Editorial: The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt PC Review

First lets start of with some history. The Witcher is a game based on a series of short stories and novels wrote by Andrzej Sapkowski hope I got that name right. The Witcher has also had it’s own movie and television series, video game series and of course a graphic novel. However in 1996 a polish game company called Metropolis was to build and create a Witcher game that was said to be an 3D action adventure game with role-playing elements based on moral choices and a experience system. The project was then canceled and reborn only on PC in 2007 by a game company called CD Projekt Red that was to encompass the Sapkowski’s saga. This was CD Projekt Red’s first game.

With the success of the first Witcher video game CD Projekt Red took it upon themselves to create the highly acclaimed video game called The Witcher 2: Assassin’s Of Kings which met with high praise from far corners of the industry. The game was first released on the PC and later got a downgraded port to the Xbox 360. The franchise overall has sold 8 million copies and still continues to grow today in a steady rate that is highly uncommon in the video game industry today. In light of this CD Projekt Red decided to make The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and they made plans to make the greatest RPG the world have ever seen. (video clip) But was he speaking the truth?

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is exactly that… yes….. It’s the greatest RPG I’ve ever seen and played in my whole entire life and if you know me that’s a sentence that takes on a ton of weight due to how absolutely picky I am. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is truly a PC gamers dream come true. With the overabundance of options and features made to bring the latest technological advancements of DX12 forward and to showcase hair works which is a very demanding feature exclusive to the PC version. However that being said CD Projekt Red didn’t leave the console owners out of the mix. CD Projekt Red delayed the game numerous times to try and optimize the super demanding game to work well on what is the very limited and strange hardware of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. As things like this usually go in the industry CD Projekt Red had to downgrade the visuals and fine tune the game to run well on these consoles. At the release of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt this caused a huge controversy. Be it most of the options on the systems were low to high albeit some of the options such as how many people are in towns are actually below the low setting of the PC slider The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt does look pretty impressive on the consoles. But PC gamers like always were able to experience it in Max Ultra Settings and thanks to the recent patches on PC it has more modding compatibility’s due to CD Projekt Red unlocking it’s ini files to push the game even further if users so desired to the quality it was one seen in around E3 as a way of apology to PC Gamers.

But all history, controversy and console wars aside. Why is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt the greatest game I’ve ever played and why is it to me the greatest game ever made? It can be summed into one phrase quality content. There is an overabundance of content but varies in many different ways. They are detailed in the quest section the first section is the main story quests which can be played a ton of different ways be it varying with the choices you made. Unlike most games that do this the choices have impact a very large impact. From the moment you start on the main quest little choices you made here and there will influence what happens later. You have to be very careful in deciding what is the best outcome. There has been no game that does this as well as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt does it. In order to explain all these choices we’d be here for hours. You’re just going to have to trust me when I say the story is absolutely top notch, fleshed out and full of substance you never knew you wanted.

Next is side quests which I think is just a little misleading honestly. These side quests as they are labeled feel like the main quest. Let me explain. As you travel or journey though the world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt you come across some interesting characters and events. The main story will only take them as far as they need to go in order to progress through the story line. This is where side quests come in. If you so desire you can dive deeper into any events or character arcs presented and close the rest story line of that character arc or event. I would say this section should be labeled optional story quests because the more of these you do the more the world around you may change or the more a character may come back to you to help you in your time of need.

Next up we have Witcher Contracts wise just pit you against strong huge enemies that are troubling local villagers who are willing to pay to be rid of these creatures. Some are huge flying beasts, some are demonic and some are cryptic. Then comes treasure hunts which consist of locating weapon and armor caches that may or may not include witcher gear that can be leveled up and progress besides the basic armor the game offers. Next up is the journey of chasing question marks which is by far the worst part of the game. The question mark chasing is the equivalent of Dragon Age: Inquisition but instead of it being forced to enjoy your play through it’s entirely optional. Question marks can be many things. Places of power, treasure chests, monster nests, ghost towns that need liberated, or dungeons that need crawling.

I would mention all the locations you travel too but I’m not going to spoil your play through so too bad too sad it’s for your own good. As you can tell the game is layers deep in content that a gamer could only dream of. I’m afraid to touch on story elements in this game because I feel I would also ruin some of the experience and I’m just not that evil. In short The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a game that has far exceeded any game out there to date in terms of story telling, character development, level design, environments, and graphics. It’s a gamers dream come true in every way shape and form. If you don’t play this game and you’re a gamer. You’re missing out big time and you owe it to yourself to play through the absolute master piece that is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.