I don’t usually do video game reviews. Or any kind of reviews. Because no one really reads them, duh. Also coz I am not an excellent writer and I’ve never given too much preference to writing my thoughts down. EVEN THOUGH IT HELPS A TON WITH LIFE AND SHIT. But this game man… it made me feel so many things. Thought I should write stuff down so that if Future Hamza reads this, he remembers that he’s experienced some good shit with very valuable lessons.
So, I have actually played The Witcher 3 ages back from the time of writing this. Back in 2016 or 2017 I guess, on a potato laptop that I barely ran the game at medium settings. I wasn’t as into gaming as I am now, and I wouldn’t actively search out new games to play. Would just play the ones I had played earlier, and any new instalments of ‘em. However, I had heard great things about the previous Witcher games online and from some friends. When I was sailing the high seas searching randomly, I came across The Witcher 3 on (I think) FitGirl’s website. From what I had understood of Witcher 1 & 2, it was that this was a complicated game with tons of strategy. And I really likedAge of Empires as a kid. I thought this would be that kind of army building, RTS type game. EVEN THOUGH EVERY FORUM SAID THIS WAS AN RPG. I just didn’t know what the fuck RPG was.
Anyway, my first outing with The Witcher 3 was fabulous, to say the least. I got really into the world, and even started reading the books on which the games are based. As with most things in my life however, I moved away from the Witcher universe because I was also getting into Cosmere near then. Also the books were… meandering in their prose compared to Sanderson’s.
I remember feeling a sense of awe at the scale of the game, the beautiful scenery (even on my garbage laptop), and the lore of the whole universe. I would be remiss to mention how infatuated I was at the sheer beauty of Triss and Yennefer. CD Projekt Red knew what they were doing. Even the DLCs were jam packed with so much story and content that kept me hooked onto the game long after the main story ended.
All of that, and more, came back when I started The Witcher 3 again this year.
Starting Witcher 3 again was kind of a random decision, just like how I played it the first time. I was on this tirade of “USE THE PS5 MORE IT IS AWESOME” and “FINISH GAMES ALREADY IN LIBRARY NO BUY NEW GAMES”. The last one was coz I had bought quite a few games in the last months coz they would pop up on sale, but I wouldn’t play them coz I wouldn’t have time for them. Also, since I now consider myself a more “adult” gamer, who plays games thoroughly and gets the max experience from them, I wanted to play a game that I could sink into and not get bored. Had recently also bought the “Complete Enhanced Edition” of Witcher 3 that promised better graphics and shiz. So, I installed The Witcher 3 around the time I was finishing up 120%-ing Batman- Arkham Knight, and I would say it’s one of the best (or worst, depending on nazariya) things I’ve done this year till now.
Firstly, this time I had a really nice system, which actually supports higher resolutions, frame rates, fast loading times, etc. Loading into the first cutscene made me ruddy impressed that this near 10 year old game looks amazing even now. Walking around in Geralt’s room at Kaer Morhen with Yeneffer at the side (SO HOT), I was pleasantly surprised at how smooth 60fps feels. But I was so not prepared for the view once I stepped out into the balcony. I shit you not, it felt like I was back in Manali looking at the Himalayas. I just left my screen like that for a good 5 minutes and just absorbed the beauty of the hills and the quiet music playing in the background.
Suffice it to say, The Witcher 3 looks gorgeous even today. Granted it’s got some updates and upscaling done to it, but most modern games get more done to them and they don’t look nor play* half as good as The Witcher 3 does. I played on the “Performance” mode of the game, which renders everything at 60fps. This game made me realize the importance of a good framerate. 30fps ain’t bad at all, really. But 60 just hits different. I switched sometimes to the “Ray Tracing” mode, just to get a nice view of the beautiful sun-streaked skies of Velen or the vast and majestic fjords of Skellige. Buuuut, to my eyes it looked the same as Performance mode most of the time. Maybe it’s coz I don’t have 4K TV, but doesn’t matter. The game is beautiful, ‘nuff said.
* Roach.. isn’t considered here.
I played on the hardest difficulty (Death March), and ngl, I felt every slash and gnaw that the monsters did to Geralt personally. That’s probably coz of the excellent haptics integrated in this updated version, but damn is Death March difficult. I died 15 times in the very first fight with the ghouls in White Orchard. After getting rid of them, I resolved that I will need to do every side mission, mini quest, collect as much money and stuff I can, if I was gonna survive the main story this time around. Sooo, I did just that. I did the first few main missions, to get some tutorials done with and get a hold of the game. THEN I ignored the main quest for a good 3 hours or so and just did the various side quests to get a respectable amount of experience. And oh boy, the side quests were equally (if not more) interesting than the main quest itself.
