The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Interview

Speaking with the folks at PC Gamer, CD Projekt RED's story writer Jakub Szamalek gave some very interesting insight on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt locations that haven't been shown so far. Here's a snip:
Novigrad

While Szamalek claims the story will have less emphasis on politics than in The Witcher 2, there is still a place for shadowy manoeuvring. (Another large region is the city of Novigrad, which is based on medieval Amsterdam which has pre-musketeer feel to it, so there's a political intrigue of cloak and dagger sort of feeling. They don't worry about food or honour, they want power and gold. This is what motivates them and what makes this environment work.

(It's not only a city, it's the surrounding forests, fields and residences of the nobles, of the powerful emergent for Geralt to go to parties and learn about the liberal schemes and so on. Again people will be talking in a different way, they are shaped by a different culture and so on.)

Szamalek is clear that this is by no means the full range of environments in the game. (It's not just a huge world,) he says, (but it's a very diverse world.)

And it's a world you can experience in any order. (If you become tired, or bored, you can always go to a different place. What's exciting about the Witcher 3 main storyline is that it's not linear structure branching, it's actually a collection of elements which you have to find, combine and then get a full picture in your head.