The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (PC) Review

The Witcher 3. Is. Wonderful. It is so nice to see a game come out that manages to excel in so many unique and interesting ways, and capture the feeling of what an epic game should be like. It is an outright breath of fresh air. Continuing the story from its prior games, The Witcher 3 tells the story of Mr. Scowly, who may be named 'Geralt,' as he embarks on a quest to find his adopted daughter, reunite with his old friends and lovers, find an old lady's pan, become a master of playing card games, and do many other things along the way. The game is stuffed full of content from beginning to end, to the point where major detours need to be taken in order to find and complete all the side-quests and get all the collectables. Where to start?

Firstly, The Witcher 3 is beautiful to look at. Everything is lush and distinct, and the detail is simply outstanding. Normally, high-end graphics get wasted on rock textures and muzzle flash, but here, the developer worked hard to ensure that the graphics are put to wonderful use. The detail on a gryphon's wing, the tattered remains of a dead bride's gown, the interior wallpapering of a castle, watching Mr. Scowly's beard grow in real time (okay, not that amazing, but that attention to detail is impressive) is all great, especially since the game actually uses this very well.

How? By placing it in a vast, open world and landscape full of interesting little discoveries, tasks, and side-quests. The starting zone alone is simply massive, and, despite being intended as basically nothing more than a tutorial to get used to how things work, has multiple side-quests, treasure hunts, and events to complete. Sometimes it's something as simple as dispersing a bandit camp, other times it's clearing out a village so people can return to it to live once again and revitalise the land - and that is just the beginning.

That's not to mention the many other bits of content, such as playing Gwent, a card game inside of the game that is… serviceable, the engaging and decently good monster hunts, and more within. It would be easy to rave and praise the game for all it gets right.

The Witcher 3 is not without its faults, though. The biggest and most outstanding is Mr. Scowly himself, and how the world reacts to him. Mr. Scowly, as his name implies, always seems to be growling and have a frown or scowl on his face. While being a witcher, a person who undergoes various augmentations to become able to fight monsters, is almost certainly tough work, Mr. Scowly almost always seems to have the same tone and expression, which can become quite grating, especially when the villagers treat him with constant fear and suspicion, even as he drives out the monsters to let them return to their villages. For anyone else this would probably elicit at least a 'thank you,' but Mr. Scowly never seems to catch a break.

Then there are the controls, which can make Mr. Scowly a bit difficult to control fluidly. In combat, there seems to be some issues with the lock-on working right, and out of combat, Mr. Scowly is a bit sluggish and clunky to control. There are some glitches, as well; big ones - ones that can stop an area from being 'completed.' That's not to mention that, later on, things become repetitive and samey. There is so much more good and bad, but there is something key that needs to be talked about.

The Witcher 3 is a unique and rare breed nowadays, which is particularly sad. The game gets praised and it deserves every bit of it; however, it is a shame to think about how rare it is to see how other AAA games have handled this in the past. Gwent is a "meh" sort of game within the game. It cannot compete with the likes of Spheda from Dark Cloud 2, the monster battle arena from Dragon Quest VIII, or even Blitzball from Final Fantasy X in terms of its depth and quality. At the same time, it is one of the few games now that actually seems willing to gamble so much on having a game within a game that is anything more than a basic poker knock-off or arcade-style distraction. The sheer volume of content is simply impressive, but it's what an AAA game of this scope should have.

This is what makes this sad. The Witcher 3 is huge and expansive, but there are many other huge and expansive games out there, as well. It is stuffed full of side-quests and secrets, but so are the Zelda and Metroid games. Why should The Witcher 3 get praised so much for these things when others have done them, as well, then? That isn't to say that this game is bad in any way; just that the things it is doing is what AAA games should be doing in the first place. Everything is beautiful and lovingly crafted, well made, with only a few major faults, but many other games have done so and not been remembered for it. The Witcher 3 deserves every bit of praise it gets and is an AAA game, but it is also a sad reminder of how low the bar sank in the first place.