The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Review

"I'm Geralt of Rivia, I'm a Witcher"

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the third title in the Witcher series by CD Projekt RED. An action RPG where you play as the Witcher called Geralt. The story of the Witcher is based on the highly popular Polish novels of the same name by author Andrzej Sapkowski.

Setting

Story

The story takes place after the events of the Witcher 2. Geralt is no longer being used as a political subordinate but rather is on his own journey. You start off in White Orchard, a decently sized region, for where your adventure begins. You are given a letter by the sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg saying that you are to meet her to discuss something very important. After you're done adventuring and discovering the region of White Orchard you meet with Yennefer and ride to Vizima to speak to the emperor of Nilfgaard, Emhyr var Emreis who tells you that his daughter Cirilla has returned. Geralt takes this to heart as Cirilla was somewhat of a daughter to him as he trained her from a young age to become a Witcher. Geralt also learns that Ciri is being pursued by the Wild Hunt because of the Elder Blood that runs through her veins. This only complicates things making Geralt immediately partake in locating Ciri to make sure her in heritant power from the Blood doesn't fall into the wrong hands.

World

The world of the Witcher 3 is a high fantasy world filled with magic and monsters but also an extremely well developed world with politics, racism mixed with social and cultural diversity.

White Orchard is the first landmass the player is given to explore and you are immediately given access to a horse as you know you'll be using that horse to traverse across the large landscape. White Orchard is where your story starts and is a good introduction for the player as after you venture out of White Orchard you are placed in a much larger region.

Once you advance to the second part of the game you'll be given a much larger landmass to explore. Although confusing at first, both of these regions are joined together seamlessly. Both of the regions of Velen and Novigrad have a host of activities and quests for you to do giving you hours of content in just these two regions alone.

Velen is a large swamp land that hosts a large amount of monsters. Though swampy, it also has large thickets of forest but Novigrad is where the landscape truly shines. The city of Novigrad is an extremely large bustling city full of NPCs. It'll take you a few minutes to run across the whole city so thankfully there are shortcuts.

Further south in the ocean is a cluster of large islands named the Skellige Isles. Although the island landmasses in Skellige are much smaller, the Witcher 3 gives the player the ability to explore underwater as there are treasure to be found in the large ocean regions that separate the larger islands.

The world you are presented with is believable in its own way. The world is living and conflicts feel real. It completely immerses you in because of the detail that goes into every town and piece of landscape as well as the detail of story and character that goes into the side quests.

Gameplay

Combat/Skills

In the Witcher 3 sword fighting is the main form of combat. Geralt is given two swords and a crossbow as well as being armed with a few spells known as Witcher signs. The reason for wielding two swords is that one sword is a steel sword used to kill humans and non-humans, the other, a silver sword used to kill monsters.

In your arsenal of weapons you are also given a crossbow of which can be used to pick off targets from afar but its main purpose is to shoot flying monsters out of the sky. A well placed shot can knock your target out of the sky and stun them allowing you to have a few shots at them. There are also bombs at your disposal. Crafted through the alchemy tab the bombs provide different effects of which must be quick swapped to suit the enemy you are fighting.

Alchemy is also an important part of the game as well as being a Witcher. Because you are a Witcher, you can drink potions to enhance your abilities. To craft potions you first must find the respective alchemy diagram of which can be bought from merchants or found throughout the game. Crafting potions through crafting materials you find out in the wild or from monsters you've slain can greatly benefit your fighting prowess. Some potions are applied to your weapons so you can deal more damage towards specific kinds of enemies.

Hunting monsters is what being a Witcher is all about and along with the name comes your Witcher senses. These senses allow you to see tracks or details that normally a human wouldn't be able to see. You use these senses throughout the game especially in quests. Quests require you to use your senses to find bloodstains or claw marks left by monsters. Sometimes you follow these bloodstains or sometimes you follow a scent from a monsters fur but ultimately it'll always lead to a monster for you to kill. The Witcher sense is a nice addition to give the player a detective feel as they track the monster down.

Knowing the weaknesses of your enemies can greatly benefit you in a fight. Every time you kill a monster of read a specific book your bestiary gets updated with information regarding the monsters weaknesses. Using this is important as wrongly equipping yourself for a fight can lead to your death.

Enemies can do a lot of damage to you so looting up on food and drink is the best way to heal through damage. Food and drink you find out in the world that you've looted will automatically replenish themselves in your quickslot and allows for you to gain a short few seconds of health regeneration in a fight. It's extremely useful and needs to be handled or else when you run out in a big fight it'll spell trouble for you.

