt started out on the path together and then parted. In Blood and Wine, Ciri explains why she left Geralt and told him not to try to find her. I find it hard to believe that Geralt didn’t go look for her after she left, because let’s be honest the entire story of the books and third game is basically Geralt looking for Ciri. Anyway, she shows up at Corvo Bianco and tells Geralt that the reason she left was because she didn’t want to live in his shadow and had to prove that she could be a successful Witcher on her own. They go up to the hillside and Ciri remarks that she could “stay here forever.” When the option “What’s stopping you?” is chosen, she remarks that there is really nothing stopping her. This ending suggests that Ciri will stay in Toussaint for a while. This is the easiest ending to make a starting lifepath for another game out of, because Ciri is free to do whatever she wants and can go anywhere she wants. Nothing is making her stay in Toussaint, she is only staying because she wants to, contrary to all of the third game and the books where she is forced by the circumstances of the plot to go to certain places. Anything could draw her away from Toussaint, the CDPR writers would just have to make sure that it was a problem big enough to make her want to leave the easy life at Corvo Bianco. A very open-ended ending, and a starting lifepath for a new game could really go in any direction with this one. Ending #2: Ciri becomes empress of Nilfgaard I will call this one the “sad ending,” because when I got this ending, I had a lump in my throat the entire time. It begins with Geralt, Dandelion, Zoltan, and either Triss or Yen in the inn at White Orchard. They have been traveling together for some months with Ciri and are making for the Blue Mountains, though it is never mentioned why. Everyone is very happy, and it’s an altogether joyful scene, all the friends have finally defeated the Wild Hunt and are free to roam the Northern Realms together. Geralt goes to find Ciri and chats with her as they go to see the site where the griffin Geralt kills at the start of the game has its nest. Geralt is talking about how the future is bright and Ciri is answering in monosyllabic phrases, indicating that there is something bothering her. As they walk in the woods, Ciri and Geralt play in the snow, and walk back towards the village. When they get there, a Nilfgaardian envoy is parked in the middle of the road, and Ciri tells Geralt that she has decided that she is going to Nilfgaard because she believes she can do the most good as empress. After an emotional farewell, she gives Geralt her sword and rides away with the Nilfgaardians. The ending slideshow says that Emhyr is preparing to crown Ciri empress. When Ciri shows comes to Corvo Bianco, Geralt is surprised because he never thought he would see her again. There is a nice moment where she says that she likes coming back into this life. They go up to the hill again, and the dialogue is different on the hill. I don’t think that Ciri every will actually become empress in this ending. The ending slideshow’s exact quote is: “After years in exile, Ciri returned to Nilfgaard, her paternal home, where Emhyr prepared to name her as his successor.” There are a few strange things about this quote. First of all, Nilfgaard is not her paternal home, Cintra is. Second of all, it says “prepares to name her as his successor” and not “names her his successor.” I believe that the developers originally intended her to become empress, but after the massive success of the game they wanted to keep the possibility of a sequel open. With the release of Blood and Wine, CDPR hints that Ciri will actually never take the throne. First of all, she returns to Geralt. The fact that she comes back to him at all was doubtful with the base game ending, as she tries to get him to come to Nilfgaard with her. The second piece of evidence that she will never be crowned is what she actually says to Geralt on the hill. She has the same voice line where she says she could stay forever, and when Geralt asks what stopping her, this time she says “Obligations, duties. I’m only here because Papa, I mean, Emhyr concluded I must get to know what I’ll rule once I take the throne. So I’m on a tour of the provinces with a small swarm of advisors.” This quote makes little sense to me. Why would a tour of Nilfgaard’s provinces even take Ciri to Toussaint? Yes, Toussaint is technically a vassal state of Nilfgaard, but it is not actually governed by the emperor. In Lady of the lake, Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen explains exactly how vassal states of Nilfgaard work when discussing what will happen to Dol Blathanna after the empire pulls out of the north. He says that Dol Blathanna will become a duchy, like Toussaint. They have to pay homage to Nilfgaard but will be able to make their own laws and have their own court system. Thaler also mentions this after Radovid is killed in the third game, how Temeria will become a vassal state and be self-governed. So Ciri would never actually rule over Toussaint as she says. Also, when Geralt first comes to Toussaint, Reynart de Bois-Fresnes, the first knight errant Geralt ever meets is slaughtering Nilfgaardians to help Geralt and his companions. Not to mention the fact that Stefan Skellen hides out in Toussaint after his attempt to kill Ciri because he says that the duchy is the only place in the world where he could be sure he would be safe from Vattier de Rideaux’s spies. The only place in the entire world there would be no Nilfgaardian spies. Think about that. Not only is Toussaint disregarded by Nilfgaard, but the rest of the world largely ignores it as well, thinking of it as “the place we get wine.” Ciri says some other things on the hill too that make it doubtful she will ever ascend the throne. She mentioned how she is stalling for time in Beauclair by telling her advisors her knowledge would be incomplete until she has tasted each of the year’s wines. The reason she gives Geralt for this stalling is, and I quote: “Though actually, just between you and me, I’m not certain I’m cut out to rule, govern, all that…” Geralt asks her if she is going to give it up, and she says “I can’t say just yet. But I’m not willing to rule it out.” Geralt also asks her about how the coronation preparations are coming along, and she responds with: “Not at all. I told him I’m in no hurry.” She later tells Geralt she could make him “Court Witcher” which could suggest that she may become empress after all, but this comment was made more as a joke than anything else, and I don’t believe that “Court Witcher” is a title in Nilfgaard or any other province for that matter. The third reason I don’t think that Ciri will ever become empress is that it is antithetical to her outlook on the world. All she ever wanted, through the games and the books was for people to leave her out of their schemes so she could make her own decisions. I know everyone will say it was her decision to go to Emhyr, but she is sort of manipulated by into becoming his heir. We know Emhyr has wanted to capture Ciri for a long time because of the books, where literally every king wanted to capture her so that they had a ruler of Cintra that could be manipulated easily. The other reason he wanted to capture her was so that he can marry her and produce a son that will rule the world. Yeah, her father wants to marry her. It’s messed up. And Ciri knows this was his plan. So why does Ciri go to him instead of staying with Geralt in the sad ending? We will never know what happened in the conversation with Emhyr and Ciri, but we do know that they argued, and then she got a letter at some point either after she entered Tor Gvalch’ca or shortly before. She then made her decision to go and be empress, because she felt like she could do the most good there. Then when Geralt says “You could have told me,” Ciri says: “I wanted to, but I didn’t know how. I’ve been happy here.” It is so unlike Ciri to leave a situation where she is finally happy. There are so little of them that she always wants to stay to be happy as long as she can. In the books, she stays with the gang the Rats, and when Geralt dreams about her it is mentioned that he feels her happiness. The reason why she leaves is only because she wants to find Geralt, the person she is literally leaving in the sad ending ending! (Yes, also it’s because the Rats all get killed by Bonhart, but she leaves them before that.) The only other time she leaves a situation where she is reasonably happy and safe is when she leaves the Cyberpunk world to come back and find Geralt and Yennefer. (That is the reason she gives when Geralt asks about it in the hut.) Ciri says that being empress is what she wants, but it’s really exactly what Emhyr wants. Ultimately, all she ever wants is to make her own decisions, but she forces Geralt to make the decision that ultimately decides her future, whether or not she should go to see Emhyr directly after the events at Kaer Morhen. Also, Geralt can decide if Nilfgaard will win the war or not. This forces her down the path of either Geralt’s actions or Emhyr’s actions determining her future. And while Geralt will make her want to stay with love, respect, trust, and the bond developed even before she was born, Emhyr will draw her away with wordplay and manipulation. I mean, how do you think that Ciri came up with the thought that she could do the most good in