The Witcher 3's Sex Scenes Came From 16 Hours of Mo-Cap Data - Update

[xServer]

Bleh - I got trapped into watching the sex scene in Witcher 2. If I can assuredly get out of the scenes in Witcher 3 then whatever, I don't care if they want to spend their time and money making them, but it is lazy storytelling. They admit themselves that they did it for speed and not because it was the most creative or most interesting way. This sort of willingness to take shortcuts doesn't give me great hope for a good story overall.

 

[ForumSafari]

Your writers are hacks CD Projekt. They're so bad at it that they can't even write convincing dialogue to lie to me about their juvenile crap. Oh god that's funny.

Just to argue the toss, what game ever has successfully convinced you that a character is worth saving for anything except the progression of the story?

 

[PirateRose]

Your writers are hacks CD Projekt. They're so bad at it that they can't even write convincing dialogue to lie to me about their juvenile crap. Oh god that's funny.

Just to argue the toss, what game ever has successfully convinced you that a character is worth saving for anything except the progression of the story?

True, even in Bioware games when they do the "save one or the other character" choice thing, they always seem to make it as little as a big scale issue as possible so the player doesn't feel too bad killing one of them off (They both always conveniently, bravely, want to sacrifice themselves) and the consequences are minimal.

 

[Sanunes]

As much as it sounds appealing to have actual, realistic sex scenes, from what I've heard I know Geralt is probably going to still have his pants on for all of them and you're never going to see his wiener because straight men are overly squeamish about their own body parts.

I'll take Bioware's new more story focused, mature, appearing to be sex-less romances any day over seeing Geralt bang a line of naked, beautiful, only existing to be banged women with his pants on.

I agree, from what I have seen so far in Inquisition I prefer the approach they have taken so far with the romances and the fact you can now flirt with NPCs and they aren't interested in you. Now I don't care that the Witcher has something like this in the opening cinematic and long as I can skip it if I choose to do so. Its just the impression I am getting from the studio when they talk about this over other areas of the game, for its probably something that will only be in the game for a couple of minutes instead of what might interest me in buying the game.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Meanwhile, in the budget meeting room........


"So...why does the budget include money for "Mood Lights" and "Lubricant"?"

"We need it for the Mo-Cap recordings."

"That doesn't answer why. Or why you need so much of it."

"Its gonna be a long, hard, intense process."

"I...whatever. As long as its game relevant."

 

[Vykrel]

I already pass on games with sex scenes in them, optional or not. It is just completely uninteresting. If that is what they consider the best way to establish a reason to care about a character, rather than making the character interesting in the first place, then fan service away.

this mindset is one of the many reasons video games have a long way to go before they are taken as seriously as the other art forms. these arent interactive sex scenes, by the way. they are just like the scenes in Bioware's games, only with actual nudity.

but omg sex is icky, right? all visual representations of sex is porn, yeah? come on, dont be so prudish.

 

[Casual Shinji]

"We are establishing that your character was intimate with this woman recently in order to plant in your mind that, at very least, he must enjoy her company."

"Sex is the quickest way in which to establish the relationship and provide a justification for the player to pursue this woman," he continues. "We couldn't just tell you to go find someone you don't know or care about. It wouldn't work."

Cuz God knows you can't achieve a bond between two characters through chemistry and how they act with eachother. That would require proper voice acting and writing and such, now wouldn't it Witcher?

Seriously, a game can have its sex, but don't use it as a plot device to make you quickly care about someone, that's just cheap.

 

[wizzy555]

"We are establishing that your character was intimate with this woman recently in order to plant in your mind that, at very least, he must enjoy her company."

"Sex is the quickest way in which to establish the relationship and provide a justification for the player to pursue this woman," he continues. "We couldn't just tell you to go find someone you don't know or care about. It wouldn't work."

Cuz God knows you can't achieve a bond between two characters through chemistry and how they act with eachother. That would require proper voice acting and writing and such, now wouldn't it Witcher?

Seriously, a game can have its sex, but don't use it as a plot device to make you quickly care about someone, that's just cheap.

Well that wouldn't be the "quickest way"

 

[JimmyC99]

"We are establishing that your character was intimate with this woman recently in order to plant in your mind that, at very least, he must enjoy her company."

"Sex is the quickest way in which to establish the relationship and provide a justification for the player to pursue this woman," he continues. "We couldn't just tell you to go find someone you don't know or care about. It wouldn't work."

