T w e n t y S i d e d
A general recap is a good idea before we dive into new DLC. It has been 11 years.
Full disclosure: I’ve read the books. I *highly recommend* reading the books. Some games derived from existing novels it isn’t needed, doesn’t add anything. We don’t need to read every Batman comic to understand Arkham asylum. In this case, the game is more enjoyable once you are familiar with the lore, characters, and relationships. CDPR did an amazing job weaving canon into gameplay without sacrificing either. Which is really hard to do, as anyone who’s ever played a Star Wars game can tell you. Without reading the books Dandelion feels out of place, a Shakespearean character thrust into a Grimm fairy tale. Yennefer, Regis, Djikstra…. the game barely scrapes the surface.
CDPR commitment to staying true to Sapkowski’s creation, while still making the game playable without reading it, is harder than it seems. Not everyone has the time (or inclination) to read seven novels just to be able to enjoy an RPG. Nor should it be expected. That said, I went two playthroughs without reading the books and thought it was great. After reading the novels it was so much better. And honestly, funnier.
For those of you who have inexplicably (borderline criminally) never played the game:
Witcher III is massive. It’s roughly twice the size of GTA V, 5-6x larger than Fallout 4. Witcher III has over 1,500 unique NPC’s. If you ignore all side quests, bulldoze main quests, you can play through the main story in 35-40 hours. If you explore, go treasure hunting, complete side quests, play copious amounts of Gwent (you will) and scavenger hunts you could get closer to 200 and not be bored. ‘Blood and Wine’ and ‘Hearts of Stone’ DLC add 70-80 hours. There are a few tedious points (like sailing that damn boat all over Skellige), but for the most part it keeps you centered, moving from one objective to the next without feeling monotonous.
What I enjoyed most was it balanced grim reality of a re-imagined 13th century Europe, humor, drama, love, tragedy, horror, regret and full range of human emotions. Most RPGs beat you over the head with non-stop morbidity. They pick one aspect of the human condition and beat that drum for the entire game. By the end you’re numb to it. Like FO4, with endless moral dilemmas that give you nothing but different tragic outcomes. CDPR has a few of those too, but also lets you drunk dial a sorceress while wearing your girlfriend’s yoga pants. There’s balance. Variety.
The soundtrack is a character all its own. Music exists in the background, adding nuance to each unique area. Sometimes haunting, sometimes tense and foreboding, other times whimsical. In Skellige there’s Gaelic and Celtic notes, adding to the background without being intrusive. In dungeons the music stops, and the silence surrounds you.
Voice acting is unparalleled in terms of scale. Hundreds of minor characters tied to main story arcs who each have their own voice, not the same 6 people using a different pitch. Accents are consistent from beginning to end. They never wane, never falter. Complex emotions that usually require body language and facial expressions (sarcasm, empathy) are conveyed convincingly. Elves sound elvish, not a guy from Redondo Beach pretending to be British. Nilfgaardians have the same harsh accent. Everyone in Skellige sounds like they are from Skellige. Which is hard to do, since none of that shit exists. It takes a collaborative effort to get a few dozen voice actors together to decide what a Nilfgaardian sounds like. They made a conscious effort to make something narratively consistent. How many other studios would make that effort? Bethesda would hire a Russian Uber driver, pay him $50 and call it a day.
Graphically, 11 years later, it’s still relevant. Anyone picking up a controller for their first playthrough wouldn’t think the game feels dated. Admittedly we are getting closer to cinematic reality, so the advancements in graphics are incremental. Not like the gigantic leaps we saw from 2002 to 2013. Still, having a game remain relevant (graphically) for over a decade is pretty rare.
I spent time reading reviews (not something I usually do) and the only real complaints was the game was “to big” and had “to much dialogue.” Which makes no sense to me. I mean… It’s a medieval fantasy RPG? That’s like complaining how the 74th iteration of CoD has “to many guns”. Yeah, the inventory system is annoying. But really, when has there ever been a game where anyone said “meh, it kinda sucked, but hot damn the inventory system really carried the game!!”? Not every game can have a horadric cube.