Nilfgaard, by herself, or through what Emhyr said to her in the letter? All Ciri’s life, she has only wanted people to leave her out of their plans and have freedom, and she loses that by becoming empress. For these reasons, I believe that even though this ending is known as the “Empress ending,” there is almost no chance that she will actually take the throne. This leaves CDPR in the same situation story wise as the good ending. A new game with this ending could have Ciri about to be crowned when something happens, or she can give up and refuse to rule for some reason, because I don’t think that a game with Ciri as tied down as empress would be as interesting as one where she is free to wander the world. Ending #3: Ciri “Dies” This ending begins with Geralt hunting down the last crone to retrieve Vesemir’s medallion. He meets a werewolf who tells him that it is not worth the risk to fight the crone, as she is dangerous, and tells Geralt to find another trinket for his daughter. Geralt replies “My daughter’s dead.” When he finds the crone, she tells him that he will not survive this fight. Even if he kills her, the swamp village is completely surrounded by monsters and he won’t get out alive. Then she tells Geralt that Ciri is dead, which is not news to Geralt as he already knew that. Geralt kills the crone, and then in anger trashes the inside of the shack. He finds Vesemir’s medallion in a box and holds it, while monsters surround the shack from the outside. We know that Geralt does escape though, because it is canon that the events of Blood and Wine happen after the Wild Hunt is defeated. Geralt actually has different voice lines in this ending when he is talking with Regis about Ciri. When Regis asked if he ever found Ciri if you got one of the endings where Ciri survived, he says: “Back then, yeah. But we parted again soon after. And when the time was ripe, she returned and we defeated the Wild Hunt together.” But if you get the bad ending, he only says: “Back then, yeah. But we parted again soon after” in a sad voice. So he survived the swamp because he still believes Ciri to be dead. Yes, he has no epilogue, but it really wouldn’t make sense for him to die in the crone’s village since technically every ending is supposed to be canon with Blood and Wine. We know that he survived that ending…but did Ciri? It is hinted at a few times throughout the game that Ciri will die at the end. There is this soothsayer in Benek who tells Geralt that Ciri knew that she was going to have to sacrifice herself to stop the White Frost. The crones tell Geralt that if he finds her, she will die shortly afterwards. There are also many voice lines from the sorceresses and Avallac’h telling Geralt that he needs to stop controlling Ciri and let her make her own decisions or he will regret it. Ironic that Geralt’s decisions ultimately decide Ciri’s fate anyway. I think that the question of whether Ciri survives come down to a few factors: number one being the White Frost itself. The White Frost in the books is an inevitable event that happens due to the northern hemisphere of the earth tilting further away from the sun. In the games, it is more of an entity, a force that blows through multiple worlds and times, burying everything in ice. The way that Avallac’h wanted Ciri to stop the White Frost in the books was to maker her have a son with the king of the Aen Elle, who would be much more powerful than she. Then the son would use his powers to teleport the population of the Aen Elle’s doomed planet to another. Avallac’h also says that he will save the humans and the Aen Seidhe living on the Earth when the time comes as well. In the games, it is not clear what Ciri must do to defeat the White Frost, but we do know that Avallac’h needs to make Ciri stop it as quickly as possible, which is made clear by his lab notes. He actually hates Ciri, as she reminds him of his love for Lara Dorren, who spurned him for a human mage. He only wants her to stop the White Frost so his world will be safe and then he will be able to get rid of her. The question now arises, is it necessary for Ciri to die to stop the White Frost? In my opinion, even though the ending is very ambiguous, the evidence the game does give us points to no. Ciri tells Geralt that she will come back if possible when he implores her not to enter the portal in the tower. She believes she will survive. Also, while Geralt watches the portal, it eventually closes. The portal was opened by Avallac’h so that Ciri could slip away while Geralt was busy fighting Eredin and Caranthir. It is likely that Avallac’h told Ciri what to do to stop the White Frost, since she seems very sure of herself when she enters the portal. She does not have to die though, in order to stop it. The way I see it, she probably stopped it one of two ways. One, The White Frost is an actual being and she fought and defeated it in combat. This doesn’t seem very likely, as even though the White Frost in the games does appear as more of an evil god or a demon than a force of nature as in the books, I don’t think it likely that she would just stab it with her sword and it would die. It could have been some curse she had to break, but even if this is the case it would not require her to sacrifice herself. Two, Ciri isolated the worlds that the White Frost was blowing through, cutting off passage between the worlds that were affected and the ones that weren’t. This makes a little more sense, as the elder blood gene is supposed to control passage between worlds. But it doesn’t explain then how the world of the Aen Elle, not to mention the earth are saved, as the White Frost was already blowing through both of those worlds. I believe that the since the White Frost is a more of a being in the games, it was probably residing in one world and then blowing through to others from there. Ciri could have cut off the world it was residing in, causing it to be trapped there forever and saving the worlds that were affected by it. This theory seems like the most plausible, but there is one problem with it. We know Ciri stopped the White Frost, as the portal in the tower closed before Geralt and Avallac’hs eyes, but if travel was cut off to whatever world the White Frost was residing in, how did Ciri escape that world? There really seems to be no explanation, because we know that she succeeds no matter what ending you get, and she is able to travel back to the witcher world afterwards in the good ending and the sad ending. It really doesn’t matter exactly how she did it, it only matters that she did because that is one thing that we know happened. The portal closing, the conjunction of spheres stopping, and Ciri coming back (in 2 endings) all happened for sure. We can assume she succeeded in her task. So then, why does she die in the bad ending? I find it hard to believe that she just committed suicide by staying in the frozen wasteland just because she doesn’t like Geralt anymore. She actually has tried to commit suicide before in the books, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. I’m not sure why she would finally succeed in her task, be free from all the people trying to use her for their own purposes, and then freeze to death just because she thinks that Geralt doesn’t believe in her anymore. But Geralt truly believes she is dead in the epilogue. The crone says it as well, but the crones have made bogus predictions before, such as them actually saying to Geralt earlier in the game that they would be the reason for Ciri’s death. The crone knew Geralt was distraught and angry, and she could have taken advantage of this by telling Geralt that Ciri died in order to make him more angry and less focused on the fight. Also, when Ciri tells Geralt she will come back to him, she says “if I can.” We know now that she is able to, and yet doesn’t, so it would make sense for Geralt to believe her to be dead. So what actually happened to her? It is not clear, as she doesn’t have an ending monologue like Geralt when you get this ending. The next game could see her anywhere, just trying to figure out why Geralt made her feel as if she couldn’t stand up for herself and that he was making decisions for her. But it wouldn’t make sense for her to be able to stop the White Frost and then just die. It is much more plausible that she decided not to return to Geralt. Other Arguments Against A Sequel With Ciri #1: Too Overpowered I’ve seen some people argue that after the events of the third game, Ciri is an incredibly strong fighter and would easily defeat any opponent she came up against, making fighting in the hypothetical sequel uninteresting and boring. It also wouldn’t make sense to nerf her abilities in the next game, as it would go completely against the lore, and would almost be an insult to her character to dumb down her abilities for a new game. The thing that most people don’t realize is that Geralt of Rivia was already an extremely overpowered character. The witchers are much stronger fighters than humans, able to take on multiple foes at a time with relative ease. Geralt is the strongest of the witchers, having the most mutations and has had almost a century of experience by the time of the games. Triss Merigold thinks to herself at one point when she is heading to Kaer Morhen in Blood of Elves that Geralt was the greatest fighter she had ever seen. Yen also remarks in the books that there are only a few people in the world that could have a chance of