Today we're finishing off the Witcher series with a bang, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released in 2015 to an astounding reception and became an instant classic among fans, the ultimate ending to the Witcher series saw CdProjeckt RED pour all of their resources and dedication into finishing the game off with a bang in a massive open world game that even on the easiest difficulty takes hundreds of hours to complete, coupled with the side quests and two amazing DLC offerings, it's possible to spend 300-500 hours on a single playthrough.
So lets get right into this monumentally big game as we review the final tale in the chapter of Geralt of Rivia.
Story Introduction.
The Wild Hunt takes places a few years after the events of The Witcher 2, Nilfgaard, the southern empire has invaded the Northern Realms claiming massive swathes of territory in a short time owing to the civil war that ravaged the countries in Witcher 2, however this will take a back seat to our tale with Geralt, now with his memory fully restored, Geralt searches for his former lover, Yennefer of Vengerberg after he has a dream of his pseudo daughter, Cirila.
Usually when Geralt dreams of Cirila bad things come to pass, searching for Yennefer, Geralt arrives on the outskirts of Temeria in White Orchid, which has been decimated by the Nilfgaardian forces but shows traces of Yennefer on the battlefield, Geralt along with Vessemir arrive on the outskirts of the town to find a merchant being assailed by a Royal Griffin however the Witchers scare them off and make their way into the town to look for information.
After the war between the Scoia'tael and numerous human factions, non humans are scarcely found in towns and the ones who are, are constantly harassed by the townsfolk, it's not different for The Witchers who are considered non humans because of their mutations to fight monsters, after exploring the town Geralt learns that the local Nilfgaardian garrison may have information on Yennefer and sets out to find it, upon arriving at the garrison the local commander informs Geralt he does indeed known where she is, but first he must accept and complete a contract, to kill the royal Griffin they encountered on the outskirts of town.
Geralt and Vessemir get to work preparing to fight the Griffin as well as asking town folks about it and helping them out the best they can when work comes up, the forests that surround White Orchid are plagued with necrophages,bandits and deserters all of which are gunning for anyone that comes near them, Geralt has to navigate these things in order to lure the Griffin out of hiding and attack in an open field, eventually they succeed and draw it to the outskirts of town where Geralt and Vessemir kill the Griffin and bring it's head to the local commander who informs him Yennefer is a day's right south in Vizima.
As Geralt returns to White Orchid to collect Vessemir and set off, they are stopped by a Nilfgaardian escort headed by Yennefer herself who informs Geralt she has a mission of utmost importance for him and they must travel to Vizima, now in Nilfgaardian hands, to meet with Emperor Emhyr Var Emreis, the relentless ruler of Nilfgaard and Cirila's father, they set out from White Orchid to Vizima when they're attacked by the war host of the Wild Hunt, the spectral warband from another world who seek to cover the earth in the white frost and end all life.
Narrowly escaping Geralt and Yennefer arrive in Vizima and meet the emperor who informs Geralt that Cirila(Ciri) has reappeared after a decade of being missing, Geralt and the Emperor hate each other as they both consider themselves to be Ciri's father, the emperor informs Geralt he is to acquire Ciri and bring her back to him so that she can rule as Empress when the time comes, however Geralt refuses and informs him that he'll find Ciri but let her decide what she wants to do.
Arriving in Velen, Geralt seeks out a contact working for Yennefer in a small town, once he arrives however it's readily apparent The Wild Hunt has been here, the ground is frozen solid and the townsfolk have been brutally slaughtered save for one man too traumatized to tell Geralt what happened, using a Witcher sign, Geralt calms the man down who informs him the Wild Hunt arrived in the town looking for a man, the man Geralt was supposed to meet with, Geralt finds the man butchered in his own house but finds a secret staircase in the floor which leads him into the mans basement.
It becomes apparent the man was a spy rather than a merchant sent by the Emperor to find his daughter, he learns that Ciri has been spotted numerous times and is given a few leads to follow, Geralt must decide which to do to find Ciri in a massive world as she has been spotted on nearly every continent in the world, some hundreds of miles apart from each other.