One of the quests I did, called On Death’s Bed, made me take a decision that I didn’t realize would come back to make me feel bad later in the game. Here, I meet a herbalist called Tomira. I go to her for some other quest, but she also has some thing that she needs of me too. 90% of the game is people asking favors of Geralt. She has a lady at her place, Lena, who was recently attacked by big ass griffin (that I am supposed to take down as part of the main quest). She is “on death’s bed”, so to speak, and Tomira asks Geralt if there’s any thing he knows that can save her. Geralt claims that a witcher potion, called Swallow (heh), can theoretically heal her wounds. BUT it’s called a witcher potion for a reason, coz it only works on witchers as intended. On regular humans, it can fuck them up real good. Wounds may heal, but internally they’d be all garbled up in any form.
So you as the player get two choices. You either a) Brew the swallow potion and give it to her, hoping for the best or, b) ignore the quest and decline helping out, since Geralt doesn’t know what will happen. I went with a), which I felt was more in line with the idea that “at least she has a chance”. Also I wanted to brew that potion, it’s quite helpful ahead. Got her the potion, she drank it, and I left the place, never to return. A few days later (irl), I was in Velen near the Nilfgardian army outpost, and was doing some other odd jobs there. I get into a random cutscene while I’m walking around and this dude comes upto me and asks me if I’m the witcher called Geralt. Obviously I am, so he goes ahead and tells me what happened of Lena. This dude is a Nilfgardian, who is at war with Temeria, where Lena is from. They fell in love somehow, but dude had to leave coz war chal raha hai. After the White Orchard region stabilized, dude came back to visit Lena, and he did hear that she was atttacked by a Griffin. On finding her she was healed, gg. BUT the potion.. melted her mind. She was essentially a vegetable now. The dude thanked me partly, but claimed that it would have been better if she were dead. Which.. I also agree with. At least Lena would have died with dignity. The things going through that Nilfgardian’s head. I shut my game down after this encounter and legit had a whole thinking session about this.
The above was one example of how intriguing each quest can be, and how decisions do affect the way the story plays out as you “role play” Geralt. Seemingly innocent decisions that you would take in a hasty manner could have a lasting implication on the world around you. Which kinda leads me into talking about the story of The Witcher 3.
Story
The main quest essentially is divided into 2 parts, as I see it
- Find Ciri
- Once you find Ciri, fuck up The Wild Hunt so they never bother anyone again.
Geralt of Rivia, is a witcher. In this universe, there are a ton of creatures. Humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, ghouls, vampires, you fucking name it. Humans of course not like the other creatures, and that’s where witchers come in. Witchers are humans, at least 90% of the times. But they are mutated extensively as children which make them essentially superhuman with some abilities. Mages, which are again usually human, made witchers by injecting orphan children with different potions and decoctions and then subjecting them to immense physical challenges. Kinda like one out of a 100 kids would then properly become a witcher.
These specialised humans were mutated specifically to counter the effects of various monsters and be able to fight against them toe-to-toe. And that’s what these witchers did. They would go around the world, travelling based on an ideal called The Path, and take on contracts to kill monsters. They would get huge money for this, and their close association with mages and kings would make them quite influential people. But they were a little too efficient, so over time the number of monsters decreased a lot. So, some foolish witcher did something to make monsters, which kinda ruined the name of the witcher caste. Moreover, as part of their mutation process and training, witchers mostly were cold-hearted, emotionless, killing machines, whose sole purpose seemed to be take money and kill monsters. So, the wider populace of the world started despising witchers, and their numbers dwindled over the years due to pogroms against them, and them being unable to sire children themselves.
Geralt is one of those last remaining witchers, who comes from a “School” called the School of the Wolf. There are more such schools, Cat, Viper, Manticore, Griffin, Bear, but later about them. He’s special even amongst his peers since he was subjected to more mutations than the others, leading him to be stronger than other witchers even, but also turning his hair all white and his complexion whiter. Before this game, Geralt has had a ton of adventures, witchering along The Continent (that’s the main area where the games and books take place), getting entangled in issues larger than him, getting an adopted daughter, you know the works, nearly dying a few times, getting blackmailed into pillaging villages, etc. etc.