beating Geralt in a fight. Likely one was Vilgefortz, who Geralt makes no mistakes at all against and still gets beaten in only a minute or so. The other was probably Leo Bonhart, who never actually fought Geralt, but we know he has killed at least three witchers because he carries their medallions with him. Not to mention he fought the entire gang of Rats at once and killed them all in a one versus six battle. The only way Ciri was able to defeat him was by luring him into a very specific situation in the ruined part of Stygga Castle and using the pendulum trick she learned at Kaer Morhen to make him fall. Summing up, it doesn’t make sense to say that Ciri is too overpowered to have her own game, because we got three games with Geralt who was already one of the best swordsmen in the world even in the first game. I think that CDPR could definitely balance the difficulty of combat in a sequel with Ciri as they already did with Geralt in the trilogy. #2: Character Creation Another thing I’ve seen people saying is that they want to create their own witcher to play through a new game. I guess I can understand the roleplaying potential of a game with a customizable witcher, but I don’t see how this will fit the lore at all. There are so few witchers that it wouldn’t really make sense to all of a sudden bring out a new witcher who was in hiding or something into a world where their trade is declining. Also, if the game was set as a prequel when there were more witchers around, it wouldn’t make sense that the wolf school witchers from the first and third games wouldn’t be able to refer to this past witcher by any identifying features because every playthrough’s witcher would be unique. Also, we know from Marcin Iwinski that the next game won’t be called “The Witcher.” I find it highly unlikely that the third game will be about any of the witchers, or a new one that we don’t know about yet. I also think it very unlikely that we will see a standalone game with either Triss or Yen as the lead, because picking only one of them as a protagonist will leave fifty percent of the fanbase disappointed. This kind of leaves Ciri as the only choice, because I would find it hard to believe that most of the fanbase would not want to see a game about her. I just wanted to add these at the end because I wanted to address the issues that some of the community would have with a Ciri sequel. Do I actually think the next game will be a sequel starring Ciri? Well, evidence right now points to no. I just wanted to compile some ideas about why a sequel would make sense though, because I have a feeling that a prequel game with Ciri will unfortunately not be an open world RPG. I think that the obvious story to tell is what happened to Ciri right after she dropped Geralt off at Kaer Morhen with his memory wiped. It would be heartbreaking to see Ciri trying to get Geralt to flee the Wild Hunt with her, but he doesn’t remember who she is and so she has to leave him in the woods and run away without him. Then the game would follow her through all the worlds she jumped through to escape Eredin. This does not sound like an open world game, since there would be so many worlds in it! I’m not saying that a game like this would be bad by any means, I’m just saying that I would rather have a game like Wild Hunt, but in a new area (like Cintra maybe,) and starring Ciri.
Hey Everyone, I decided to update my previous guide on beginning on Twitch. Hopefully this is helpful! It'll cover a large variety of topics, with a lot of suggestions based on my observations and professional experience streaming for my game studio. It is for anyone who plans to use OBS (or OBS variants), Xsplit is a different beast and I am unfamiliar with it. So before we begin, buckle up, put on your helmet, and get your travel mug cause we're going for a rip!
Creating Your Channel
Coming Up With A Name: Like any product, you want something that is catchy, simple, and memorable. Also, for those who really want to roll with it, you can have a theme! Your name is important because it really sets you up for having solid branding for your channel. Some people just make a channel, and their username is something unoriginal or unattractive "Jdawg2245" or "bigchonkyboi22" or something along those lines. You are trying to diversify yourself in this highly competitive market, so give thought to your channel name because it sets the stage for a lot of future decisions. Think up something that rolls off the tongue and is easy for someone to remember if recommend. For example "JackDavies" or "PapaSmurf". Those are easy to remember and don't require memorizing what numbers or symbols were in there.
Catch Phrases: It may sound silly, but catch phrases are pretty common for content creators. They create branding, and they create a sense of familiarity for fans/viewers to recognize a channel. CohhCarnage for example has his "Good Show!!" when he receives a sub, or for Ezekiel_III, he not only has a whole spiel, he also has a thing he does that is a unique fist bump for when he gets a new sub. When I sign off, I say "Catch ya on the flipside". It feels good to say and is distinctly me. Catch phrases aren't required, but it can build a sense of consistency and fun.
Schedule: Before you stream, know when you plan to stream. This is important in order to provide a concrete, cut and dry, timeline of when you'll be online. This is important for viewer retention. Stream consistently for generating regular viewers as they can't come to watch, if there's nothing to watch! On the flip side, don't stream too much, or you'll burn yourself out, or have no new content. Keep it healthy, and keep it consistent. There are exceptions to this like Bikeman. He didn't have a schedule, he streamed when he streamed, and people would show up. That's an exception, not the norm.
Hardware
This is the most discussed part of streaming, each persons setup is unique, and it's difficult to say there is a perfect setup. What I'm going to do instead is explain to you the necessity of each component, and how it's critical to the stream and your viewers experience.
CPU: The CPU (or Processor) is one of the most important aspects regarding the technical side of streaming. If you are using a 1 PC streaming setup, not only is it running the game, it is encoding your content as it broadcasts to Twitch (if using CPU b. What is Encoding? Encoding is the process of converting the media content that you are uploading (In this case audio-visual content) and converting it into a standard that Twitch will receive. Encoding is CPU intensive (uses a lot of CPU power) and this means you need a fairly decent CPU. I recommend some of the higher end CPUs in order to give yourself both sufficient processing power, and also some longevity. Buying an introductory processor will only mean you get a short time frame of which to utilize it. Higher end AMD/Intel processors will allow you to get the most for your money because even though it's $100 more, it may last another 2 years until needing to upgrade.
GPU: Your GPU (or video card) is essential in running the games that you are playing. The two major players are AMD and nVidia. The better your GPU, the better your graphics will be, and the higher quality your stream will be because of how the game looks. Unless you're using the nVidia nvenc encoder, the GPU isn't super critical on the stream technical side of things, mainly just on the game side. If you are using NVENC, then your CPU doesn't have as much of a load which means more balanced. If you are playing via capture card and on a console, this will mean you can use either without concerns on how it impacts your
RAM: Your RAM (or memory) is all about "short term memory", and the ABSOLUTE minimum I would recommend is 8GB, but I realistically, I recommend 16GB or more as Open World games and Battle Royale games are utilizing more RAM since they are temporarily storing data from servers in your RAM client side in order to display it on your machine as well as all of the visual assets you see. RAM significantly helps with multitasking as you start to run a few applications at the same time while you stream to help boost the quality of it.
HDD/SSD: Your HDD (Hard Drive Disk) or SSD (Solid State Drive) are all about storage. SSD's are great for storing all your main programs and OS on, and running from there, and using a HDD for storing data is handy. HDD utilize mechanical components in order to run, therefore increasing the odds of fairly, so if your data is important to you, have a backup that is typically a bit larger than your current hard drive, in order to make sure ALL your content is backed up. SSD's use flash memory (the same as Thumb Drives, and this allows them to be faster, and more reliable, as the odds of mechanical failure are slim to none. If you are looking to edit your content on your computer, make sure to have a decent sized HDD so that you can record your stream as you stream it!
Monitors: Monitors become your best friend as your stream grows. I currently use 2 monitors, although in the past I used to use three. I know right? I was insane! This allowed me to have the center monitor act as my main action monitor (the game I'm playing), my left monitor is my OBS screen so I can check my frames, uptime, and see any alerts that are broadcast (more on this later ;]), finally my right monitor was for my third party bot/chat which I now use Stream Elements for in OBS).
