After 150 hours, 100% achievement/trophy completion and far too much Gwent, I’ve finally rolled credits on this masterpiece. Its by no means perfect, but working my way through this over the course of several months has been a truly special experience as someone who is fully invested in the universe, having played both previous entries and read all the books several times.
The Witcher 3 is beautifully written. There are so many layers to its writing. On the surface it has a whole host of engaging and diverse characters, great comedic moments and some engrossing and truly twisted plotlines. However, intermingled with this there is complex political undertones, frequent reminders of racial oppression present throughout the land and of course the ever-present white frost. On top of this, the game pays an incredible reverence to its source material, with countless links to previous games and book. It does an extremely good job of balancing all of the above without overwhelming the player. Moreover, the extremely detailed character and location breakdowns in the menus as well as the books littered throughout the game allow you to dive deeper into elements that are of particular interest. I really appreciated this attention to detail which helped me feel more informed when making the important dialogue decisions in quests. These choices can have huge consequences which completely change the world and what happens to characters. This is a welcome change from the superficial decision-making present in a lot of games.
The main story itself is well told, with some really strong and memorable arcs. It does have pacing issues, with a bloated middle section and some smaller arcs which feel more like busy work, but the high stakes, intriguing cast and constantly evolving relationships make it very engaging. On top of this, there are some sublime side quests such as one where you decide whether you take part in the assassination plot of a king and another where you work with a mage to uncover the secrets of a haunted island. Each area on the continent feels very distinct with its own culture and political landscape (with Skellige being my personal favourite), and the quests that are done in each of these locations do a great job of capturing this uniqueness. That being said, with a game of this size and scope, inevitably there are some weaker, more generic side quests and some forgettable characters.
The Witcher 3’s gameplay is enjoyable, but with scope for improvement. Its gameplay loop consists of traversal, combat and clue hunting. Unfortunately, this loop can get repetitive due to the lack of depth in some of its systems. For example, clue hunting is just a case of using your Witcher vision to find whatever is highlighted in red on your screen. As this system is used so frequently it would’ve been nice if there was more interaction, taking inspiration from the likes of Uncharted’s temples or Arkham Origin’s crime scene reconstructions.
Combat, the second gameplay pillar, is quite a standard affair with light and heavy attacks mixed in with counters and dodges. Potions, oils and signs do elevate the experience by encouraging strategising and enemy weakness exploitation. Moreover, you can read your bestiary to try and plan ahead when taking on the larger monsters. These monsters are some of the highlights of the game as besting them makes you feel most like a Witcher. Contracts where you trawl through a cave taking out a queen spider’s babies to remove any chance of reinforcements before you tackle the queen and another where you lure a monster into a barn with alcohol so that you can prevent it retreating during combat is this game at its peak. Its just a shame that combat feels a bit stiff sometimes and the camera can sometimes be a pain when trying to reposition yourself as you are swarmed by foes. What’s more, even playing this game on death march, there is no consistent difficulty curve. I struggled to fend off even the easiest of foes in my first dozen hours with the game, but I soon out-levelled my foes, making it incredibly easy to brute force my way through encounters rather than these being tense, methodical affairs requiring the use of everything at your disposal. Regardless, I would like to give a special shoutout to the gory combat finishers, which left me completely awestruck on several occasions as limbs were severed and body parts flew across the screen.
The final gameplay pillar, traversal, is really enjoyable primarily because of the world you are traversing through. Visually, it is gorgeous thanks to some exceptional lighting (I could soak in those sunrises and sunsets all day), the environmental variety between locations and the game’s art direction. The sublime soundtrack and sound design only add to this immersion. Though, Ido have some minor gripes with Geralt feeling a bit clunky at times, roach’s uncooperativeness and cliffs that cannot be traversed making for tedious diversions. Regardless, the sheer quantity of random encounter, side quests, loot and monsters lurking about make the continent feel lived in whilst also capturing how bleak times are with the war that ravages through the land.
When I said the Witcher has three gameplay pillars…I lied. Gwent, while not integral to the experience, is one of the best things to come out of this game. It is simple to learn, but true mastery takes lots of practice and card collecting. Gwent is a game within a game as there are so many quests and challenges you can take on to proceed in your quest to complete you deck. What’s more it spawned its own spinoff game Thronebreaker, which I highly recommend, and a standalone competitive multiplayer game. Long story short, Gwent rules.
