The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Review – Witching Good
By Jakejames Lugo
Chances are if you have never played the Witcher series of games from CD Projekt Red, you probably still heard about them from somebody. Based on the novels created by Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt continues the story of Geralt of Rivia from the previous two games. However, you don’t necessarily need to have played either Witcher 1 or Witcher 2 in order to get acquainted with the characters and setting of the series. To its benefit, this allows anyone to dive into the game without feeling lost whatsoever. What you’re instead greeted with is a masterfully crafted role-playing game with a wide-open world to explore, a deep and meaningful story to follow, and fun gameplay to keep coming back to over and over again.
From the very start of the Witcher 3, you’re in control of just about everything that happens to Geralt on his travels. While you follow a narrative that has many characters and events you come across in each of the game’s six locations, the level of choice you have over the outcome of events prior to and during the game is pretty high. If you didn’t play the previous games, you can engage a scene with Geralt being interviewed by someone and giving answers that map out what happened before then. The crazy part about this? How those events played out affects the plot and other side stories within The Witcher 3. Depending on how things go, you might not even run into certain characters, or have a different kind of dialogue that opens up and gives new information previously inaccessible. There’s so much that you can do and so much that can change from it, allowing for multiple playthroughs with an incredible amount of results.
Things can get a little intimidating for those who have trouble following a story with a lot of events and deep lore, but you don’t need to follow every detail in The Witcher 3 to keep up with the main plot. There’s plenty of relatable and interesting characters that appear from both the novels and the previous games, with each of them having a good amount of relevance to the world you’re thrown in. Characters like Yennefer and Ciri have a long history with Geralt which comes into play frequently throughout the different quests you partake in. But you also get a ton of extra info about who they are individually, as well as their relationships with other characters and the world around them, which makes them more intriguing than most other RPG supporting characters. You get this same level of attention and detail for nearly the entire cast, so it makes spending a lot of time within The Witcher 3 incredibly worth it.
All of this aside, The Witcher 3 is a game that looks and plays beautifully. The visuals are fantastic to look at, especially in the open fields or areas where you can gaze out into the distance. The mountain ranges, grassy plains, dense forest, and dark caves all have their own high level of detail that breaths a lot of life into the world around. And that’s not even taking into account all of the various monsters you can find lurking around, the animals you can spot nearby, or the wide array of people you can interact within the huge map the game takes place in. Environments are incredibly populated and feel as if they have their own ecosystems and routines taking place, even when you’re not around to see them. Controlling Geralt to explore around them is easy and intuitive, making exploring these settings all the better.
Running around and interacting with objects is simple, thanks to the controls being streamlined enough to make most of what you can do very easy. The same goes for the combat, which can be very fun as you level up and gain access to new weapons and abilities. Speaking of which, leveling up is tied to finishing quests and defeating enemies as you progress through the game. Equipping different steel and silver swords, as well as armor pieces, can boost up the attack and defense enough to take on the toughest quests. As a Witcher, Geralt can use magical signs that with hurt his enemies but also interact with his environment in many different ways. An Igni spell can burn up bandits you’re fighting, while at the same time be used to burn bee hives to gather honey combs for extra health items. You can even use a Axii sign to stun enemies briefly for an attack, but also use it to trick people you speak with to revealing information during dialogue. There’s many more beyond this and how you choose to spend skill points after leveling up will give you plenty of room to experiment with all of your options.
There does end up being a few bugs and glitches that appear from time to time. None of which breaks the game or happens frequently enough to become a detriment to the whole experience, but they can become annoying as the occur. Sometimes Geralt can get stuck behind objects that might be too small to notice as you’re moving about, such as a wooden pole or rock within the ground. Jumping around or moving in another direction can help fix this, but it does happen in some places that you might not expect and could cause you to mess up when in combat. Another issue that can occur is when moving up a slope of a hill or mountain side on foot or via horseback. Sometimes Geralt will slide down a place he can’t climb up and accidentally fall off the edge of a cliff and die, forcing you to reload from your last checkpoint or save. Again, it doesn’t happen often or bad enough to the point of being a major issue, but it can set you back a bit when it does happen. In addition, the cutscenes you watch during the game could have the occasional tree branch or object get in the way of the characters you see. This makes for some funny moment and look incredibly goofy, but only happens when you are outside of a building and near a lot of foliage.
One of the biggest parts of The Witcher is the sheer amount of things you have open to complete. There’s a ton of quests and side quests to finish that ties into the main story, a lot of which can affect characters you meet and the finale of the game itself. Most quests will be straight forward to complete, but others have multiple branches of outcomes that will vary depending on what you do or have done prior to the quests, including some that can or won’t trigger at all based on certain events. But if that wasn’t enough, there’s a ton of extra Witcher Contracts, Treasure Hunts, and the card game Gwent to dive into. Each of these have enough content in them to be their own games, mostly because of all the extra story and interactions you get just for doing them. Completing everything will take a long time, but it’s a lot of time you spend doing activities that are constantly rewarding in many different ways. You don’t just earn experience and money, but can gain new equipment, items, and even access to new abilities and perks just for finishing them.
The Witcher 3 is an incredibly meaty game that will take you a good while to get through. But if you have the time to spare and want a deep and engaging story with a world to be invested in, you won’t be disappointed here. There are very few other role-playing games with as much depth, abundance, and lasting fun compared to what you’re getting in The Witcher 3. Toss a coin to your Witcher and experience this valley of plenty, it’s definitely worth every penny of it.
The Witcher 3 Review Score: 9.5/10
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