Webcam: If you are deciding to use a webcam (some people stream without one, but it can help), it's worth getting a decent one right off the bat. A nice logitech webcam is around $100, but should last you for a couple years! The models I'd recommend are the Logitech C920/922 or the Logitech Brio (a 4k webcam). There are cheaper webcam, but you will notice changes in quality. I highly recommend at least something with 1080p and 30fps. A lot of the differences will be FoV (how wide of a shot it takes).
Microphone: This is a more difficult decision. Each person has a different way they want to broadcast their audio to their viewers. Many just use a headset, and eventually upgrade to something else once they've established themselves. Others will use something with more umph right from the get go like a Razer Seiren, or a Blue Micophones - Yeti Mic. And even higher end people will use a digital audio input, a high end studio XLR microphone, and a scissor stand, to record professional quality sound, with more options for effects and the like. As a note, audio quality is a big deal. No one wants to listen to a rough sounding mic that sounds like it was bought for 10 bucks at the dollar store, so this is a good place to focus.
Network: It is important that you have ~5mbps upload speed. This will allow you to upload at the recommended encoding bitrate of 2000kbps or higher. If you are playing an online game, while streaming, it's helpful to have a bit more speed to run. In a perfect world, a higher upload speeds means better quality for your stream if you can afford to increase the bit rate.
Capture Card: for those of you who want to stream console games, a capture card is important. There are a variety of capture cards for old connections and for HDMI. You also have the option of internal or external capture devices. This will reduce the load on your PC as the processor or graphics card is being used just for encoding as the game is being played on the console. Search for the right capture card for you, and see how it goes! Elgato is a great brand for capture cards, as is AverMedia.
Peripheral: This includes mice, keyboard, etc. This doesn't have a major impact on the stream, just get what you like and makes game-play more comfortable for you!
Setting Up OBS
First, download OBS, this is the application that this guide is based off of, and while allow you to broad cast your stream to your twitch channel. There are some alternative OBS versions such as Streamlabs OBS, StreamElements has an addon for OBS, and Twitch has their BETA software, Twitch Studio.
Second, follow the instructions to install OBS on your computer.
Third, go to your Twitch Dashboard, go to Stream Key, and show your stream key. This is important for OBS to broadcast to your Twitch channel. Go to your OBS Settings-Broadcast Settings and input your stream key into the Play Path/Stream Key section, when you've set Mode to Live Stream, and Streaming Service to Twitch.
Fourth, set your encoding bitrate. The golden rule for a non-partnered streamer is around 2000kbps for your Bitrate, but you can go higher, although without transcoding, you run the risk of some viewers having buffering issues. There are two encoding types, x264 (CPU Intensive) and NVENC (GPU intensive). Try testing both to see if you have any bottlenecks. I recently have switched to NVENC since I have been playing switch games, which means my GPU has more wiggle room and it's a bit higher end than my CPU.
Fifth, set your video settings. The golden rule is 1280x720 (720P) with an FPS of 30. As your stream grows, you'll more likely get transcoding when capacity is available. If you are an affiliate, you will get priority access to transcoding for your viewers (the ability to set the resolution lower) as capacity is available, and as a partner, you will always have it.
Sixth, set your Audio settings to how you like them (desktop audio device and what you want your default microphone to be). I personally have a higher quality, stereo microphone, so I force my Microphone to Mono.
Seventh, start creating your scenes. There are two different squares you'll see. Scenes and Sources. Scenes are the unique scenes for say "Stream Starting", "Main Overlay", "BRB", "Stream Ending". Sources are the things that are added together to make a scene. This includes images for overlays, graphics, Browser Sources for alerts/notifications, Text, Webcam, etc. Scenes are very specific to each person, but I recommend checking other streams to see what is aesthetically pleasing to you. From there, you can either make them yourself, commission them, or you can use third party sources for scenes. As mentioned elsewhere, there are groups like Nerd or Die and Own3d.tv that sell overlays. Nerd or Die does have some pay what you want.
Eighth, do a test stream. This is important for you to gauge if your quality settings are at the right place for you, and allows you to fine tune them.
Branding
Logo: Your logo is your face. Find something professional, but at the same time catches the eye and helps draw a theme for you! You can check out certain sites like Fiverr to get a cheap starter logo without breaking the bank.
Overlays: Whether you buy them online, have someone make them, or make them yourself, overlays help enhance your stream scene. Keep it simple, while still adding flair. Recently I removed some stuff from mine so there was more game space for what I am playing, while still displaying the same information for viewers regarding latest follower, donation, etc. There's a lot of Overlay sites such as Nerd or Die, Own3d.tv, and fiverr to get custom overlays. Find what works best for you.
Information Panels: On your channel, you have information panels at the bottom. Use them to your advantage. I highly recommend having a schedule panel, links to your various social media, etc. Creating your own panels, that match your general theme, are worth it to create that Branding we are aiming for. You are the product, you don't want crappy packaging.
Social Media: Try and match all your social media to your channel name. This breeds familiarity with all the folks you are networking with. They will recognize the name across all different social media platforms. Reddit, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc. I use PhazePyre for everything.
Streaming! The Good Part!
This is going to be general tips to help you on your path to becoming a great entertainer. There's ALWAYS room for improvement, even the best streamers and entertainers have room for improvement
Don't be quiet: Talk to your viewers, whether it's 0 or 100. Talk to yourself, talk about what your doing, talk about the song, it's awkward at first but as you do it more often, you'll get used to it. Not only will this provide content and dialogue, it'll help you workout your vocal cords so that you can talk for extended periods. The big thing is you don't want to come across as boring. One way to help with this is to add very light background music to the stream. It helps fill the silence a bit in quieter games.
Minimize off screen time: Try and minimize the amount of AFK time that you have. If you are younger, let your parents know you are streaming. Explain to them what you're doing, and hopefully they understand. Let them know how long you'll usually stream for, and if they absolutely need something, to let you know before hand, or via a text message. Nothing is worse than Mom busting in telling you to take your underwear out of the bathroom.
Don't play oversaturated games: Try to avoid what I call the "Top 4", LoL, Dota2, CS:GO, Hearthstone, unless you are REALLY good at those games. They are competitive games, and you are competing with professionals of those games and giant tournaments. This is tough though, as it can be tricky to be found. You'll have viewers coming in and out of your stream, and depending on how you're packaged yourself, they may opt to chat and become a follower. Additionally, there's no perfect game to play. Find something that you know you can play regularly and it'll help you build
Don't call out lurkers: Don't even get your bots to do it. It's tacky, and WILL make most people leave. Some people just want to sit back and see how you are. Lurkers are especially great as they'll help build your viewer count so you can break above the 90% of streams that are under 5-10 viewers.
Don't ask for donations: i don't think I need to really explain why.
Be Confident!: People like seeing someone who's comfortable, confident, and knows what they are doing, or, if you don't, "Fake it 'til you make it!"
Network, Network, Network: The best way to network imo, is to support other streamers, and organically support their endeavours. What do I mean by "organic"? I mean don't force it. Find streamers you actually like and enjoy, who are around your size, and show your support because you care about THEIR stream, not just yours. It's tough though as you don't want to come across as only wanting to interact for their viewership.
Create Channel Competitions: These can breed fan loyalty and help turn people from lurkers to regulars and super engaged community members! Don't worry if you can't afford it though.