Geralt begins his search for Ciri and begins the real story of The Wild hunt, he eventually discovers that the Wild Hunt is after Ciri directly so that she can bring about the time of the white frost, the cataclysmic end of days that will freeze the entire world and kill everyone in it, it's up to Geralt to not on find Ciri and keep her safe but face The Wild Hunt and prevent the destruction of the world all of this he must do while navigating around a war torn land filled with monsters and humans a like.
Game play and Setting.
The Witcher 3 takes place in a gigantic open world setting across the Witcher world filled with hundreds of hours of content, sights and mechanics, CDPR hit the nail on the head for Witcher 3 in making the best possible game they could and giving Geralt and the fans the proper send off for an amazing series of games, i'll be talking more about the world later in the visuals portion of the review, now i'm going to focus on the game play and setting of The Wild Hunt.
Much like Witcher 2, the combat systems have been even more refined making it the best possible gaming experience you can get, Geralt's mechanics are numerous and have been refined into the tighest controls i think iv'e ever seen in an ARPG, unlike Witcher 1 and 2, The Wild Hunt instead gives players a more free form fighting style that can be upgraded and mutated to their liking, there is a real difference between fighting humans and monsters in The Wild Hunt and battles feel unique and fresh everytime you go into them.
The game play has been tweaked slightly so that you can better prepare for your chosen type of fight, potions can now be used at any time and crafted items replenish when you mediate, the fighting mechanics have been tightened as well so that combat is free flowing but also challenging at the same time and only gets better with your talent tree specializations which CDPR have done an amazing job of allowing for numerous different specs for Geralt.
However what makes The Wild Hunt a truly engaging experience is the level of content, literally hundreds of hours of content in all directions, every inch of every map is covered by something and it is the first open world game were exploring is actually incredibly rewarding, unlike the vast majority of open world games The Witcher 3 is truly alive with monsters and npcs literally everywhere, if you can find your way there, there's more than likely something to do there.
It also introduced Gwent, the origin of Gwent: The Witcher Card Game, which has more content in it than most triple a titles released today(seriously, not joking) a simple card game will get you into massive chain quests that last for hours with their own unique story and characters, it's truly amazing that what is technically a side game has more content than most full priced triple A titles do, if you want to learn more about Gwent you can read the review on blog.
It's impossible to list all of the content in the Witcher 3, but simple side missions can turn into 20 hour long chain quests and even just randomly exploring a part of the open world can unlock amazing rewards and even more story content, CDPR spared no expense in this game and made sure that it was open world for a reason, unlike most games who put it in there to make it feel bigger than it actually is.
Crafting and equipment return in a big way, unlike Witcher 2 which required a lot of time farming and crafting, the Witcher 3 introduces a full wardrobe of equipment and weapon upgrades and you guessed it even those have long quest chains you can do, there really is no throw away things in The Witcher 3, every single thing you do leads to something bigger and better and opens up the world even more and the greatest thing is that the leveling system doesn't hinder you.
While monsters and humans have levels, you're never really hindered from going to places and fighting things, CDPR have done an amazing job of incorporating player skill into their mix so that even if you are level 4 and want to fight something level 20, it'll be incredibly hard to do so but it's still possible if you follow the Witchers path, finding the proper oils, bombs and use of magic signs coupled with player control of Geralt and careful timing and positioning means you can basically go anywhere at any time, all though some things may be locked behind the story it's never constricting in a true open world experience.
In my personal opinion, The Witcher 3 has the most amazing RPG mechanics and controls iv'e come across in 20 years of gaming to the point that even when you finish the game you want to keep playing, the easiest way to think of The Witcher 3 is that it's an MMORPG solely for you, it really has that much content that all that's missing is a few different classes and other players.
Visuals and Open World.
The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt is a graphically astounding game, every inch of the massive open world is beautifully crafted with unique assets and fidelity to make it an amazing, immersive experience that hasn't been seen before and hasn't been replicated since, while not taking the crown from Rise of The Tomb Raider in terms of realism it still rivals it owing to the sheer amount of not only content but actual world there is, even underwater is decorated so that it feels like a true living world, remember this is a war torn world set in a alternate medieval universe, so rivers next to towns and villages are littered with debris and items.
