Geralt has been through a lot during his past outings many moons ago; it’s a wonder he’s not a quivering wreck at the hands of some of the monstrous beasts he’s come up against. Especially so when you consider that he’s popped enough potions to tranquilize many a galloping steed. Either way, he’s back in CD Projekt RED’s, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, let’s jump in.
Straight off the bat, you’re treated to the inevitably awesome opening cutscene involving armies, murderous psycho birds and plenty of CGI goodness. After this, you’ll go through the usual tutorial section where the game explains how to use your vast array of tools in both offensive and defensive manners; it’s not long before you’re thrown in at the deep end and let loose upon the land.
Following what could have been a perfectly avoidable ruckus in a bar, the game lets you roam far and wide in what I once considered to be a fairly large open map. I was wholly mistaken as once you progress further in the main storyline missions; you’ll get access to regions that literally dwarf the starting area many times over. It does however make a good starting point, as there are of course many side quests to take on at your leisure, as well as points of interest dotted about the map which are often more than worth your time to explore and discover. Ranging from quests, to hidden loot caches to free ability points, it’s no secret that it pays greatly to explore.
This unfortunately brings me to my first negative issue regarding the game, being that the main narrative held little interest to me in comparison to simply wandering the lush lands by foot or hoof. Exploring every nook and cranny in an RPG is often what piques my interest and gets my immersion levels up. Needless to say, it wasn’t long before my only goal was to see how far I could push forwards before the ever increasing levels of the enemies forced me back, tail firmly between my legs. The frankly incredible ambience of the game was tantamount to this experience however. I’ve certainly seen my fair share of games, but few compare to the visual experience you’ll encounter here. The hyperbole is true. Trees do actually bend and sway in the wind, sunlight will flicker and dance between branches, and packs of wolves will roam and hunt the wildlife. The weather and day/night cycle effects are gloriously fantastic.
Outside of the graphics, the almost intimidating map size and the inordinate amount of quests, how does the game actually play though? For a start, the combat system requires quite tactical thought and is most certainly unforgiving of mistakes. However much it may look like one, this isn’t your typical Western RPG. Fights are hard; you need preparation, knowledge of the enemy type, what it’s susceptible to and more importantly, patience. If you approach The Witcher 3 as though it were a button mashing frenzy, you’ll be seeing your fair share of (unfortunately) lengthy load times. There’s a quick strike, a heavy strike, five ‘spells’, bombs, a handheld crossbow that is only really useful in select scenarios, a dodge, block and a roll. Each of these needs mastering in of themselves, as nothing is every truly instant in the game. A quick attack may require the dextrous Geralt to spin closer to the enemy to get within range, whilst in the meantime; something unpleasant has already jumped on your face.
Mastering the combat in this game is challenging, enemies that are in a group of four or more are likely going kill you over and over again until you learn their patterns and make full use of your equipment and abilities. Learning which enemies you can block and which you should employ your dodge or roll against is also a matter of trial and improvement, but the largest advantage you have against your beastly foes are your Signs. Each of the five are unlocked from the start, but are of course in their most basic form. Igni pretty much does what you imagine; it tends to sets things on fire, occasionally with a burning effect that pretty much guarantees a victory against lesser enemies. Aard is a general pushback move that can help you gain a little space, sometimes even stunning or knocking your opponents over. Axii is a personal favourite of mine, essentially letting you stop the enemy in their tracks; plus later on you can gain the ability to turn them against their allies too. Quen pops a protective bubble around yourself that can absorb a hit, and Yrden is an area of effect glyph that slows enemies inside its radius. If you’re not using these in pretty much every fight, then you’re making unnecessarily hard work for yourself.
The slow, almost fastidious pace to the combat manifests itself in some slightly tedious ways whilst exploring however. There are a lot of loot-able containers in the world and seeing them in plain sight can be quite difficult due to their often innocuous appearances. Plain crates on the ground that you would ignore in any other game can often hold rare materials and upgrade parts for example. Your ‘Witcher senses’ can detect them whilst holding down a button, highlighting interactable’s with a yellow hue. Yet it also muddies the screen and alters your field of view, making it an annoyance to use whenever you wish to check out a room. That’s not quite the end of the story either, I found myself constantly having difficulties either picking herbs or generally scavenging due to the inertia and momentum of your character. This wouldn’t be an issue normally, but the radius for searching an object seems to be abnormally small and only appears when Geralt himself is looking at it, not just the camera. It’s a relatively small annoyance, but it did happen constantly throughout my playthrough.
The relaxed pace of the game will certainly surprise some in regards to upgrading and levelling up too. You gain experience very slowly in the game; with some quests giving as little as 10XP upon completion, considering you need 1000XP to level up, you shouldn’t be expecting to be shooting through the levels. Gear upgrades come at a leisurely pace too, I once owned the same tunic for over 6 hours of game time, normally this isn’t so much of a problem, save for when you look like a ‘wacky bard’ of course…
For those who’ve not played the previous Witcher titles, you’ll not need to dredge through countless wiki pages to catch up. The game does a good job of keeping the lore intact too for those who’re privy to it; some characters also make a reappearance that’ll please fans of the series. What the game doesn’t do a fantastic job of explaining however, is your inventory management. Once you’ve expertly brewed a potion, provided you have alcohol in your inventory, it will apparently be automatically be replenished when you rest. Now aside from not being able to see any alcohol anywhere in my inventory, when I rested, sure enough my supplies got restocked. Does this mean I can discard my screens worth of alchemic components? I’m not entirely sure, it looks a mess in my inventory, one which kicks up a severe case of OCD, but so long as I try to not look at it too much, I can just about get by.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a sprawling metropolis of a game, to see everything it has to offer, you’ll be investing around 100 hours of play time. Combined with its deep yet accessible combat system, stunning day/night cycle and subsequent weather effects, you can easily lose an afternoon just via wandering. It lets itself down in terms of the main plot, what with each mission revolving around helping someone find information in exchange for ‘Yes she passed through here a while back’. And there are most certainly annoyances with scavenging, foraging and getting cross eyed due to your Witcher senses too. A little more assistance from the game in regards to what you should and shouldn’t sell would go far, as well as making the inventory screen a touch more responsive and organisable. The Witcher 3 is by no means an easy game; even on the normal difficulty you’ll find yourself at the behest of many a foe. Yet through patience, utilising everything at your disposal and most importantly, learning from your mistakes, you’ll find it very difficult to turn off.
