So, The Witcher 3 is out! Let's talk about it. I've been playing for a few hours now and am really digging it. It feels a lot like The Witcher 2, combat wise, but in a open world. There has been lots of Batmaning in a small area and finding clues, much like TW2. I am playing on Blood and Bones difficulty and it was pretty tough at first, I died like 5 times in the first fight alone but I am slowly getting a hang on the combat. Healing has been hard on this difficulty since you don't heal up when you meditate. I am playing on consoles, the Xbox One version, and it looks pretty damn good for a Xbone game. Draw distance is awesome and the world feels very lively with all the weather effects. Currently on the griffon hunt, have beat the well witch lady and just doing some side quest.

Character movement feels different than in the past game. Geralt kinda turned on a dime in Witcher 2 where in 3 the movement animations take priority so the overall feel of his movements come off as strange to me but I'll probably get used to it over time unless I just stick to keyboard and mouse because the movement felt better with that control scheme

The game does look nice though all maxed out especially at higher resolutions

but I bumped down the resolution to 1080p to keep it stuck at 60 otherwise it just stays at like 45 fps when at 1440p. I only messed with the hair physics setting for a bit to notice that there doesn't seem to be a big difference when the setting is off or not.

Yeah, I'm playing on Xbox One as well and the only noticeable issue that I've had is sometimes there will be a kind of juttery transitions between cut scenes

It's fun, though. I'm still pretty early, but I'm definitely enjoying it. It sure looks and feels like a Witcher game

Playing on the PS4, there's noticeable slow downs in random places, mostly cutscenes and some animation transitions. Also I've been running into this problem where pressing X to loot doesn't work as you're moving, you need to be at a complete stop to be able to loot stuff. There's also some stuttering issues when moving the camera slowly, which is weird and somewhat off-putting. Now all these issues aside, the game so far is beautifully rendered and I'm liking it. Can't wait to actually do some more witching (witchering?).

I've had a couple of weird graphical issues on PS4- at one point all the shore/wave effects on the water turned black for a time. Additionally, I have a repeatable crash to menu problem when trying to end the round in gwent, but that stuff is minor. Otherwise the game has been fun but I keep trying to fight like it's Bloodborne, which isn't really working out well for me.

Believe its hanging in the neighborhood of 30fps on fx8350/r9 290 oced here. Just crashed on me when i tried to meditate for an hour right after i killed the griffin...

I also initially liked the combat but geralts movement and running is way too squirrely. Ran around my horse twice trying to mount it.

But i am loving it overall and it is fucking beautiful.

My 780 seems to be coping fine - I'm getting a steady 60 (with the occasional dip but the lowest I've seen is 55) at 1080p with everything on High and Nvidihair turned off. I could max stuff out and lock it at 30 but would much rather have framerate than a small visual improvement on an already really pretty game.

Playing on the PC I jad a couple hard crashes very early on (like first half hour) but after that it has been smooth with no problems for several hours now.

As far as performance goes I am quite pleased. Playing on a 980m (that's a mobile version of the card ie a much weaker one) I am getting a nice steady 60fps on a mix of ultra/high settings, the setting that made the biggest impact funnily enough was foliage draw distance gaining 15-20fps when going from ultra to high.

Geralt does feel a little more sluggish and unwieldy just walking around i think. And the controls for compact with k&m take some getting used to as they are differently done from the Witcher 2; mainly the heavy attack being a modifier now and parry on rmb.

They might have gone a bit overboard with crafting components and materials imo, there are just so so many I instantly gave up trying to keep mental track of them, just looking at whats needed, which is not how i usually operate.

On the plus side your inventory wight is now based on the horse and it's gear and it seems very very generous, I have been picking up everything left and right and am probably carrying 10x the inventory items compared to Witcher 2 no problem.

The world looks great and I am already loving the character interactions, dialogue and quests.

Playing on ps4 and there's been some hitching in a couple cutscenes. It's been a while since I've gotten into a RPG like this and I already have alot of sidequests to explore. I was playing the card game in the first inn and it seemed really cool, but right when I was about to win it crashed out. Other than that though been loving it. Playing on blood and bones difficulty.

I'm playing on my PC with a gtx 750 and it looks amazing. It's a slow start but I can tell I'm going to be glued to this game.

Can't wait to see what mods pop up for this one.