Bots (The Good Kind)
I'm only gonna list the major three free bots
Nightbot: A free, web based bot, that provides moderation capabilities, song requests, and custom commands.
MooBot: Similar to NightBot in that it is cloud based. Includes song requests and more.
Streamlabs' Cloud Bot: If you are using StreamLabs OBS, this will be optional to enable while using it. Definitely worth it so all of your settings are in one client. Offers many options like moderation, commands, timers, giveaways, and more.
Security
Doxxing, Swatting, etc, are all bad things that trolls will do to cause trouble. These are some ways to reduce the risk of having your personal information leaked, and to help keep you safe. You may not be worried, which is fine, but I know many people are concerned about their identity and safety, and these are a few tips to help
Create a separate email, that doesn't include your name anywhere. This will create a divide between you and your online persona. Batman doesn't go around telling everyone he's [REDACTED] does he?
If creating a PayPal, upgrade to a business account, and make sure all your information is kept private. Your address may be displayed when you purchase things, but this will protect you when users pay you money and it displays your information. I recommend using the Name of "YOUR CHANNEL NAME's Twitch Channel".
DON'T USE SKYPE WITH VIEWERS, heck unless you 100% trust random viewers, don't even use TeamSpeak. Discord is is a new app that secures your ip to prevents users from obtaining your ip address and causing problems.
Don't give too many details out about your location, and if you invite friends/family (I recommend not doing that so that you create an independent identity) make sure they don't address you by your name. Get a PO Box if you'd like to send things to viewers without worrying about them get your personal details.
Ensure your Steam Profile is changed to your new channel specific email. If you send a game to someone for a giveaway, it will show your personal email unless you change it.
How to grow your channel
Make content on other platforms outside of Twitch. YouTube, TikTok, and other forms of content based social media are great ways to passively grow your audience. Find out your specialty and put that out there. YouTube content should try and be unique compared to what you do on stream in order
Build a community. Get to know the people coming to your streams. If you value them, they will value you and feel wanted in your community. As a smaller streamer this is your strongest tool. I highly recommend making a discord and inviting people to join it. If you integrate Mee6 as your Discord bot, it will notify people when you go live if you'd like, and that can help build retention and viewership.
Roll with the punches. You make get trolls, the best way to deal with them is don't take the bait. Although not super valuable, I've had some trolls follow because of how I rolled with their attempts to troll me. I never saw them again, but the less serious to take them, the better a time you'll have.
DO NOT DO THESE
Don't do Follow for Follow. Followers doesn't mean much. You want a high conversion rate, and these bloat your followers and don't typically result in extra views. The goal is to have as many followers be viewers as possible, a 1:1 ratio. That person following you isn't likely to watch your stream. What do I mean by have as close to a 1:1 ratio as possible? You want to try and have every follow be a viewer. Is it realistic that if you have 25k followers, that you'll have 25k viewers? No, it's not. but what's realistic is to focus on converting every follower into a repeat viewer. Tools like Discord can help bring them into your fold. Some people will follow and only come back infrequently, but over time, you can work to have them become a regular. But if you do Follow 4 Follow, you'll have a bunch of followers who just want you to watch them, and aren't likely to be a regular viewer.
Don't pay for viewers (view bots). It's bad, Twitch will find out, and you'll be hooped.
SupportSmallStreamers, FollowForFollow, and other "growth" hashtags really aren't that great. Everyone is out for themselves. Rather, find like minded streamers and become friends with them. When you care about others, they'll care about you.
Be wary of Affiliate programs (outside of Twitch) as they aren't super beneficial for anyone. Focus on growth to build your influence and viewership, from there revenue will naturally come and you can prepare via agents/agencies, and the like. For now, dedicate your time to building a community. Rather than affiliate programs, use things like Amazon Blacksmith and personally recommend what you want and get some kick back.
Some small streamef4f groups can cause problems for you long term. Studios and companies will blacklist people that aren't focused on quality content creation, and instead are looking for instant fame. Usually it means the quality of your content isn't great, and your influence is not equal to your numbers.
Summary
All in all, streaming is a fun time. It's worth getting into especially if you're charismatic and love to entertain. Charisma is hard to develop for some people, and you may not succeed, that's the reality of things. Do what you can and don't burn yourself out. Additionally, find what makes you stand out in the crowd. Twitch continues to grow for streamers, so you need to stand out in a good way. A solid way to grow is by creating content on other platforms and pushing people to Twitch. Twitch doesn't have great passive growth opportunities, but other platforms do. Funnel those followers to Twitch and you'll see better growth. This guide isn't all inclusive and covers everything. There is SO MUCH to cover, but this is a beginners guide and enough to give you some tips, hot takes, and instructions to start your journey on Twitch. I have made a previous post about 4 years ago that won some awards, and this is just updated a bit to make it more relevant to 2020 as I still see people reading my post and sending me emails. So here's something freshened up.
Suggestions?
Feel free to pm me, or leave a comment with any additional content you'd like added to this guide, or feel free to comment if you have additional questions and I'll add to the guide! You can DM if you have any questions regarding streaming or any additional inquiries specific to you and not in general! If you were paying attention to my guide, you should be able to find me on social pretty easy as well ;) Good luck streamers, and have fun!
The Ride of Terror (Burnout Legends to Dangerous Driving)
(WARNING: tons of words, about 30 minutes of reading. Includes tons of vulgarity. Viewer discretion is advised) I've returned home... But with what? I mean, I did buy some games last month, so I pretty much can't be bothered to hide 'em from you guys. What I got was an Xbox One game, but with what? Well, let's see... "Wait!" ...Huh!? Burnout 3: Takedown? What is it, man? "I gotta tell you the truth! Dangerous Driving is terrible! So terrible, it degraded my mental health! Don't open the fucking game case, you idiot!" Oh, please! You must be overreacting! Besides, you won't know what game it is until I open it! So what was this game with plain white construction paper that I got from a garage sale? Let's see... *opens the game case* Uh... why did you put the disc on the wrong side of how it's usually stored? ...And by that, I mean the readable part of the disc. *takes the game out of the case, and flips it over* ... ... *sees that Dangerous Driving is the game he bought* ...H-HUH!?!? "I told you to not open that, and look what happened." NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! ...Ugh... Aw, sheet, bruh! Wow... After an unfortunate opening sequence, I am going to be talking about the Ride of Terror, which is an extensive rant, from Burnout Legends, to Dangerous Driving. I do enjoy the Burnout games that eventually got lacking, but I still enjoy the classics. Sounds like a drug addiction. Their debates usually made about when Burnout, as the series starting going to Hell. I mean, making an arcade racing game once a year about speeding through traffic, taking down other drivers, checking traffic, seeing how skilled you are in Maniac mode like every single year isn't easy. The later installments, the games began to get weak with identity, and trying to maintain innovational new features. While it never really reached the EA standard they set for themselves from the games, they were still pretty great. The ideas were there, but the execution began to slip by the time Paradise came along. Even though I feel Dominator is criminally underrated by some fans, I didn't feel the same for Revenge. Despite where the tipping point has gone, EA tried to go out still swinging with new features every year for better or worse. ...And then they made a bunch of Need For Speed games. ...And then later, they decided to no longer develop Burnout for Alex Ward and his crew. Poor Criterion lost their best members and passed the Burnout torch onto probably one of the most controversial game companies on the