The Witcher 3:
Wild Hunt
RRP: $59.99 | Website: www.thewitcher.com/ | Developer: CD Projekt RED
I
’ve loved The Witcher from the very
beginning. These days it’s difficult to
imagine this franchise as anything
less than the outrageously popular
role-playing juggernaut that it’s
become, capable of shifting millions
of copies in the blink of an eye. I
mean, Geralt of Rivia is practically a
household name in the gaming world.
But it wasn’t always this way. The
original Witcher was a magnificently
quirky, hugely interesting, but also
hilariously clumsy role-playing game
that was very nearly crushed under
the weight of its own ambition, and
famously needed an almost complete
overhaul in order for its original vision
to be realised. But it had heart, and
experimented with things that very
few (if any) games were willing to
attempt at the time.
daughter Ciri, who’s on the run from a
group of horrible bastards collectively
called the Wild Hunt. I’ll leave it at
that to avoid any spoilers, but I will say
that it’s an impressively compelling
narrative, full of the sorts of twists
and turns and terrible choices that
you’d expect from this series. As I’ve
said, it’s also unexpectedly personal,
far more so than any other core
storyline in the series. There may be
grand, world-altering plots unfolding
in the background, but this is really a
story about a guy desperately fighting
to protect the ones he loves. The
writing is generally outstanding, and
it’s often surprisingly funny as well,
providing flashes of amusing reprieve
from the many horrible situations
you’ll frequently encounter in The
Witcher 3.
The Witcher 2 proved to be
significantly more refined and
showed true growth on the part of
its developers, showcasing more of
this series’ enormous potential, but
still stumbling in a few key areas.
Now, with Wild Hunt, The Witcher
has evolved into something truly
spectacular, able to not only match
but often completely surpass its bigbudget, open-world RPG competitors.
And, importantly, it’s lost none of its
heart along the way.
Its narrative picks up where The
Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings left
off. The world is in a state of violent
transformation after the events of
the second game, and the precarious
balance of power between its various
factions is surrounded by great big
question marks. But that’s merely
the backdrop for a far more personal
story, which opens with Geralt
searching for his long-lost lover
Yennefer and eventually leads to him
hunting down his long-lost adopted
Even if you don’t engage with the
vast array of tertiary distractions and
side-quests on offer in the game, the
main quest will keep you occupied for
many, many happy hours. But stray off
the prescribed path and you’ll discover
one of the richest, most brilliantly
realised open-world envir