The sword play in the Witcher 3 works well enough. You can do two types of attacks; a light attack and a heavy attack. A light attack is fast but does less damage, a heavy attack slow but deals more damage. You can parry attacks which uses up stamina but you can also counter-attack, though it's generally better to counter-attack an enemy, getting the timing right can be difficult.

You can also dodge roll and side step dodge. Dodge rolling puts distance between you and the enemy and should be used to escape large attacks. The dodge step is your main source of damage mitigation as you can easily side step and enemy and take the advantage. Sometimes you dodge step in the wrong direction, not sure if it is a game fault or my controller's fault.

The Witcher signs Geralt has are extremely useful in combat as they provide a nice source of alternate damage or self buffs as well as being useful against certain foes.

There are 5 signs that you can use:

Yrden - Sets a magical trap that slows enemies in it

Quen - Creates a magical barrier that blocks attacks

Igni - A fire spell

Axii - Used to enchant enemies

Aard - A telekinetic blast

Throughout the game you gain levels and each level gives you a skill point in which you can invest in upgrading either one of your combat abilities, sign abilities, alchemy and general skills such as more vitality or an armor increase.

Investing in certain skill trees will grant you more abilities as well as strengthening their original skills through percentage increases. In the diamond slots you can equip a mutagen, items you get from enemies, that enhance your abilities the more of a certain type of skill you have attached to them. You unlock a new slot each time you gain 2 levels meaning you unlock them all at level 30. This means you can only have a total of 12 active skills that, when combined with a similarly colored mutagen, will grant extra stats for that mutagen. This also means you have to decide carefully what skills you wish to level up as well as what skills you wish to keep active.

Equipment/Items

Throughout your adventures you'll come across many different kinds armor and weapons. The items you find all have a rating to them, a rating you'll feel quite at home with if you enjoy RPGs. They start off common and go to a blue rare and a green magic and finally leading to a reddish-orange relic. These relic items are unique items that are named and generally come in the form of swords.

There are four equipment slots; chest armor, gloves/gauntlets, trousers and boots. Sadly there is no option for a helmet but why would you need one, you want to show off that amazing haircut you just got. There are three armor ratings of which are light, medium and heavy. They provide different alterations on your general armor as well as stamina regeneration but I found myself gearing up mainly light armor because I liked fast stamina regeneration.

After killing a monster that is somewhat unique you can gut them and obtain a trophy of which can give different stats like; bonus gold or extra exp per kill, When equipped the trophy of the monster will be clearly displayed on your horse for you to see.

You'll find ample amounts of equipment to keep you upgrading every level and gives the player a nice choice of either keeping a weapon with good alternate stats or upgrading for the extra damage. If you're sick of scavenging for a new upgrade, you can craft one. Just go to a blacksmith or armorer and have them craft you an item, granted you have the necessary materials. To craft these you would need diagrams, similar to that of alchemy.

Movement

Movement needed a category of its own as its by far the biggest flaw in the game. Geralt feels heavy and moves awkwardly, especially in tight places. The turn rate is far too wide and doing spins on the spot can be difficult. Jumping in the game is a nice addition compared to the Witcher 2 but it's far from perfect. Jumping feels weighted and feels, again, awkward to use. Swimming is, at first, difficult to manage but after a couple of swims in the water you learn to handle the awkwardness and try to limit it. Movement in general could do with an upgrade, it's not unresponsive, just inaccurate.

Another thing to note, even if Geralt falls 3 feet, he'll take a substantial amount of damage.

Content

There are plenty of things in the game for you to do. Disregarding the main questline, which is a fantastic experience in itself, there are plenty of sidequests. There are main sidequests which are generally a chain of quests with a story to them, Witcher Contracts which give you a small storyline and a final boss for you to kill and Treasure Hunts.

Quests are scattered throughout the map. Some quests can be obtained from the notice board whilst others can just be stumbled upon when exploring. There are also points of interest scattered across the map. There are also Signposts which is the game's fast travelling system. Every time you near a signpost it'll unlock itself allowing for you to fast travel there given that you're at another signpost.

The greatest thing about all these extra missions in the Witcher 3 is that all these missions have a substantial amount of story and content tied to them. Each quest will have you making choices that can sometimes alter the outcome of the quest. They are also all very detailed in that they all have a story to tell.

There are plenty of contracts for you to partake in. Each contract always having a unique boss at the end. The Witcher 3 features a host of unique monsters for you to kill. There are a plentiful amount of variety in monsters you face and are all placed according to their natural habitat. Wolves in forests and clearings, drowners, aptly named, in swamps and nearly water sources. There are sirens that are half human half fish flying bird thing and can be found in oceanic regions. Harpies can be found in hilly mountainous regions and so on so forth. Even after completing a lot of contracts I still found myself wondering what kind of monster I'll be facing up next.

