[ENG] The Witcher 3 and The Recipe For Longevity
(Polska Wersja Dostępna Tu! - [PL] Wiedźmin 3 i Sposób na Długowieczność)
I don't think I need to give a spoiler warning for such a game but... Just in case, I will try to keep spoilers to minimum
So... Why am I even writing this? Well – no one said I can't talk for a bit about Witcher 3 and why I think it so amazing just because I want to do this and despite that almost everyone knows about this at that point. Plus The Witcher Netflix series was released not so long ago so I think it's a good moment to talk about it. So... Let's go I guess:
Witcher 3 was released waaaaay back in 2015. Let that sink in for a moment. This game is 5 years old. The gameplay, story and graphics are still astonishing, they are much better than majority of the things that are released today.
Once again we play as a Geralt, witcher known from the first and second installment of the popular RPG franchise. A game based on The Witcher series of fantasy novels by polish author Andrzej Sapkowski.
So with the most basic basics out of the way – Let's look at what has made Witcher 3 one hell of a game that is still praised and loved by many today, 5 years after release. Let's look at it's recipe for longevity!
(Lovely view, isn't it?)
There are a lot of equally important factors to that question, but let's start with choices that the game offers you. Huge majority of main quests, side quests or contracts offer you more than one way of completing certain part of the quest or even an entire quest. Although... Your choices may have consequences. What do I mean by this? For example if you will choose one option over another during one quest it may heavily affect the outcome of another one (Though this example mostly applies to main plotline), or sometimes you can spare monsters instead of killing them because... Well, monsters are monsters but some of them aren't necessarily evil and it's matter of your morality. You either let monsters live but you have to forfeit the reward you will get for it's head (If we're talking about monster contracts) or you slay the monster, get the reward but question yourself... Was it worth it? And... Well – sometimes humans can be the worst monsters in this world. Or you can sacrifice a child, kill a woman or force a man to go back to his ex so no one dies – yes, these are actual choices for one particular quest in this game.
Sometimes even your choices can heavily backfire after a long time. Like – really long time. Few choices in a row can backfire after another 20, 30 or even more hours – depending on your playstyle.
Of course there also are illusory choices – you have 2 different options to choose from during a quest but... They both result in the same way.
What do I mean by everything of this is that Witcher 3 gives you tremendous amount of choices that can change your playthrough or even ending on that matter. I am playing through this game for the third time now and I constantly discover new choices, new consequences and new events due to certain choices.
Deep down I hope that Cyberpunk 2077 will also introduce many choices of completing missions and choices that will backfire you in the most unexpected moments.
(Geralt and Yennefer. Witcher and Sorceress. Two of the most important characters)
Another ingredient in this recipe for longevity are characters and voice acting. Let's start with VA – I played once in full English dubbing and once in full Polish (just like I'm doing now on third playthrough) and... It may have to do with me being a native pole, but I really think Polish dubbing suits The Witcher much more, BUT! English dubbing is also really good, but when you compare English and Polish... Well, I will leave decision to you, but I personally think that Polish is better in that regard.
Voice acting is one thing but characters are another. Huge majority of them, with Geralt in the spotlight, are amazing. Their arcs and stories are interesting as hell (Plus they often give a small pat on the back for those who have read the books and/or played the previous installments). Very often you meet a lot of characters in the story but it's up to you if you want to complete their character arcs since majority of their arcs (that aren't really relevant to the main plotline which will continue no matter if you complete their arcs or not) is thrown into side quests. And I gotta say, I strongly recommend completing their arcs. Not only you can discover a lot of interesting locations, things and items but also a lot of lore. Yes, there are a lot of books and notes in this game, if you combine them with tremendous amount of dialogues you can spend additional hours learning about lore etc.
Of course no one can force you to complete optional arcs but I don't think anyone has to force you. Well... At least no one needed to force me, I just felt that I want to learn more about characters and lore.
(Story often turns into unexpected ways. Sometimes due to your choices, sometimes not)
Music. It's something wonderful. The entire soundtrack is a whopping 3.5 hour long. For example the widely recognizable 'lelelelelele' whenever the combat starts or the chill-inducing The Wolven Storm, one of really few moments where Geralt can feel true peace and serenity or Lullaby of Woe... Ask every single person who has played The Witcher to point out the best thing. They won't be able to – some will certainly say it's music, some will certainly say it's characters, story and so on... But I think that huge majority will tell just every single piece forming Witcher 3 is a separate masterpiece in it's own field.
Music is, was and always will be something important in gaming and The Witcher only shows that music is really important factor. And not only music included in game. Amount and quality of fan-songs released about Witcher 3 also shows how influential and gorgeous every single aspect of this game is.
A brief word about graphics – despite being a game from 2015, this game is still as beautiful as ever. The world is simply gorgeous – populated and abandoned villages, ancient ruins with mysteries lingering within them, caves with wild monsters, enormous city of Novigrad and harsh yet beautiful Isles of Skellige and much much more. Every single thing I have mentioned is incredibly detailed and... Well 'realistic' – that's how cities and ancient ruins in the past (Well... We all know it's fantasy but let's exclude all fantastic elements for a second) could look.
('Behind these violet eyes, a fire...' ~ Yennefer Song - Lilac & Violet)
Characters are also detailed and beautiful. Geralt with his beard, scars and long hair; Yennefer with her deep violet eyes and black hair... Even the simplest villagers look appropriately to where they live and who they are. This world is simply living. Not only due to the scale of the world (More about it in a second) but the details and characters living in that very world. It brings that unique atmosphere into the gameplay.