CDPR did everything they could to make the Witcher 3 feel like a true alternate world that feels alive and lived in, most open world games never reach this level of detail and you'll find yourself journeying through empty "open world" environments that don't really add anything to the game world, The Witcher 3 remedied that, like i said above, there are very very few areas that have nothing on them, even tiny islands in the middle of the ocean have some sort of content on them and can even lead to hidden quests and treasures.
Graphically however The Witcher 3 is a game that people keep talking about, while requiring an extremely powerful computer to run it on the maximum settings, the developers took it one step further and actually locked the "Supreme and Extreme" settings in the ini files for people with serious rigs to test their game out, as it stands even a 1080ti can't frequently keep at 60FPS in 4k resolution with the supreme setting, i have a pretty hefty rig and I averaged around 35-60 FPS while running it on those settings, but let me tell you the game is like nothing you've ever seen if you enable them.
Usually i would just post a few pictures of the game to show you, however with Witcher 3 it's a game where the screenshots don't do it justice, in 20 years iv'e never come across a game that blends their graphical powerhouse together so well with amazing optimization, like Crysis 3 and Rise of the Tomb Raider, Witcher 3 was meant to be played at the highest setting possible and dear god is it a beautiful experience, especially owing to the fact of just how big the open world is and how is in it, every single corner of the world is decorated and even if you're not a fan of the series you should check it out either way just to see how much time and dedication has gone into making up the world of The Witcher 3.
But what really makes Witcher 3 is, you guessed it, the content, the main story is over 200+ hours depending on the difficulty you choose, all up there's around 300-500 hours game time with just the standard game, add the two expansion packs onto and you get close to the 700-1000 hour mark, Witcher 3 is another game that deserves to be played on the highest difficulty to get the fullest experience possible out of it.
Below are some choice screenshots of the open world on the highest graphics settings available.
What developers should aspire to produce.
Regardless of if you're a Witcher fan or not, CDPR has consistently delivered on their promise to their fans that their games will be involving and worth your money, to be honest the Witcher 3 is stupidly under priced for what it is, i would of happily paid over $100 for this game and it's one of the only games iv'e heard the community actively begging the developers to produce DLC for, to me that is a sign of a great game, when the community of fans wants to give you even more money to extend an already insanely long game.
The two expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood And Wine are also in of themselves singular triple A games that could be released by themselves in todays market, while Hearts of Stone was to introduce more adaptability and new game mechanics, the final installment of the Witcher, Blood and Wine was nothing short of unbelievable for an expansion, creating an entirely different new open world map filled with entirely new biomes, characters, monsters, NPCs and entire cities for a stupidly low price.
Other developers could learn something from The Witcher 3 on how to increase the quality of so many different things, the only real thing that annoys anyone with the Witcher is Roach getting caught in god damn everything(thankfully it's been mostly patched out) but the journey of The Witcher in game is separate from the journey of the players through it, what started from humble beginnings with albeit pretty bad graphics and outdated combat systems, spawned into one of the most amazing visual and game play wise games to ever hit the market in under 8 years, how many companies do we know that are still releasing games with graphics from 2012?
Whatever your take away from The Witcher 3 is up to you, but personally this game is a truly amazing gem that will go on to influence countless developers and players on just how great a game can be with a developer and studio that truly cares about their product and does everything in their power to make it the best they possibly can, it's been a long time since i clocked over 100 hours in a game in a single play through where i wasn't beginning to get bored of it, but as i said above the Witcher 3 has hundreds of hours of content that you just want to keep playing.
I'd highly highly suggest this game to anyone who is a fan of amazing looking games, people who enjoy time sinks or fans of amazing story driven narratives and fully involved game play from the ground up.
The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt stands as a testament to what video games are capable of in the current era with the right developers, it's not very often where I find a game that has too much content to review even in an extended review, but The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt is one of those games.
(Just as a side note, if you're going to purchase this game, buy it on GoG, it's CDPR's digital service so the money goes straight to them)
