What Do You Want?

I had heard and a read a lot about the game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. But I was not sure whether I wanted to play this game, because the setting seemed to be a very dark. It was the recommendation of a fellow worker that finally convinced me to give it a try.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt takes place in a dark medieval world. Over a thousand years ago a cataclysm called the Conjunction of the Spheres unleashed numerous monsters like ghouls, griffins and trolls into the world. Ever since they pray on the population and their live stock. There are also racial tensions between the humanoid races like humans, elfs and dwarfs which often lead to violence. To make matters worse a war between the Nilfgaardian Empire and the northern kingdoms is ravaging the continent.

The player follows the adventures of the witcher Geralt of Rivia. Witchers are magically mutated monster hunters with superhuman strength, speed and senses. They make a living from hunting and killing monsters for money. Geralt is contacted by his former lover Yennefer of Vengerberg, a powerful sorceress. She tells him that Cirilla, Geralt’s adopted daughter, has reappeared and is apparently being chased by the Wild Hunt. The Wild Hunt is a powerful group of spectres that leaves death and destruction in its path. Together Geralt and Yennefer must try to find Cirilla first and protect her from her dangerous pursuers.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an open world, third person, hack and slash game with role play elements. The game world is absolutely massive and full of interesting locations like monster nests, bandit camps or hidden treasures. Besides the lengthy main quests there are a huge number of interesting side quests and witcher contracts available. All this is combined with excellent story writing and compelling dialog spoken by brilliant voice actors. The combat system is also very well designed: there are no win buttons and no quicktime events. The outcome of a fight depends on the right mix of preparation, clever use of Geralt’s magic powers and good old reflexes. The game never spams you with enemies to increase the difficulty. It instead presents you with very well designed and thereby challenging opponents and forces you to learn from your mistakes. But it is never unfair in doing so. Spectacular graphics depicting breath taking landscapes and impressive cities, realistic character animations and excellent sound complete this outstanding game.

I greatly enjoyed playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It felt like an interactive fantasy story full of interesting characters and rich lore. It is possibly the best game not released by BioWare that I have ever played. Along the way you have to make a lot of decisions for Geralt. And it is usually challenging to tell what the correct choice is. More often than not it turns out that there is no correct choice, there are always unfortunate consequences. You can only decide for yourself which is the lesser evil. I was also happy that Geralt gets a good farewell at the end of his trilogy (the first two Witcher games are not available for PlayStation 4 unfortunately). I still have unfond memories of the disappointing ending of another trilogy.

If you like open world games, story driven games or hack and slash games you should definitely consider The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It excels in all of these areas.