I want to hear thoughts on the whole questing system. Are they more MMO like, or do they carry story weight? Also, are the rewards beneficial? My problem with Dragon Age Inquisition was with the whole questing system it made me not want to play it. I don't want to spend a hundred hours on one game and look back on my time and view it filled with filler quests.

Honesty time. This feels like its going the exact same way the previous Witcher games have for me.

I played it for about two hours. It's just not grabbing me? I'll say that weird subtle technical jitters are maybe preventing me from being immersed. The game has a weird constant stutter or hitchyness and the movement is weird.. jittery or something. Maybe this is what Jeff was talking about. The camera as well. Anything on the joysticks feel like its snapping in directions or something. Really subtle and hard to explain. Also I spent like 10 mins running around in circles on horseback trying to kill some wolves and the horse was very unwieldy and frustrating, especially while locked onto something. The constant stutter is probably something on my system but I don't imagine the movement/camera and horse are.

And the game looks pretty I guess but I can't help but feel like they skillfully, gradually, blur out textures into view. I'm not seeing the usual hard line of textures loading in but stuff a little distance away has a certain flat or softness to it. But I assume this is so the world can be as big and open as it is or whatever. I'm playin on PC with a 980 and cpu at 4.4ghz.

ARRGH I feel so dumb talking about this minutia because it sounds crazy. I'm probably just not in the mood to play this kinda game.. maybe later. Or never as it has gone with previous Witcher's.

Edit: Almost forgot something else: The camera FOV. It makes me feel claustrophobic. Why can't they let me zoom it out a bit. When you ride a horse at a canter it zooms out perfectly. Just a weird thing that is irking me for some reason.

I've had that same loot problem on Xbox, especially when looting the bodies of smaller enemies? It can be frustrating but also kind of whatever

Very early impressions. Only gotten though the basic tutorial and done the first options quest you come across (Which for spoiler sake I won't even mention). So only an hour or two in but I've had no issues.

I am playing on PC with a 960 card I got to upgrade my otherwise fairly old system. The CPU on my system is well below minimum (2.8 as opposed to 3.3 or something) but even so, the 'optimization' done for my card means a lot of games settings are set to ultra. Which..I admit, shocked the crap out of me. I've got a 8 gigs of ram but still, I was afraid the game wouldn't run at all. Seeing the game tell me that some of the settings can be on ultra..and them being so with no apparently slow down at any point is lovely.

I can't speak for anyone but myself but, it would seem, CPU can be below spec and if your GPU(graphics card) is current or even fairly new, the game is likely to be playable on PC, even if only at 'low' settings.

Which means my computer is likely good for the remainder of the X1 and PS4 era! Horray!

Combat seems fine, about what I was use too from the previous (updated) witcher 2. Geralt seems more mobile, and the horse is a great mechanic.

So I finished the first area, and my impression so far is that it's better than DA:Inq, but it's not blowing me away or anything. Specifically the writing is miles ahead of the bloated dribble Inq had.

I'm having a really hard time finding the right way to describe my issues with it though. I guess the most obvious problem I've had so far is the UI, it's just horrible. Way too much stuff on the main screen, essential information is often hidden away and relegated to a minimal part of the screen, and maneuvering through the different shop/skill/inventory screens is a complete hassle (not to mention the dynamics of quest markers and maps).

Other than that I really hate to use the word jank (partly because I don't really think it fits here), but there's a very strong feeling of unrefinement. I've "skyrimed" myself up cliffs, the movement is very hard to fine-maneuver, summoning the horse takes forever (and often gets stuck) and the combat is still this strange hybrid of Souls'ish and Batman combat that ends up failing at recreating the good parts of either of them.

I'm enjoying the game, and I like a lot of what's going on, but I feel like I'm fighting the game to be able to enjoy it. It's just lacking that "flow" you get when playing the games it's trying to mimic. Although admittedly I have brought a lot of bad habits with me (I dunno how many times I've jumped when I wanted to run) which will probably go away and make things feel better the more I play it.

I was hesitant about getting the game at launch, but the rave reviews, and more importantly, the GBE Playdate sold me on the game. I'm playing on PS4 and it runs fine for me; I haven't had any significant technical issues, except for some hitching at the start of the cutscene in which you first encounter the griffin.