If you hadn’t gathered by now, I adore this game. It does so much right and truly warrants the many hours required to see this experience through to its end. Yes it has some flaws in its gameplay, but the endless list of things it does right dwarfs its handful of flaws. If you are one of the few people who haven’t dipped your feet into this world yet, I could not recommend it enough. Just be prepared to lose many hours of your life…
2015 Ranked
Ranked Open World Recommendations
Witcher Franchise Ranked
The Witcher 3 is beautifully written. There are so many layers to its writing. On the surface it has a whole host of engaging and diverse characters, great comedic moments and some engrossing and truly twisted plotlines. However, intermingled with this there is complex political undertones, frequent reminders of racial oppression present throughout the land and of course the ever-present white frost. On top of this, the game pays an incredible reverence to its source material, with countless links to previous games and book. It does an extremely good job of balancing all of the above without overwhelming the player. Moreover, the extremely detailed character and location breakdowns in the menus as well as the books littered throughout the game allow you to dive deeper into elements that are of particular interest. I really appreciated this attention to detail which helped me feel more informed when making the important dialogue decisions in quests. These choices can have huge consequences which completely change the world and what happens to characters. This is a welcome change from the superficial decision-making present in a lot of games.
The main story itself is well told, with some really strong and memorable arcs. It does have pacing issues, with a bloated middle section and some smaller arcs which feel more like busy work, but the high stakes, intriguing cast and constantly evolving relationships make it very engaging. On top of this, there are some sublime side quests such as one where you decide whether you take part in the assassination plot of a king and another where you work with a mage to uncover the secrets of a haunted island. Each area on the continent feels very distinct with its own culture and political landscape (with Skellige being my personal favourite), and the quests that are done in each of these locations do a great job of capturing this uniqueness. That being said, with a game of this size and scope, inevitably there are some weaker, more generic side quests and some forgettable characters.
The Witcher 3’s gameplay is enjoyable, but with scope for improvement. Its gameplay loop consists of traversal, combat and clue hunting. Unfortunately, this loop can get repetitive due to the lack of depth in some of its systems. For example, clue hunting is just a case of using your Witcher vision to find whatever is highlighted in red on your screen. As this system is used so frequently it would’ve been nice if there was more interaction, taking inspiration from the likes of Uncharted’s temples or Arkham Origin’s crime scene reconstructions.
Combat, the second gameplay pillar, is quite a standard affair with light and heavy attacks mixed in with counters and dodges. Potions, oils and signs do elevate the experience by encouraging strategising and enemy weakness exploitation. Moreover, you can read your bestiary to try and plan ahead when taking on the larger monsters. These monsters are some of the highlights of the game as besting them makes you feel most like a Witcher. Contracts where you trawl through a cave taking out a queen spider’s babies to remove any chance of reinforcements before you tackle the queen and another where you lure a monster into a barn with alcohol so that you can prevent it retreating during combat is this game at its peak. Its just a shame that combat feels a bit stiff sometimes and the camera can sometimes be a pain when trying to reposition yourself as you are swarmed by foes. What’s more, even playing this game on death march, there is no consistent difficulty curve. I struggled to fend off even the easiest of foes in my first dozen hours with the game, but I soon out-levelled my foes, making it incredibly easy to brute force my way through encounters rather than these being tense, methodical affairs requiring the use of everything at your disposal. Regardless, I would like to give a special shoutout to the gory combat finishers, which left me completely awestruck on several occasions as limbs were severed and body parts flew across the screen.
The final gameplay pillar, traversal, is really enjoyable primarily because of the world you are traversing through. Visually, it is gorgeous thanks to some exceptional lighting (I could soak in those sunrises and sunsets all day), the environmental variety between locations and the game’s art direction. The sublime soundtrack and sound design only add to this immersion. Though, Ido have some minor gripes with Geralt feeling a bit clunky at times, roach’s uncooperativeness and cliffs that cannot be traversed making for tedious diversions. Regardless, the sheer quantity of random encounter, side quests, loot and monsters lurking about make the continent feel lived in whilst also capturing how bleak times are with the war that ravages through the land.
When I said the Witcher has three gameplay pillars…I lied. Gwent, while not integral to the experience, is one of the best things to come out of this game. It is simple to learn, but true mastery takes lots of practice and card collecting. Gwent is a game within a game as there are so many quests and challenges you can take on to proceed in your quest to complete you deck. What’s more it spawned its own spinoff game Thronebreaker, which I highly recommend, and a standalone competitive multiplayer game. Long story short, Gwent rules.
If you hadn’t gathered by now, I adore this game. It does so much right and truly warrants the many hours required to see this experience through to its end. Yes it has some flaws in its gameplay, but the endless list of things it does right dwarfs its handful of flaws. If you are one of the few people who haven’t dipped your feet into this world yet, I could not recommend it enough. Just be prepared to lose many hours of your life…
2015 Ranked
Ranked Open World Recommendations
Witcher Franchise Ranked
2 Comments
Cheers mate! I'm sure you'll enjoy if you give it a whirl. Took me a while to get round to it too just cause I was intimidated by how much time I knew I'd sink into it
DVince89
9 months ago