Cuz God knows you can't achieve a bond between two characters through chemistry and how they act with eachother. That would require proper voice acting and writing and such, now wouldn't it Witcher?

Seriously, a game can have its sex, but don't use it as a plot device to make you quickly care about someone, that's just cheap.

Well that wouldn't be the "quickest way"

In this universe sex, especially with the previous two games having a very relaxed attitude to it with the numerous sexual encounters, it might not work, additionally this isn't just any women whom he might "like", this is Yennefer of Vengerberg, this is someone who is VERY VERY important not just to the plot, but to Geralt.

Geralt and Yennefer have a long complicated history, and this might be spoilerish (it was covered in the books but not really in the games much so far) so you have been warned.

Spoiler

Yennefer and Geralt are in love, like actually in a relationship in love, so much so that the two basically adopt a child together, this child is Cirillia of Cintra (Ciri) to debase and belittle this relationship with this sort of lazy writing makes me a little disappointed that they wont tackle at least early on this element of Geralt's character properly

 

[Scorpid]

Almost makes me feel bad that I'm going to skip all those cutscenes, almost.

Yeah for all the hoopla over the ME games sex scenes I skipped or didn't pursue the blatent path for them. I play in a very RP mind set and the sex scenes never felt right to me in those games. I DID however watch one sex scene from witcher two that didn't feel sleezy but the others I avoided.

 

[McGuinty1]

I'm picturing 16 hours of that one scene from Holy Motors.

 

[Barbas]

I quite like the puppet thrusting; it's like a child had two dolls and is smashing them against each other. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! That was nice. Bam! Bam! Bam!

...Right in the kisser. I also like that they're nude now, so you get all the memories of watching Team America: World Police all over again.


An admirable effort, and to such a noble end!

 

[Amaror]

Oh god, there must be something lost in translation, because this is the dumbest most juvenile excuse making for being juvenile. Ehrmagerd, so gritty, so dark, so real, much sex. I'll be glad when they make a game about searching for a man, and it starts with that. Or even better, let's have them look for their children. Opening on them having sex with them. Just to establish it. Looking for stolen eldritch artifacts or nuclear material? Start of with sex.

Your writers are hacks CD Projekt. They're so bad at it that they can't even write convincing dialogue to lie to me about their juvenile crap. Oh god that's funny.

What's wrong with sex portraying the relationship between two characters. People allready know Geralt, Yennefer basically didn't appear in any of the games to date and was only mentioned in cutscenes, so it's likely many people won't know who she is.
What does sex between them show? Easy. When it's consensual non-paid sex it's clear that both people care about each other and that they most likely have romantic feelings towards each other. Since Geralt is pretty moral guy, his affection for Yennefer indicates that she is also a somewhat good person. This is a good base-knowledge about the relationship between two characters and about Yennefer herself and it's shown within a very small amount of time.

All the people complaining here seem to think he said:"We're going to have them have sex and that's all were going to do. They won't talk a word more, sex is ENOUGH to say EVERYTHING about this person."
But he didn't say that, it's just another means to portray their relationship in some way.
In fact, there were some Journalist that allready saw this scene during a preview hands-on and they talked about the scene somewhat.

We don't even see Geralt and Yennefer having sex in the beginning. The whole scene plays after the sex and shows Geralt and Yennefer talking to each other, were it is heavily implied that they just had sex. Yennefer isn't portrayed by her having sex with geralt, but rather the fact that they had sex, together with their dialogue serves to portray geralt and yennefers relationship and explains why geralt wants to find her.

 

[ninja51]

Oh god, there must be something lost in translation, because this is the dumbest most juvenile excuse making for being juvenile. Ehrmagerd, so gritty, so dark, so real, much sex. I'll be glad when they make a game about searching for a man, and it starts with that. Or even better, let's have them look for their children. Opening on them having sex with them. Just to establish it. Looking for stolen eldritch artifacts or nuclear material? Start of with sex.

Your writers are hacks CD Projekt. They're so bad at it that they can't even write convincing dialogue to lie to me about their juvenile crap. Oh god that's funny.

See above two posts, you're wrong, and very very uninformed. You have also thought about this situation in the entirely wrong way.

 

[DementedSheep]

Seriously? Holy shit, that is just pathetic. Just go watch some porn! You can get a ton for free. Sex in video games is not automatically bad (hell I actually kinda liked the one with Triss) but if you're putting this much effort into it you need to get your head checked.