The only complaint I saw that made (some) sense was the combat system was repetitive. And it was. For the record, I liked it. I’m not sure why people crave new and creative ways to slaughter a nest of nekkers, but everyone has a preference. As with the inventory, I’ve never heard of a game with a combat system that everyone liked.
Personally, my only complaint with the game was (this is gonna sound really petty) the peasants bugged the shit out of me. Yes… the peasants.
See…. Geralt is a Witcher. That probably sounds sinister, and admittedly Geralt does look like a half-dead Keanu Reeves after a 10-year meth bender. But Witchers are actually pretty awesome dudes.
The Witcher class is a highly trained, dying profession of mutated humans. They are stronger, faster, can see in the dark, heal quickly and are immune to disease. Which is really helpful since tuberculosis is more common than surviving childhood and even the rats have polio. Witchers sacrifice (usually unwillingly) their chance to live a normal life, the capacity for love and joy, the chance to have children, all so the people can tend to their mud farm without being shredded by monsters. There’s a lot of those.
Or have their village raped and plundered (again) by one army or another. The forests are filled with packs of feral dogs and wolves. There’s even more of those. Starvation seems common. The church is corrupt. The ruling monarchs are sadistic, murdering rapists. Seems like a place where a comfortable pair of shoes is worth selling your least favorite child for. You would think these illiterate fucking peasants external stakeholders with limited funding would be glad to see a mutated superhero willing to lend a hand. You would think.
Sadly, no. Even though Geralt is basically Wolverine, capable of murdering the entire village…. with a pointy stick, left-handed, blind-folded, while eating a sandwich…. the average Redanian spits as he walks by and insults him. Almost no one likes him. Which makes zero sense since Witchers are the only thing keeping humans from being eaten by vampires or fucked to death by a purple Succubus. Yes, those are both problematic.
I get that people might begrudge or distrust Witchers. They are ugly, emotionally detached and overpowered killing machines. I get that people wouldn’t feel comfortable around them. Definitely fear them. Might even outright hate them. But the sure as hell wouldn’t tell them that to their face. For the same reason a normie in the Marvel universe wouldn’t call Deadpool a walking dick joke to his face. Absolutely true, but that just wouldn’t end well. There’s 0.0% chance a non-suicidal, starving serf with more tapeworms than teeth would insult a Witcher within earshot.
Honestly, the only thing that kept me from murdering every grimy, barefoot churl in the game (with a pointy stick, left-handed, blindfolded) was a complete lack of pointy sticks. Well, that and the game mechanics. CDPR is not Interplay.
Point is, Geralt should be the most popular guy north of the Yaruga, instead he’s regarded as only slightly better than a flaming corpse asking to sleep with your sister. I balance this egregious social affront by walking into their mud huts and stealing everything. Even their broken rakes. There is an inexplicably large number of those.
Between casual home invasions, killing monsters, horse races, fight clubs, sleeping with every sorceress possible (I am a gigolo, TYVM) and collecting Gwent cards, Geralt finds time to save the world, fall in love, change the fate of four monarchies, and sleep with the hot Elf at the Passiflora 134 times. Well… I mean… that’s what he did in my play through. I don’t judge him though.
I was tempted to start a complete walkthrough, but that has been done once already on this site. The step by step is available if you need that much foreplay for Songs from the Past.
The aforementioned DLCs don’t necessarily have to be played in order. You can complete them before you even finish the main story arc. But ideally you finish the main game, then Hearts of Stone and finally Blood and Wine. At the end of the latter, Geralt’s mercurial vampire bestie Regis asks him if he plans to continue plying his trade, wandering from village to village stealing their rakes slaying monsters, or retire as a Vinter to a villa given as payment for killing a few hundred vampires. The released trailer shows him walking away from the vineyard, seemingly returning to The Path he retired from.