planet, Three Fields Entertainment... who probably faceplanted onto asphalt. Possibly because of some jackass who glued a steering wheel to his feet. Oh, wait! That's the Xbox wireless steering wheel! Whoopsie! "Papa EA, why'd you push me into track and field? I never wanted to do this!" "Why can't you just be like your brother, you scrawny little consucky?" *TFE sobs* With a gimmick, and a Burnout license in hand, and experiences only in short games such as, uh... Lethal VR. Dangerous Golf. Danger Zone. And uh... Danger Zone 2 in mind. Three Fields Entertainment set out on their dream to make Bummed-out racing games. Except the warning was already in one of their previous titles: Danger Zone! Persistent Wrecks! They KNEW what fire they were playing with! Hot Shots Golf! Err, excuse me... Got ahead of myself for a moment there. Frankly, I don't believe anyone expected much from Legends. It's a typical cash grab that is geared heavily towards the handheld based audience. The sad fact is that almost nobody liked it, nor did almost anybody bought it. With full DS/PSP retail price going to the game, don't really blame people's hesitancy on grabbing this. Most of the modes in this game are identical enough in nature to Burnout 3, such as Burning Lap, where you have to get through a single lap on a track as fast as possible to get the best overall time. Road Rage, where you take down other drivers, and so on. And then an Eliminator mode, where every racer caught in last place after each lap is out of the race. They essentially stretched these three premises throughout most of the game. They acted like Survival of the Fastest, where you have to have skill in order to win, depending on what mode it is, all the while boosting, drifting, jumping, and knocking other players off the road. And this proved to be quite a task for me due to limited space on the console, and collisions being so underdeveloped in Legends. The locations, tracks, however you wanna call 'em are reused tracks from both Point of Impact and Takedown. The Special GP was a nuisance. I ended up getting more pissed off during these courses than any other segment. They're so extensive, so drawn-out, and very frustrating to play with F1 indycars. "I don't know what the fuck's going on..." "I can't get back up to speed for some ungodly reason..." "Mad cuz bad." "This is cultural appropriation!" *gets slammed off the road* "Help me!" *hits a Taxi cab* "Sheet!" "Alex, why'd you do this to me!?" "I feel like I'm on the Indianapolis 500, I wish I could Takedown my way outta here!" "I'm the champion! What now, punks?" "This isn't going to end well..." "I can't fucking see exactly where I'm going! How much depth does this game have!? Holy shit!" "This level may as well have been replaced with trucks wrecking me, because I feel like this game is fucking me in the ass hardcore anyways with this stupid lackluster gameplay!" "They have all this technology, but can't afford better physics or better quality gameplay!" "You can also play this game with your friends! No? Okay." "Unlockable Collector and Legend vehicles, I guess! I dunno..." I hated Legends less than I thought I would, but I still hated it with an unbelievable passion though, so I guess nice job? Danger Zone 2 went back to a more traditional form of Burnout's crash mode. Gots some pre-selected vehicles like a sedan, coupe, supercar, hypercar, Indycar, some new ones like a semi-truck and a taxi cab... K, den. Need bug fix updates for this game for better experience, by the way. Stoopid. Medal thresholds are fair enough, some of the placements of vehicles and other objects you might find familiar, which absolutely makes you feel a bit of nostalgia that they were going for. The main problem with DZ2 is the engine it operates on: Unreal Engine 4. I found it pretty UNREAL to use this engine, if you know what I mean. Sometimes you feel like you're on ice, sometimes you have some sort of moon gravity, sometimes you glitch through the rails, no biggie! Collisions are especially annoying! Reactions when you hit walls are problematic, steering is super mobile, it's just a mess... Also, no support for this game ever since it was released because fuck us, right? TFE: We love games! Consumer: Not anymore... Not YOUR kind of games. Your games are cruel. Soulless. Dangerous Driving rumors circulated, much to the depression of the informed Burnout demographic. Others, BLISSFULLY IGNORANT... IGN articles foreshadowed many bleak things, like having a small amount of vehicles, rehashing parts of tracks, and a new feature I'll go over in a few. However, they did mention most of this was to simply hearken back to the Burnout 3 days, making decisions to leave out features that came after that game because they thought it was "too wacky" for whatever reason, I really don't know. From what I've gathered from the E3 showing was that it looked like a clunky, soulless husk of what Burnout games once were. ...at least BEFORE it was actually released. Instead of a slew of new revolutionary features being implemented, they had a few new ones. Keep track of the amount of features, vehicles, tracks, etc. across the series. So Dangerous Driving has the Persistent Wrecks feature, which means that any wrecks of rivals stay on the track for the rest of the event. Heatwave and Pursuit, only really done by Burnout 2. But you're really not going to keep Traffic Attack from Burnout Revenge? Really? Come on, guys! They really emphasized on things, like online multiplayer post-launch, an online Ranking system, and so on. Lengthy music playlist, ranging from rock, hip hop, and punk genres from the 2000s and 80s. They also confirmed that there would be no leaderboard support at all of the PC version of Dangerous Driving! YEAH, CONSOLE MASTER RACE!!! Reactions to the trailers of the game were negative, with people slamming on it harder from looking like a Playstation 2 game and the gameplay looking as mediocre as ever. While I do agree that Dangerous Driving and the Burnout games prior definitely could've looked better, the graphics weren't the reason why it got popular back then. EA and Criterion weren't perfect on them in the classic Burnout games. They got popular from the fluid gameplay, features, replayability, and dynamic tracks. Three Fields Entertainment's strength came from... their intro screens, I guess? Allowing Three Fields Entertainment to create another Burnout-related game with the same Unreal Engine 4, it's like letting a monkey take care of your house and leaving books of matches everywhere. And you DEFINITELY know that it's not gonna end well! A telling sign of a game developer's faith in their product as whether or not they actually release review copies to media outlets. EA or TFE did not. Not to mention, straight-up refusing to release a demo of Dangerous Driving prior to launch, and they said that they'd rather focus on the game development and the final version. This can only mean bad things. I'd rather not spoil it for you, regarding the Burnout fans, so let's get a move on. Dangerous Driving was martyr'ed with problems the day it was released. A quick patch trying to resolve problems like crashing on the menus. The game was probably warning us before we took the plunge. The game itself crashing, losing all save progress itself, framerate and graphical problems, physics being wonky and the lap counter not working, online capabilities being greatly limited, only being able to connect to one player, if any, 6 players online! Yeah, totally legit... "Waiting for 1 other driver..." *30 minutes later* "Welp, I'm kinda wasting my time here." Mostly Heatwave, Pursuit, and Eliminator being omitted for multiplayer and included Race and Road Rage being drastically misrepresented and skewed from the original concept. For Race, the objective is to finish before anyone else to win. Instead of Eliminator being the same format as Burnout Revenge, it acts like Burnout 3. Every racer caught in last place after each lap DISAPPEARS off the track. No one's vehicle explodes before they get there! Nobody gets sent to the fiery pits of Hell after getting absolutely incinerated, crushed, humiliated, knowing they have inferior driving game and skill compared to your almighty self! *ahem* So yeah. They definitely missed the mark on staying faithful to the game modes and understanding what made them fun and replayable. How are you not gonna have Time Attack, either!? Burnout 1 had Time Attack, and that game first came out in 2001! While watching the game gave me good insight, I intended to play the Xbox One version for myself. Some things, you have to go by your lonesome. Some things you need to play for yourself to truly see how low the bar can be set. Examples: -Action 52 -Superman 64 -Paperboy 64 -Rascal -Disgaea Infinite -Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) -Duke Nukem Forever -Hot Wheels World's Best Driver -Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 And now, Dangerous Driving! When I first opened the game case, I noticed that it didn't come with an instruction booklet. Welp, guess I'm going in blind... Remember when the games had the hype