"Sex is the quickest way in which to establish the relationship and provide a justification for the player to pursue this woman," he c1ontinues. "We couldn't just tell you to go find someone you don't know or care about. It wouldn't work."

Oh, OK, so you've got a team of bad writers who can't think of any decent ways to set up a relationship. Good to know.
That is so lazy. You should not be looking for the "quickest way" to set anything up in a narrative, you should be looking for the best way. That might involve sex, sure, but it's not just "Oh yeah a sex scene that'll do it"

Also this.
And the great thing is they can also use it for shorthand about dark and gritty everything is by throwing in rapes at every opportunity! Now that is efficiency.

 

[Silence]

Oh god. Get over yourselves already. Sex is perfectly normal. Probably more in catholic Poland than in "free" America but still. It is normal.
I find this fun fact a ... fun fact. Not that important.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

While I agree with many other Escapists that there are other ways to build emotional connection other than a sex scene (see The Darkness for a master class in that), if it's done like the post-coital intro scene with Triss at the start of The Witcher 2 it could be very tasteful.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

""No, no, no. We are establishing that your character was intimate with this woman recently in order to plant in your mind that, at very least, he must enjoy her company.""

No, no, no!!! At the very least he enjoys part(s) of her...
Seiously, a good French kiss with some fondling and/or one throwaway line about love would be just as good.

 

[laggyteabag]

I don't know who I would least like to be.

The guys in the mo cap suits pretending to bang, or the guys watching two people wearing mo cap suits pretend to go at it.

Screw lingerie, this what real sexiness looks like.

[small]Dem ping pong balls tho[/small]

 

[Fox12]

...

*Smacks head against desk repeatedly*

I don't really see why this is important, or how they can tout this as a selling point unironically. It just reeks of petulance. "Look at us. We're big boys now." Yes you are CD project. You're. A. Big. Boy.

I actually like this company, but this attitude really irks me. The best way to build an emotional connection is through sex? Only a very poor writer believes this. Up was a children's film, and it sounds more mature then this. I'm not mad, just a little disapointed. Sex has its place in media, but this isn't it.

Uuuuuhhh... You must have misread the article. It doesn't say at all the "best way" to build a connection is through sex, it says the "quickest way" is through sex. He is specifically referring to like the first 10 minutes of the game, which you and some people seem to be missing. You're spending the game hunting down a past love. How do you definitively show that that person is indeed a past love of your protagonist in a very small amount of time? SEX!

I feel like a lot of peoples mistrust of sex in video games is coming out now in full force without much thought behind it. Sex has been used in some games to negative effects, hurting the feeling of a real relationship, and titillation is very prevalent in society. Those facts however, have nothing to do with the Witcher 3, so you should take your baggage elsewhere. Telling a story visually is a damn pillar of good storytelling, and outside of spending three hours showing every instance of Yennifer and Geralt's relationship, a brief definitive act of lovemaking is fucking PERFECT for establishing their rapport. God damn, some people just hear sex and immediately suck up their genitalia into their buttholes. His statement is true, a character having sex with another character is "THE QUICKEST" way to establish what their relationship is, don't assume that's ALL they're going to do to establish their relationship, nor that that's all they're going to do when these characters are together. Get over your prudish nature.

That's weird. UP made me care about the characters in less than ten minutes. So did The Last of Us. I don't remember sex in either of those. Maybe there's a directors cut, I don't know.

Personally, I don't think sex is the best or the fastest way to build up a character. It may be the laziest, though. Besides, doesn't geralt sleep with anything that has a pulse? I never got the impression that random tavern wench #4 was special. Why is this girl?

In any case, I don't think you understand my position. This is probably because you didn't try to understand my position. It's easier to argue with a straw man, I guess. I have no problem with sex in media. My favorite story is Berserk, and that series is borderline pornographic with its liberal use of sex. My issue is with people equating sex and violence with maturity. It's possible to have both, and still be immature. The sex isn't there for a plot reason. It's there to titilate the player, like a reward. That's an incredibly immature way to look at sex. The sex scenes in berserk have greater meanings beyond themselves. The sex scenes in The Witcher are just... there. Everything in a story needs to earn its place, or be removed. Everyone says these sex scenes are optional. The mere fact that they're optional tells me that they're unnecessary, and don't need to be there. As long as The Witcher series does this, I can't help but look at it as immature. It's just lazy and bad storytelling.

Also, my testacles can't recede into my anus. Your understanding of human anatomy is somewhat alarming.