By Two years after it debuted on PlayStation 5, Guerrilla Games’ “Horizon: Forbidden West” launched on PC the other week to rave reviews over the quality of its port from Nixxes Software.
More interesting however in the Steam reviews is how many PC users found it ‘refreshing’ and almost unbelievable to play an AAA game that comes complete and functional as is – works at launch, no microtransactions, no live service elements, and optimised well even for relatively mid-level hardware.
More than a few made comparisons to the also recently released “Dragon’s Dogma II” which has been plagued by a microtransaction controversy, frame rate issues and questionable game design choices leading to it being savaged in user reviews.
The blowback got so bad Capcom had to issue an apology “for any inconvenience”. Nonetheless, the game is still being slammed – part of a pushback by players against publishers trying to bring their paywalls and in-game purchases systems from multiplayer and live service titles into the single-player gaming arena.
CD Projekt Red, the company behind the “Cyberpunk 2077” and “The Witcher” games is all too aware of this. Speaking to StockWatch.pl (via VGC), the company’s CFO Piotr Nielubowicz has ruled out incorporating microtransactions into its single-player games in the near future such as the upcoming “The Witcher 4”:
“We do not see a place for microtransactions in the case of single-player games. But we do not rule out that we will use this solution in the future in the case of multiplayer projects.”
The company recently revealed that of its 627 developers working on game titles for them, the easy majority – 403 to be exact – are working on “The Witcher 4” single player game. Even so, the game isn’t expected to arrive until 2025 at the earliest – and more likely 2026.
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