as hell intros? The badass rock music with all these flashy shots of the vehicles, takedowns, and wrecks? Well the intro here is so basic and quick, you just jump right into it. It's lukewarm at best, like when you leave a smoking hot cup of coffee on the counter for half an hour. So when I got to the main menu, immediately my heart sank. I was aware that there wasn't going to be an online mode initially, but there's also no local multiplayer mode, either! Part of what I treasured dearly about my interest of the Burnout series was playing offline with my friends for hours on end. How am I supposed to play with my friends by using an unbalanced vehicle selection with this shit? Not to mention the Crash mode is also absent, which is the reason why the Danger Zone games exist as individual modes. But the biggest insult of all is that the only DLC vehicle you have is the VIP Sedan. You're only gonna make that a pre-order bonus and not a free DLC later on down the road!? The only reason why I bought this fucking game is when the hero's on a fucking half shell! Epic Games is more like Epic Fail Games not having leaderboard support! There's even in game controls, so that's great! Loading screen hints, which give you some info on the what's what of the game. It also shows you the vehicles that you usually unlock from progressing through the Career, so that's another thing. To be real, the people that said it looks like a PlayStation 2 game were wrong. This game, by no means, looks like an up-to-date 2019 game (because it was released in that year). The tracks look especially plain! ...and bizarre. From my personal experience, I didn't know that they kind of chose the more notable graphical and framerate issues, but... Hey, remember when you had many different variations of the vehicles? Yeah, those were good times. Hey remember the trailer that makes it look there's still a ton of vehicle variety? Yeah... There isn't. In all honesty, the older Burnout games didn't have that many of the same cars that had unlockable upgraded versions. But here, you're just slapping on additional parts on top of these same vehicle models to "differentiate" themselves from each other! It's like they decided to go with the customization style comparable to some old flash car customization game! Why did they do this? Hell, Burnout Legends had way more variations of cars in the same vehicle class than this! In Dangerous Driving, you can be like a speed demon on wheels! Not to mention these vehicle models are recycled trash from previous Three Fields games. You also have a fairly limited selection of colors on them altogether! What a ginormous letdown! I'd like to take a moment to refer to something I call the EA Event Principle. In some instances, they have events that are meant to be challenging. But for some, it's an annoyance. For others, it's a welcome test. In either sense, it's usually not challenging to the point of being impossible. Other events are just plain ridiculous and stupid. However, these aforementioned events are usually fun, so let's talk about it, shall we? If an event is like 100% Difficult, it has to be 100% Fun in order for it to be an interesting or good event. There are exceptions, but EA adheres to this for the most part. With that out of the way, let's hop into the Career mode. Right off the bat, you notice the music is not present, though the game does have a Spotify playlist. Some of it is okay, a few of them are great, other songs are terrible. I feel like the ratio of good songs to bad songs are a bit unbalanced in comparison of the games, but that's just my take really. "Another one bites the dust! Err, fuck! God damn it!" It must be said that Dangerous Driving is perhaps the most confused and failed Burnout successor I think we've ever witnessed in all of video game history! There's a lot of menus, just picking something to play, Burnout 3 style! Vehicle classes such as Sedans, SUVs, Coupes, Supercars, Hypercars, and Formula DDs. These classes you use to advance through the career, so it sorta resembles that of Burnout 3 and Burnout Revenge's World Tour modes. They also have a set number of events in the classes. Every single event has three Medals you can achieve: Bronze, Silver, and Gold while about half of them have a hidden Platinum Medal target, resembling something like DiRT 3. But then you have to take note of some of the game's mechanics. They have oncoming, near misses, boost starts, in-air aftertouch, drifting... Keep in mind that Three Fields said that they were keeping drifting the same, but instead, opted to change how drifting works! For example, if you perform a drift, you can either press/tap the brake as you're holding the gas and steering, or you can alternate between the gas and brake without holding the gas down, and you can also lower your speed mid-drift as well. But in Three Fields Entertainmentland, the only way to drift is to hold the gas and steering and press the brake button to perform it, disabling your ability to alternate between the triggers and slowing down DURING your drift! No way to reliably grind along the guardrails, inability to gain speed by drifting off jumps, and no traffic checking. Three Fields really must love the practice of taking 1 step forward, and 20 steps backward. Because that's really what they did here! It seems that for the most part, they used Danger Zone 2 as their canvas and just recreated the tracks from the environments, but that's not all! They have the Persistent Wrecks feature: a feature universally panned for causing more difficulty to the races, and being unnecessary! I believe this feature was only added to make things more "dangerous". That's really the only plausible reason I see this being added! Take down an opponent driver in a spot, and that driver's wreck is stuck there until the end of the event, occasionally moving because of the dumbass traffic. What they refuse to see is that this makes things unnecessarily difficult! This is like putting a Band-Aid over your shotgun wound and saying, "Yeah, you're probably okay! Go about your day, Little Billy!" The game is still glitchy, and the Persistent Wrecks feature is such a terrible idea! In the Burnout games, you could reliably ride against the guardrails to help players make a turn if they steered or drifted too late. But in Dangerous Driving, you rebound off the indestructible guardrails! You either need to hit the apex during your drift, or just rely on the high mobile steering. This reliance on the steering might cause some issues. Not only does it make your lines look super repulsive than some green seafoam shag carpet, if you steer on a tight corner, you're gonna have a bad time! You drift through it, that's fine. Steer through it, and oh, what happens? You crashed into a vehicle that is in the turn! Yes, the traffic is randomly generated and is not scripted! You have to be sure no traffic vehicles are in the turn, so if you want to simply hit the apex or steer through those corners, you're gonna have to be cautious, my friend! Another thing I enjoyed about the Burnout games was that with each new game release, you're pretty much guaranteed new vehicles. They're always really fun, unique, sometimes a little bit weird, but you're almost guaranteed new cars. However, for Dangerous Driving, they decided to copy and paste a lot of their vehicles from Danger Zone 2. Alright, I get it, Three Fields... reusing and recycling is good for the environment, but it ain't good for keeping your god-forsaken game franchise alive, okay!? I'd also like to take a second to talk about traffic collisions. In every Burnout game before Dangerous Driving, You can nick or grind the side of traffic while speeding, and your vehicle would still be going. However, Dangerous Driving plays by the guaranteed crash rule. Did you hear that, everyone? You have to go by that rule! You have to be more careful! In Dangerous Driving, you can Near Miss the traffic to gain an unusually large amount of boost, but you still need to avoid it. Regardless, it seems that your vehicle wrecks into the traffic no matter how fast or slow you go. This is just retarded! This isn't right! You touch the traffic, you keep going! You don't fucking make it a guaranteed crash, Three Fields! This has been ingrained into my brain for 15 years, now!! What the fuck are you trying to do to me?? Let's head back to the events. Like I mentioned, there are 3 medals the events have, depending on your performance in efficiency: 3rd gives Bronze, 2nd gives Silver, and 1st gives Gold. Some events also have a hidden Platinum Medal target. You need to win the GP to move on to the next vehicle class, somewhat reminiscent of Burnout 3's World Tour events. These events are much more difficult than the ones prior. The events themselves are a big nuisance and brutal. They're such unformulated, uncreative heaps of slop that by the time you've completed the first vehicle class or two, you've basically seen it all! They'd all probably be 100% Difficult! ALL of them! Imagine in Burnout Revenge if you're dropped in, and instead of a DJ talking to you the game's like, "Use a Tuned car