The Witcher 3 is a game I've played before. I bought it on launch for PS4, and I absolutely loved it. It's so well written, it's visually beautiful, it's mature in its storylines and its progression. It's frustratingly hard but most importantly, it's gripping.
I am a massive fan of the single player RPG platform, my favourite games include Skyrim, Fallout and the Mass Effect franchise. For me when I pick up a game, I want to totally immerse myself in it's storylines and feel as though I am actually there. The Witcher 3 is a game that does this fantastically. It's so atmospherical and everywhere you go has places to explore, things to do. It's easy to get lost in it's frankly rather massive world space.
There are 3 main areas, each rather large, and one smaller area in the base game alone that you can spend countless hours exploring and still discover new things. Even it's side quests provide good little distractions from the very story heavy main quest line. According to my Xbox One, on this play through (my first on the Xbox) I logged over 5 days of play time. It took me a little over 2 months to do all I felt I wished to do!
The main quest line itself though is, in my opinion, one of the best modern RPG storylines I've played in the last several years. I don't wish to post spoilers of any kind so I won't say too much, but just take my word that it is a rich story that will engross you in seconds and leave you yearning to find out what happens next. Many a time did I find myself saying "I'll stop playing when I reach the next checkpoint" and then blinking to find that somehow, 3 hours had past.
Graphically it's also a very pretty game, in a gritty kind of way. It shows you the rough sides of a Medieval-esque fantasy world, the poverty and the downtrodden setting of a place like Velen, incredibly well. It displays both a pretty side and a daunting side which captures the atmosphere the game is trying to create so well. It's monsters (Geralt is a monster hunter after all) are so very well designed and so pretty in their own gruesome ways. The lore of the world is very rich and you can spend a long time just flicking through the game's bestiary alone! As RPG's go, this one is up there for attention to detail and I tip my hat to CD Projekt Red for that.
My absolute favourite thing about the Witcher 3 though, is it's DLC's. There are two; "Hearts of Stone" and "Blood and Wine". Both are fantastic in their own right and arguably better by themselves than some games I've played in the past. "Hearts of Stone" tackles an inherent evil and the concept of making deals with a "devil" and "Blood and Wine" is your good old Vampire story, but set in a colourful "Knights and Princesses" scene that most would enjoy. Both are gripping storylines and both leave you wanting more. The "Blood and Wine" story in particular was saddening because CDPR confirmed it is the end of Geralt's story and it really puts in to perspective how sad you feel to behind such a wonderful character.
Overall I would rate The Witcher 3 in my top 10 games of all time, and I feel that many others would rank it similarly because while it may have its flaws, it's such a good game overall that you forget it's flaws even exist.
CDPR recently posted this video as a "10 YearAnniversary" tribute to Geralt and Co and it absolutely wrenched at my heart strings. If you haven't played the game, I wouldn't watch it. But if you haven't played the game, what are you doing reading this?! Grab a copy and crack on! You won't be disappointed!
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