The content aside from the main story alone can keep you occupied for many hours. I finished the game after 45 hours and even then I still did a few side quests in my playthrough meaning that there is a lot more hours for me to play in order to finish all those points of interest.

Graphics

The Witcher 3 is by far one of the best looking games to date. It's absolutely gorgeous. There is a lot of variety within the assets used so nothing ever feels repetitive. The only negative a can say is that there is noticeable pop in in the game world as well as in cutscenes sometimes. There are also inconsistencies with textures but aren't as noticeable unless the cutscnes show it. Other than that the character models are extremely high res, the monsters are high res, the armors and even the weapons are high res. Words don't really do the game justice so I just post a few pictures.

Music/Sound

The music in this game is amazing as well. It fits so well with the atmosphere of the game and I can't honestly describe it. Best I can do is supply a video clip of one of my favourite tracks.

Along with the music there is also great sound design. Sword swings hitting flesh sounds real. Stepping through water, wood, grass, dirt etc. all sound and respond perfectly. The voice acting is superb in this from main characters even to side quest characters they all sound really well done. The accent of the game is consistent and no one ever really sounds like they are out of place.

Only downside to all this is that sometimes the mastering of the sound in cutscenes can be a bit weird. Some sounds might player louder than others and sometimes not at all. Sound does sometimes cut out but rarely.

Replayability

The Witcher 3 itself boasts 36 different kinds of endings. Not only will the multiple endings make you replay the game in a different way, choosing different dialogue options to see how things pan out but you'll need to spend a couple of hours just clearing all the extra content already present in the game. Sidequests are a plenty and points of interests will keep you going for hours on end. The lack of randomized missions, especially contracts, can limit the true end game but how long will it take to reach the end game, probably a few hundred hours, and also the fact that the prospect of expansions coming soon will keep players playing until the next big thing comes.

I've taken 42 hours to beat the main storyline but I've barely explored the lands, I have done only a few points of interests and only a handful of quests. I've still a lot more to do.

Conclusion

The Witcher 3 is the best game to come out in recent times and might I daresay, the best game since Skyrim. I've always waited for another big RPG to take Skyrim's crown and now I believe I've found that game. The Witcher 3 features of plethora of content for the player to enjoy from just hunting monsters to doing intricately detailed side quests to just wandering the landscape. If you're a fan of RPG games then the Witcher 3 is definitely the game for you and it'll keep you going for a long time, long enough until the next big RPG game comes to take its crown.

Note: There are a few bugs and glitches in the game. Namely some quest breaking bugs can occur during your time playing and some of these quests have been noticed to be bugged and CD Projekt RED are working on fixing them. One big problem was my ending was set in stone due to the fact that I never received the quest that would alter the outcome for some reason. I went through the dialogue of setting up the quest but never got the invite to actually initiate the quest. Although there are bugs it doesn't really detract from the whole experience as these can fixed in time.

9/10

Update: After 50 hours with the game I come to the realisation that the game isn't as expansive as you might think. People all over the internet are hyping the experience saying there's hours upon hours of meaningful content. Even at 45 hours I've found myself starved of quests. The last large batch of quests I had were all around level 38-32 and now that I'm level 35 I can't find a single quest in the Velen/Novigrad region. I've starved the game of all of its monster contracts all of which were short with good writing but extremely bland objectives. The only redeeming factor of any of these contracts was the final monster fight which was occasionally difficult but nothing that made me have to restart a fight.

The question marks scoured across the map might make it seem that the map is full of 'rich' content for the player to explore but it's more so just ticking small menial task off a checklist. To a point those question marks begin to feel nothing more than an eye sore as only a minimal amount of them actually have anything meaningful attached to the location. Most of them are monster nests easily cleared in less than 1 minute and guarded treasures which can be cleared in the same amount of time. Caves with a boss in the end and because of no scaling content, most the time the boss is extremely underleveled if you didn't do these question marks alongside the story.

Basically what I'm trying to express is that the game hasn't been fun since I finished the main storyline, all the monster contracts and mostly, I believe 95% of major quests in the game. I'm left with treasure hunts that are bugged out, Witcher armor and weapon hunts which are all too low level for me to care about and Gwent missions. The developers said there would be over 100 hours of content and I can see that, but I can only envision this 100 hours of more content if someone is bothered to do those meaningless question marks.

I can't bring myself to replay the game because it's so focused upon story. The choices you make across the game don't influence the world as much as people say. The biggest choice you have in most cases is usually at the very beginning or at the end. Questlines/storylines don't branch, they only split off into a few points, like a double sided prong. Replaying missions just so I could get a negative response instead of a positive one isn't really an initiative to replay the game.