The Numbers:• 30+ hour adventure.
• Over 90 new quests.
• Over 40 new points of interest.
• Dynamic points of interest system. Killing bandits in their main hideout will affect the number of enemies in surrounding camps.
• 14000 lines of dialogue (Hearts of Stone had 6000).
• 100 individual pieces of armour (including new Witcher sets).
• More than 20 new monsters.
• New Game + maximum level increased to 100.
New Mutation System:• Mutations. 12 new abilities. Mechanic is unlocked through a quest started by a letter from Yennefer. Examples: Signs can have critical hits causing the enemy to explode, instead of dying Geralt is healed and has damage immunity, opponents knocked down by AARD freeze and die instantly. Can only utilise one at a time.
• The UI resembles Witcher 2’s character customization screen. Basically they’re super strong abilities/stat boosts that require mutagens and skill points to unlock. Can only pick one at a time but you have to unlock earlier ones to get the others.
• Despite unlocking it at level 34+ (recommended level to venture to Touissant) the system and anything you’ve unlocked carries over to New Game+ so you won’t have to unlock it again.
Armour and Weapons:• New Witcher armour class ‘Grandmaster’.
• New armour merchant who is the only one able to craft this level of Witcher gear.
• Can get blue, hooded armour from Witcher 2, armour from Witcher 1, Ursine Witcher armour with furry pauldron that was in the artbook but cut from the main game.
• More than 30 new weapons.
• Can now dye armour. Dyes can be bought from a merchant, crafted or looted. Only obtainable in Toussaint. Pink is among the colours.
• You can acquire the golden, plumed armour of the Touissant knights, and the same goes for Roach!
UI Changes:• Greatly redesigned User Interface.
• Can now rotate Geralt in stats screen.
• Books moved to glossary.
• Upon looting a readable item a little notification pops up in bottom left of screen. Upon clicking in the right stick (on Xbox One controller), you can read the text of recently looted books, letters, notes etc without having to go to the menu, inventory, finding the right book and so on.
• Option to remove fish-eye effect from witcher sense.
• Can enter Geralt in a tournament, creating his own logo and team colours.
• Can enter under a fake name, although you may not fool everyone.
• Grass has been optimised, more of it but less expensive.
• Improvements to cloth tech (see interview for more detail).
• New sword sheathing option. With this new option Geralt no longer automatically unsheathes his sword at the start of combat. Also, he no longer switches weapons to match the opponent. The player has to do it on their own.
