Fans of The Witcher should get ready for its spell-binding sequel.  Out May 17, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings once again stars Geralt of Rivia, a professional monster slayer, out to battle deadlier demons in a non-linear adventure.  The sequel to the 1.5 million unit-selling The Witcher features a new combat system, deeper consequence-based actions and high-definition graphics.  But hey, you can find all this out by simply reading previews of the game. So to dive a little deeper, Game Hunters caught up with Sebastian Stepien, lead writer at developer CD Projekt RED, to reveal little-known facts about The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.  Spot the reality. Each chapter of the game has at least 10 references to the real world -- including art, politics, history, and more. For example, one of the monsters – an especially nasty and huge one – happens to bear the name of a Jedi knight and porn actor (care to guess what it is?).  Nothing's set in stone. During the game, the political map of Northern Realms changes depending on the player's actions. There are 14 variations of this map -- kingdoms disappear, take over other kingdoms, and so forth.  100 is the new 30. Geralt is very, very old by human standards. In the year during which The Witcher 2 takes place, Geralt is more than 100 years old.  Give me a sign. There's a new magical sign (spells) in The Witcher's world: Heliotrope. The signs players saw in the original Witcher have been enhanced -- such as the Axii sign which now allows the player to influence NPCs during dialogue. Therefore, signs can sometimes be used outside of combat.  Blade runner. Geralt can buy or craft up to 77 different swords, 21 of which are silver swords dedicated to fighting monsters.  To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor  . For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to  . Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to
Five things you didn't know about 'The Witcher 2' - Game Hunters: In search of video games and interactive awesomeness - USATODAY.com - Game Hunters: In search of video games and interactive awesomeness