Just... I don't even need to praise graphics, I can just ask you to look at the screenshots provided in this article and ask you – Does it look like a game from 2015?
But those 20-30 minutes is considering just Velen/Novigrad area. There is also White Orchard (Which okay, is much smaller since it's more of a 'tutorial' area but still), Isles of Skellige (which you can't fully traverse by horse due to... Well, Isles. You can't run with horse on water), Duchy of Toussaint (from Blood and Wine DLC – I will talk about DLCs a rad bit later). If we were to combine all of these maps, taking the biggest isle from Skellige – Ard Skellig, I can imagine that traversing across the map would take loosely more than an hour. World. Is. Enormous.
And let's not forget that this world is truly open and we can move around it almost without limits (almost = exceptions caused by story)
(Witcher 3 - A game where you stand against the bear with your bare fists and totally nail it)
Combat system – it's both beautiful and quite simple. And I'm talking from my experience on the hardest difficulty setting – Death March with enemy scaling enabled. It's beautiful since each fight looks like a dance, with our witcher fluidly moving between enemies and cutting them one after another. There are also Witcher signs – Aard, Yrden, Quen, Axii, Igni – each unique and useful in different situations. Aaaand then there's alchemy and elixirs that can buff you up. Although majority of people will settle with swordplay and will level up solely sword fighting skill tree (Sword fighting consists of two swords – Steel and Silver. Steel used for humans and Silver used for monsters), I know some people that played through the game using signs and... Well – their experience was quite different but it was also viable. To put it simply – there is a small variety to builds.
Aaaaand there is crossbow which... Was a mistake. You will almost never use it, I can't see a viable way of completing the game with crossbow and it's only purpose is to piss you off if you decide to get the hardest achievement in Witcher 3 – Kill 50 enemies with headshot from a crossbow – sounds simple enough but... No, it's really not. And me, a masochist who earned this trophy, can confirm it.
But as I said – combat system looks relatively simple since sword-play is based on two buttons and signs are released with another button... Although a beautiful dance, it mostly consists of pressing two to four buttons (light attack, heavy attack, sign, dodge – For example I mostly use light attacks, signs and dodges so most of the fights, even on Death March consist of pressing three buttons interchangeably).
(Wake the White Wolf)
A small addition that also won the hearts of many is Gwent. A card game implemented into Witcher 3 – it even has it's own separate quest and questlines to earn all Gwent cards. You can play with almost every single merchant in the game in order to win a card. When Gwent is introduced to you, you also receive a special book that shows you how many cards you still haven't collected in each area of the game. It's a nice way to doze yourself off for a minute in a chill card game. It also creates a lot of hilarious situations where certain character screams at you to get the fuck out and then you talk to them, literally 10 seconds later and ask them if they wanna play Gwent.
CD Projekt Red released a lot of small DLCs for Witcher 3 for free – like New Game+, some costumes, some quests and so on, but there were also 2 huge DLCs that you had to pay for and... Let me say this. Both of them – Hearts of Stone & Blood and Wine – are more than worth their price. The stories, new characters, entirely new map (Duchy of Toussaint in Blood and Wine) and extension to the old one (More Velen/Novigrad thanks to Hearts of Stone), weapons... Everything in these two DLCs are perfect. As a matter of fact you need at least 30 level to even stand a chance in them but... You will have 30 level easily before the end of the main story and even if you somehow don't – you can play both DLCs separately from the 'New Game' in main menu. You will be given 30 level, appropriate equipment and you will be thrown into DLC. Each of them provides another dozens of hours of gameplay. New side quests, contracts and gear.
(Together against the threat)
And you wanna know what is the best part of all this? You can get Witcher 3 GOTY Edition for laughably low price nowadays since the game is 5 years old but... I recently got my PS4 GOTY copy for around 15€. It's a laughable price for possible hundreds hours of gameplay, beautiful music, graphics and amazing plot and story development as well as dozens of colorful characters.
Witcher 3 also has it's fair share of bugs, but... There is no perfect game, there is no game without bugs, and in case of Witcher 3 many bugs are connected to Geralt's lovely horse – Roach. Situations where you whistle for Roach and suddenly you see the horse on some rooftop, steep mountain or buried underground are a plenty. Or at least they were when I first played the game, I think patches helped resolve Roach issues a lot... Oooor it's just my luck. Who knows.
(Contract monsters really shine in design in comparison to their basic counterparts)
Well... I think that summarizes my thoughts about Witcher 3 and it's recipe for longevity. If CD Projekt RED manages to do the same to Cyberpunk 2077, we will have 2 amazingly good games that will be remembered for years to come. Don't get me wrong, Witcher 3 is 5 years old and is still remembered, praised and shown as an example of how to make a perfect single-player RPG experience. I just wish that Cyberpunk 2077 will be the same during release and 5 years after it's release.
I don't really think I need to recommend Witcher 3 to anybody. But I am gonna do it nonetheless – Witcher 3 is possibly one of the best if not the best game, best piece of art you can experience nowadays. For me, it's one of the best. It's certainly not the best (I just said words that will probably get me crucified by the hardcore Witcher fans) since I have games that I consider better but you know – every person has different experiences with games as well as different titles one considers as the best. It's very possible that Witcher 3 will become the true, best masterpiece for you but it's also possible that although you will enjoy the game immensly, you won't call it the best. And both opinions are equally valid.
Well, have a satisfying journey fellow witchers and best of luck on the path.
Kind Regards,
Wing.
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