for Heatwave Just Cause they do better!" That's Dangerous Driving's events for you, except you're doing other shit like Survivals, Pursuits, Heatwaves, and facing off against opponents that are slow as Hell! You also have your Burning Laps, Road Rages to hunt down other drivers, Races that are boring early on... Is this fucking driving school, man? "Every crash is counted against you, cunt! Don't do it!" "Take doen other drivers!" "Get the best overall time you can!" "See how far you can go without crashing once!" This pool of events will last you throughout the entirety of the game. All 9 to 14 of them, depending on the vehicle class. Again, keep in mind that this is less than half the events than Burnout 3: Takedown - a game that was released 15 years prior to Dangerous Driving! I can appreciate the locations for what they are: representation of a Real Life locations converted into digital format. But even in other games, these types of tracks, other examples being Downtown from Burnout 3: Takedown and Angel Valley from Burnout Revenge, were never my personal favorites. I like tracks with a little bit more flare and beautiful nature to them. But the locations do foreshadow what follows, though: every single track is too tight and basic to the point of their hindrances. There's nothing that make them pop! Almost no buildings to pass by. It's mostly all just deserts, grasslands, mountains, canyons... basic bitch tracks. The only exceptions I could think of are the only tracks I play in GPs. The tracks are soulless, dull, have very little quality with the environments, and have almost no buildings to them! No freeways, no crossroads, not a lot of vehicles, either! I mean, no wonder why there's no traffic checking allowed: there's not a lot of vehicles in the tracks! Point 2 Point Tracks are transitional connections to different locations as you drive through them. The only locations of note are High Dunes Desert and another location I'll talk about very briefly here. While Cool Water Valley and Dead Rock Canyon aren't masterpieces by any means, at least they didn't recycle track ideas that tried to be origina-- *sees Twin Ferry Lakes in the game* ...Motherfucker!! So we have Twin Ferry Lakes, or as I'd like to call it, Silver Lake 0.5! What we have here is a barebones, stripped down Silver Lake wannabe! They added a few things like a lovely lake, bridge sections that allow drivers to go over the water. All the while, not keeping the off road section to the other portion of the track, the tunnels, and the giant cliff for the 'Gone Fishin' Signature Takedown: they made two identical turns to make up for the loss of those sections! It just reeks of boredom! Not only are you rehashing major portions of EA inspired tracks, but you're not including notable segments from said tracks and passing it off as original? "Yeah, this is Twin Ferry Lakes, not Silver Lake, because fuck that shit!" Can't just draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa and claim it as your own, you know! High Dunes Desert: long-ass tracks with the sun in your eyes! Even though Surf Side Island is a conceptual rehash of Burnout 2's Big Surf Shores/Burnout 3's Island Paradise/Burnout Revenge's Sunshine Keys in my eyes, it's still one of the better locations in the game, which isn't really saying much. Next on my shit list is Eagle Ridge Mountain. Man, THAT location is familiar! Three Fails Entertainment decided to make a mixture of Alpine and White Mountain, turning it into a Frankenstein theme! Two more prominently featured tracks, and way too many Burnout games already!! "But dude, they're handmade levels!" Yeah, but how many times are you gonna feature a Grasslands Proving Ground, Dead Rock Canyon, or Surf Side Island before it's no longer handmade? Surf Side Island -Burnout 2's Big Surf Shores -Burnout 3's Island Paradise -Burnout Revenge's Sunshine Keys -Burnout Dominator's Ocean Drive -Burnout Paradise as Palm Bay Heights and Harbor Town -Dangerous Driving Grasslands Proving Ground -Burnout 1's Hillside Pass -Burnout 3's Vineyard -Burnout Revenge's Lone Peak -Dangerous Driving If you're going going to adopt EA and Criterion levels to the degree that you are, can we at least get something new and fresh please? I wouldn't mind seeing USA Marathon EX again. But what about a revamped Interstate Loop? Burnout 2's Airport Terminal was outstanding! Burnout 2's Palm Bay! Burnout 3's Downtown, Riviera, or Dockside! Literally, any of the Burnout Revenge tracks! Come on, dude! Lastly is Cool Water Valley, a location I had high hopes for. I initially thought it was going to be a Lakeside Getaway remake, or if not that, I'd at least get a nice area of rivers that I'd enjoy. Well, I was wrong on both counts as well! It's just not fun! In fact, most people found the Hypercar Class Eliminator in this track to be especially infuriating because it'll get littered with Persistent Wrecks quickly! Not only are you driving on ice because of the engine, but you also have the rubberband AI insanity applied to you the whole way through! You also run into the wrecks themselves on subsequent laps! I can't do it anymore!! This game is an embarrassment! What pisses me off the most is that it's implied that it's continuing off a legendary series! I mean, what's next? Burnout 5!? Burnout Paradise 2!? Burnout and Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 3!? Alex Ward's Burnout Game That Completely Loses it's Touch After 10 Years!? As much shit as I gave Paradise, it had one of the most addicting replayability ever saw! It was fluid, gave the players opportunities to have their own unique style, it played like a true Burnout game, and had it's own charm and personality! As much as I don't enjoy any of the DJs in the Burnout games, they could've actually added something here that would've breathe some life into the otherwise lifeless game that was Dangerous Driving! Stryker: Yeah, they put me in the middle of EVERYTHING Burnout on Crash FM! EA's Burnout games gave so much for being just an arcade racing series. They were my childhood! My passion! My obsession! You could play the game in an unlimited number of ways. You can perform visually appealing driving lines. Relying on features. You could keep on burning until you're crashed out! You could glitch hunt without the glitches hunting you! And finally, you could speed run it all the same! Whoever else thought that you've played the games every way imaginable, another innovation is formulated! It was such an open series of games that it lent itself well to all these things! Dangerous Driving didn't lend itself to ANY of that! It was doomed from the very start! It was pretty evident that the developers didn't completely remember what captured us, what drove us to want to keep playing. However, even if they did remember, it was an uphill battle for Three Fields Entertainment, so I find it hard to entirely blame them. They were working on a series that has had it's reputation tainted from awful ports (Burnout Legends), and completely different takes (Burnout Paradise). Some of which, they WERE responsible for. Using an engine that simply didn't mesh well with the fast paced Burnout 3 style, more so of Revenge or Burnout 2 style. Not to mention, the Xbox One and PS4 versions were released at full retail price. The game is so limited, short, and content lacking for today's standards, that it simply isn't worth $30-40. Hell, in pails and comparison to Burnout Paradise, it was packed to the brim with content and features! A huge problem I found is that besides the achievements/trophies, once you've gotten all the medals in the Career, you're pretty much finished. You can play with your friends all over the world here and there, but there's really no replay value. You don't get any more vehicles, no music during actual gameplay, no Signature Takedowns, no Crash mode, nothing at all! I would've rather have them take the Danger Zone 2 approach, and then release it at a reduced price. Although Three Fields did make the mistakes of relying on gimmicks, no longer supporting Danger Zone 2, and failing to accomplish their dream, they did do SOME good things I need to bring up: they gave Vertical Takedowns in a future update, they tried to help resolve the technical issues with the game, gave bug fix patches and tuned the difficulty to make up for the poor reception, and maybe this is just another story of a company making a release faster than it should've been. Burnout Paradise and its remaster would be the last Burnout game under EA's belt. Dangerous Driving tried to be a faithful recreation of Burnout 3, but missed the mark on what made it great. With this, Alex Ward and his crew are looking to build upon their arcade racing series, but with a sequel in mind and we're left in the dark regarding the lack of information we're getting. With them no longer being affiliated with Criterion and EA no longer caring about the Burnout series... Where could this lead? Whatever the case, we die-hards will continue to treasure our personal favorite Burnout game. We will continue to play...
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