This review was originally written on September 4th, 2015.
It isn’t often that a series of fantasy novels becomes a fully explorable open world experience. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, developed by CD Projekt RED, manages to adapt Andrzej Kapkowski’s book series The Witcher into an unforgettable gaming world. Players assume the role of Geralt of Rivia, a witcher, on his quest to find his protégé, Ciri. The journey to that path is long, and Geralt meets a plethora of both friendly and deadly characters, each rich with their own detailed backgrounds and personalities. Racial tension, civil wars, and scheming villains make the world feel alive through their realistic portrayal. Even without prior knowledge of The Witcher series, new players will be able to easily pick up and enjoy the game’s fantastic world.
Despite his role as the protagonist, Geralt of Rivia is not necessarily a morally upright character. Witchers only have one goal in mind—money. Whether they have to act as mercenaries in a war or assassins for a political leader, they will take the job so long as it provides fair compensation. What makes this interesting is that the player is given the ability to make choices for Geralt. Should the player dislike a peasant’s rude remarks, he can let it slide or attack the peasant. While these smaller choices do not always result in significant changes to the story, they often change minor details which remind the player of the event. Even more impressive are the choices made during the main story quests, where Geralt occasionally has to decide who lives and who dies. These decisions are left to the player, providing full reign over the outcome of the story. Even though the story does not massively diverge based on player choice, the characters which partake in events can change significantly based on a single choice.
Without a doubt, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s world and characters make the game truly shine. The story mostly takes place in Temeria, wherein players explore the subregions of Velen, Novigrad, and the Skellige Isles. Each of the three main regions feels vastly unique from the others, offering a unique outlook on the world through the common folk’s lives and environments. Velen is a poor yet rural county; Novigrad, a rich and bountiful region with a thriving city; and Skellige, a collection of small islands with a warrior-oriented ruling class. Alongside The Witcher 3’s dynamic day and night cycling, which also affects all non-player characters’ actions, each environment can be fully explored at any time of day. Whereas the city of Novigrad is bustling during the middle of night, the scarce villages in Velen are pitch black and silent. The graphics of The Witcher 3 are absolutely gorgeous, and every environment is a pure wonder to gander.
As a witcher, Geralt has met countless friends throughout his life. Whenever Geralt needs help, he knows exactly who to go for assistance. Both the main story and secondary quests lead Geralt to a wondrous assortment of interesting characters who reveal tidbits of information about their personal lives. These anecdotes range from tales of an adventurer’s fascinating quests to rants of a blue child’s inability to defecate. The odd addition of dry humor (both by Geralt and supporting members of the cast) in an otherwise serious game manages to work strangely well by keeping the player engrossed in dialogue with other characters. One of my favorite elements of The Witcher 3’s characters is their ability to be morally gray yet likable characters. One character met early on is the Baron, a man in charge of a large portion of Velen. It is instantly clear that the Baron is a terrible person; however, his desire to change and repent is rejected found from those he cares about deeply. Likewise, Yennefer and Triss, two sorceresses who are also potential romance options, have manipulative pasts but still wish for the best in the world and desire Geralt’s love. Through player choice, Geralt can sleep with Yennefer and Triss, tell them he loves them, reject them, or any combination in between. Each combination therein leads to a vastly different outcome, showing the more intimate and emotional sides of his lovers.
Although The Witcher 3 portrays a fantastic world with memorable characters, diabolical monsters, and stunning environments, the main story suffers from pacing issues due to the massive open world. The majority of the game takes place in Act I where Geralt searches for Ciri. This search for Ciri is not the problem; instead, it is repetition that takes place as Geralt tries to reach Ciri. Nearly every main story quest in Act I involves Geralt finding a character who knows minor details of Ciri’s whereabouts, but Geralt must often search for that character first, or, in some cases, find someone who knows someone who knows where that person is, who will tell Geralt something about Ciri (and I’m completely serious, as the game even references it itself). Sadly, as many sidequests take place in Act I, it is easy to forget what the goal of the game is at times since a large portion of early gameplay is spent leveling up outside of the main story. The story manages to become quite interesting by the end of Act I, but unfortunately Act II and Act III are significantly shorter than Act I which I found rather disappointing. Nevertheless, the aforementioned characters are so rich in personality that even while doing questionable quests I was intrigued enough to keep moving forward.
