Role Playing Can Beat FPS in Terms of Graphics, Says CD Projekt

Despite the recent situation that has seen AAA first-person shooters surge ahead of the rest of genres when it comes to graphics quality, the leader of at least one developer focused on role-playing games believes that the situation could soon be reversed.

Marcin Iwinski, who is the co-founder of CD Projekt, has told VentureBeat that, “We don’t see any reason why RPGs should look worse than shooters. They should actually look better.

“The story’s always the thing, because that’s the thing which keeps you playing, but these days — and especially in the next generation when you have the new consoles, when you have the new HDTVs — you’re going to want bells and whistles on the graphical side, and we want to deliver on that as well.”

In order to underline his point about graphics quality, he pointed to The Witcher series, specifically its second installment, saying, “I think we’ve created some new standards in terms of storytelling in the RPG genre, in terms of having no compromise in the way the story is being told, how we shape the world, how believable the characters are, how similar it is to what we see around us.”

Of course, CD Projekt is not willing to just create solid graphics just to please the player and will only include them as long as they help the development team create a link between the gamer and the world that he explores.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was widely praised for how well it managed to capture the deep nature of the book series on which it was based and for how it linked looks and storytelling in order to create one of the deepest role-playing games of 2011.

Now CD Projekt is working on a new title, called Cyberpunk, which will use a science fiction setting and is set to get more details before the end of 2012.