As promised, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings developer CD Projekt RED has released the first patch for its recently-released wonderful fantasy RPG. It's a doozy too, with changes including removing its SecuROM DRM and performance boosts of up to 30%. Unfortunately, it's launch hasn't been entirely smooth.

"Our goal is to make our fans and customers happy and to reward them for buying our game and DRM schemes does not support our philosophy as they might create obstacles for users of legally bought copies," said RED development director Adam Badowski. "Our approach to countering piracy is to incorporate superior value in the legal version. This means it has to be superior in every respect: less troublesome to use and install, with full support, and with access to additional content and services. So, we felt keeping the DRM would mainly hurt our legitimate users... We felt DRM was necessary to prevent the game being pirated and leaked before release. This purpose has been served, so we are pleased to let our users enjoy the full freedom of game usage they deserve." Read more »

Role-playing games typically guide players through their rich, unfamiliar worlds in a way that’s easy to understand and exciting to explore. For instance, the first Witcher fell back on amnesia to explain itself. The sequel, though, takes a little more abrupt approach.

Returning protagonist Geralt has since discovered a bit about who he is and where his allegiances lie. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings skips over explanatory exposition and dives headlong into the present, where Geralt struggles to solve the problems of an unfortunate future. Read more »

[Update] This giveaway is now closed. Winners will be contacted shortly.

[Original Post] Shacknews and the DRM-hating folks at Good Old Games are teaming up to give Shackers a chance at redemption (and to hunt horrific demons) by winning a free digital copy of CD Projekt RED's latest, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Read more »

A small patch accompanied The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings when it launched on Tuesday, and now developer CD Projekt RED has revealed that it expects to release another patch next week.

"It will improve the player's ability to change the keyboard map and to invert the mouse as well as implementing assorted other fixes," RED explained. Which other fixes? That's all RED has to say. For now, we'll just have to wait and see. Read more »

If you're an avid PC gamer, there are two things you should be doing today: Reading Shacknews and playing The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

Check on the first one if your eyeballs are gracing these words. With The Witcher 2 finally seeing release for PC today, you have an opportunity to go two for two. Not sure if The Witcher 2 is up your alley? Check out the trio of launch trailers developer CD Projekt RED sent our way. Read more »

With The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings launching today, developer CD Projekt RED has announced that all downloadable content created for the RPG will be free for all registered users. This'll kick off with a new side-quest available today.

"Let me announce that all our DLCs will be FREE. All of them," RED revealed in a Facebook Q&A session yesterday. "If anything will be for purchase, those will be expansion packs." Read more »

With The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings releasing tomorrow, there's little more to do than wait for the game to unlock for PC gamers around the world.

Keeping us occupied this morning--as we twiddle our thumbs--is a new trailer featuring a short story primer detailing the troubled regions gamers will come across throughout the adventure. Read more »

AAA games flee before The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and L.A. Noire, fearful to release in the same week as these two much-anticipated games. Smaller, cheaper, downloadable titles and downloadable content are unphased by this, though. On that front, we're getting Sega Rally Online Arcade, the Honest Hearts DLC for Fallout: New Vegas, and Terraria, which I shall lazily describe as "kind of a bit like an action-oriented 2D Minecraft."

If you're somehow not interested in any of those, there's a a colouring-in game on DSiWare and some Wii titles that'll teach you how to read. Read more »

With the release of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings fast approaching, Good Old Games--the sibling of developer of CD Projekt RED--is having a fun day of Witcher-related merriment. Along with beginning pre-loading and launching a DRM-free $5 version of the original, it's made a small technical tweak which, surely by coincidence, will help Australians dodge the sequel's censorship.

The most interesting bit of Witcher action today is the one which initially seems entirely unrelated--GOG announced that it will no longer use IP addresses to determine where a user 'is.' This will supposedly help those who are abroad when they make a purchase or whose location is determined incorrectly by the Geo-IP database, as well as respecting user privacy by not tracking un-needed data. Read more »

With CD Projekt's next dose of RPG goodness just over a week from release, we figured that there are probably more than a few folks who'd be interested in ogling a pair of pretty gameplay trailers for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

The first gameplay trailer is called 'Environments,' and shows off some beautiful forests and architecture, and touches a bit on day/night cycles and weather. Read more »

CD Projekt has announced that the Australian version of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings will be censored a bit.

While Australia has adopted a 15+ rating for video games, The Witcher 2 occasionally offers up sex as a possible choice of reward for completing specific quests. The Australian version of the game will still include the associated quests, albeit with modified reward choices. Read more »

The May 17 release date for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings on PC is less than a month away. To further whet our appetites, CD Projekt has released a new developer-narrated gameplay trailer that focuses on some of the ways that swordplay, magic, and alchemy factor into the game's action-based combat system.

Traps, spells, potions, and finishing moves are all touched upon in the video, as well as some of their combined applications. Read more »

The CD Projekt RED gang are back in the fifth lovely long The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings video developer diary, discussing character development and items.

Topics covered include skill trees, catering for different types of players, mutagens, crafting, potions, bombs, the variety of weapons, difficulty levels, attacking people with a bucket, and oh so much more.

If you want more witching to watch, RED also recently demoed The Witcher 2 during its spring conference keynote. Read more »

During the CDP Days 2011 Spring Conference, a few unanswered questions regarding the upcoming sequel The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

CD Projekt revealed that The Witcher 2 will utilize SecuROM copy-protection for its retail release, deciding it was the least intrusive way to protect its content from piracy. Though they are aware some gamers will groan at the decision to use SecuROM, CD Projekt noted that the game will allow for "unlimited installations on an unlimited number of computers" and allow "play on up to five computers at once." The game requires an internet connection for the game's initial activation. According to the presentation, this will ensure that The Witcher 2 cannot be played before the game's May 17 release. Read more »

Ladies and gentlemen, start your Newegg wishlists. Or not, depending on whether your PC meets The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings' system requirements, which were officially confirmed today by developer CD Projekt RED.

A new batch of screenshots were also released, giving another lovely look into the lovely-looking world of RED's sequel to its unexpectedly lovely 2007 RPG The Witcher. Lovely stuff. Read more »