Along with The Witcher 3’s main story, I found myself somewhat disappointed with the core gameplay, primarily the combat mechanics. The game functions fine in most cases, but hitboxes during combat feel wonky, occasionally missing a strike or receiving damage from an enemy while out of range. The enemies also have frustrating artificial intelligence, hopping away from multiple attacks in a row or blocking attacks for seconds on end. While these can be stopped through special attacks, bombs, or certain magical signs, I felt that these moments broke the pace of combat. Flying monsters are also frustrating, as the crossbow’s zoom feature is poorly implemented, functioning slowly and with poor hit detection. Fortunately, it is possible to tap the crossbow button to auto lock on to targets most of the time, but this feature made the zoom capability feel nearly pointless.
For all that is said about the combat, The Witcher 3 does offer variety in how players approach it. There are three primary skill trees, allowing players to invest points into swordplay, magical signs, or alchemy. In my experience, I found the alchemy tree to be rather worthless as the swordplay abilities racked up my damage immensely without much need for the strange benefits offered in the alchemy tree. While I did perform alchemy for special potions, I never noticed an ability which would be worth investing points into the alchemy tree. I did see benefit in the signs tree, and I made sure to enhance my Quen sign which grants a protective shield over Geralt. However, most of the signs feel situational in combat, so I predominantly stuck with Quen for shields and Axii for mind control.
Interestingly, I enjoyed many of the more recreational activities in The Witcher 3. While there are not nearly as many side activities Grand Theft Auto V, the few offered in The Witcher 3 were a welcome change of pace. Gwent, a competitive card game played against NPCs, revolves around having a total combat rating higher than your opponent. This mini-game starts off relatively simple, but eventually more cards become available with special effects, such as destroying your opponent’s strongest card, doubling all units’ attack power in a row, et cetera. Gwent never becomes a game about skill; it is primarily a deck-building simulator, but this works well in a single-player game as another item to collect. Other activities include fist fighting and horse racing, where Geralt attempts to become the region champions in each. Facing against the best of the best, he must prove his worth in hand-to-hand combat and horse races until he has defeated each region master. These activities provide a nice diversion from the otherwise serious world of Temeria.
With the grand scope of The Witcher 3, it should be noted that it is susceptible to bugs and glitches. While I did not experience any game-breaking bugs during my playthrough, I did find myself getting stuck on occasion, mashing the jump button until I freed myself. Other annoyances include the rare failure to load an area properly, causing Geralt to appear under the map, swimming in midair. One of the weirdest occurrences is the blurring screen which tends to appear at random locations. This most often appears during conversations, occasionally forcing the screen to blur and load for a few seconds before the next line of dialogue is spoken. Outside of these, most bugs are extremely minor, such as Geralt getting off of his horse while the horse continues to gallop forward.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt succeeds in bringing an excellent open world experience with a fantastic world and exciting characters to gaming. The beautiful and dynamic world is sure to capture anyone’s attention, instilling a desire to explore every nook and cranny. Sadly, this large open world causes the story to pace poorly, resulting in far too many quests revolving around looking for specific characters. Fortunately, the characters within the story are absolutely phenomenal and some of the best in gaming, granting a reason to continue. Combat can be wonky at times and certain skills seem miles more impressive than others, but the variety in options is sure to suit any player. Side activities like Gwent and fist fighting are a fun, optional way to spend time while away from the seriousness of the world. The huge scope of the game does cause the came to be buggy at times, but never anything game-breaking. For anyone interested in an immersive game world with hundreds of hours of content and astonishing characters, I highly recommend The Witcher 3.
Score: 8.5/10