Personally, I would be thrilled if Geralt retired to Kaer Morhen and opened ‘Geralt’s used rake emporium’.
The Best of 2014
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2014.
Gamers Aren’t Toxic
This is a horrible narrative that undermines the hobby through crass stereotypes. The hobby is vast, gamers come from all walks of life, and you shouldn't judge ANY group by its worst members.
Who Broke the In-Game Economy?
Why are RPG economies so bad? Why are shopkeepers so mercenary, why are the prices so crazy, and why do you always end up a gazillionaire by the end of the game? Can't we just have a sensible balanced economy?
My Music
Do you like electronic music? Do you like free stuff? Are you okay with amateur music from someone who's learning? Yes? Because that's what this is.
Megatextures
A video discussing Megatexture technology. Why we needed it, what it was supposed to do, and why it maybe didn't totally work.
Wow. I don’t think I’ve seen one of those ‘What I Do” memes in over a decade. Reminds me of a different internet.
I miss cat videos.
Anyway, I think the game did did a pretty good job of justifying why most people are rude to Witchers: a lot of it takes place in war-torn countries that are sick of armed strangers and not well educated. Witchers are a myth, people are looking for someone to take their anger and resentment out on and perpetually afraid.
…that is, in the story. But then comes good old ludonarrative dissonance to ruin it…
I literally couldn’t walk 15 metres from a town without being set on by wolves, or dogs, or monsters. I have no idea how those peasants survived. Monsters, curses, and bandits are literally everywhere, every town has some kind of magical problem – so yeah, these people should be friendlier. Even if it’s because I just killed a large group of drowners literally outside the town gates.
But that’s computer games for you.
To this day, I still can’t believe how good the facial animations are. Just like in real life, you can tell as much from people’s expressions and body language as you can from what they actually say.
The only thing that comes close are the Senua games – the second one in particular. But those games are built on the Unreal engine, are no more than 10 hours long, and are extremely linear (the first Senua is excellent, by the way, the second one – not so much).
But if we’re talking about open world RPGs? I honestly can’t think of a single game that comes close to Witcher 3.
And yes, reading the books adds SO MUCH to the experience.
As for why peasants hate Geralt, I never really thought about it. To be fair, that made a lot more sense in the books, especially the later ones where one of the big themes was that ever since the age of man, magic started going away from the world, which includes monsters. So there wasn’t that big of a need for witchers anymore, and – to a lot of peasants – witchers were only there to randomly take your kids away.
Also, in the books Geralt was ugly, much like he was in the first game. That also helped people not liking him…
Senua, Heavenly Swort, Unchained: Journey to the West – Ninja Theory can do really good facial animations in very linear games.
In Open World RPGs – Maybe the Horizon games but not with that much polish everywhere.
I was blown away by how good the facial animation in Jedi: Fallen Order and Jedi: Survivor are. Not exactly open world games, still.
CDPR broke the book lore several times, especially in the games 1 and 2. Lots of characters alive that shouldn’t be anymore, beginning but not ending with Gerald and Triss themselves. But they broke the lore more for fan service, not rewriting it. I actually liked to hunt the mystically resurrected Professor myself in The Witcher 2.
Part of the deal with the peasants is a combination of two things, I think. First, it has to do with labor and racialization-Witchers are just as much monster slayers as they are weird people who look different and take people’s children.
On that second point, for the rural farmers of the Witcher World, they’re used to dealing in social, non-monetary relations. The Witchers, dealing with the realm of the market (needing money to pay for alchemical brickbrack and swords) demand their services be paid for with money. That attempting to profit can be seen to more agriculturally-minded folks as cheating. (See, for instance, sumptuary laws stopping merchants from showing off their wealth or many horrific stereotypes about “Bankers” and “Merchants.”)