The controls are a bit weird, but it won't be long before I'm used to them. Interacting with objects is basically similar to The Witcher 2 when using a controller. You can't interact with an object by just being near it, it seems like there's an invisible crosshair or something.

The combat, so far, is better than I expected. It's still similar to the previous game, but it's a marked improvement. It's not without its faults though. The targeting system is identical to the Souls game, but it seems like you're always up against multiple enemies, so you have to switch between targets frequently. Also, I wish there was a way of switching Signs on-the-fly. I hate having to bring up the radial menu constantly during fights. I think Bioshock Infinite, and to a lesser extent, Mass Effect handled changing/using powers more efficiently.

From what I've played, it seems like the alchemy system is not as streamlined as it was in the previous game. It looks like brewing potions now requires specific items, rather than an element or component that is found in several items. Healing in this game, also, seems more complicated. It reminds me of Fallout, in a way, in the sense that there are a lot of food items used for healing.

It might sound like I'm not enjoying the game, but even though I only played it for a couple of hours, the game seems promising, especially on the story front. The writing is very good, and unlike the Bioware games, the cinematography in the cutscenes is actually decent. The world is gorgeous, both from a technical and artistic standpoint, and the combat seems like it could be fun.

Playing on PC with a GTX 770 4 GB. Getting around 40+/- FPS with most the stuff turned up to ultra. Turned hair off, set a few things to medium like water, turned down draw distance, grass density. It was a bit of a rough start with the controls. They felt pretty off, but once I got past the opening section I was really impressed. Im really loving the game. Combat could be a little better.

Man! The sun sets are just gorgeous! I did get to a section where a thunder storm started. Wished it looked better. More like GTA 5 did. The storms in that looked amazing! Ive had a lot of trouble getting into games lately. Even ones I should be enjoying. Spent a good chuck playing W3 non stop today. Seeking out all the side quests I could find, which I dont normally do. Least not all of them. GREAT game!

Not MMO like at all so far, even the notice board contracts. It feels much more organic. The rewards can range from nothing if you forgo them, to schematics for potions/oils, to right now the best swords I have are crafted from a schematic I found from a side quest that I got just by stumbling onto a neat little area with a body that led to a further small sidequest. And are just good bits of story in general too.

It's running super well for me so far on PC. Zero crashes, smooth framerate, looks fantastic. It seems like there's really solid writing behind damn near every quest so far. Hope that continues to hold up.

The combat seems vastly improved over Witcher 2. I'm playing on Hard, and it feels pretty good so far- enemies will rip you the fuck up if you're not careful, but I prefer feeling like I need to prepare a bit for fights in general. Feels more in line with what a Witcher does.

My only (tiny) complaint so far is that I wish Geralt's mouth didn't move while he was monologue-ing during the Detective Mode bits. In the previous games a lot of Geralt's lines when out solo felt more like an internal monologue, rather than him literally talking through his observations.

GameStop called me at 3:40 to tell me that I could pick up my pre-order at 4... 20 minutes away. That weirdness aside, I'm conflicted about this game. I really, really want to like this game. However, I can't get over the feeling that I don't like it. I'm not good at the combat, which I admit is my fault, but even if I were, I'm not sure I would find the combat particularly enjoyable. On PS4, the game seems to stutter from time to time, there is noticeable texture pop-in, and the load times are kind of bad. I died in the tutorial after falling no more than eight feet, and similar stupid deaths have caused me to have to replay whole cinematics and conversations, but luckily these can be skipped to some degree. I like the narration by Dandelion when you load a save, because it gives you a refresher, but I've had it give me the same one multiple times shortly after each other because of where my save was. As far as I can tell, you can skip those. That sucks. I also constantly get stuck on geometry, and it frequently takes several attempts to get prompts to work, like getting on the fucking horse. The horse controls also suck, especially the hold O to dismount. Compared to Red Dead, the horse in this game is shit. At least I don't have to tap X constantly o make it run. I'm hearing NPCs say the same things over and over, and there don't seem to be many new dialogue options with NPCs who you might think would have more. The inventory system kind of sucks, I'm stockpiling food so I can actually heal after combat, and having to equip abilities instead of just having everything I want passive also kind of sucks. Don't get me started on trying to get prompts to work while underwater. I'm still enjoying the game to some degree, but it's hard for me to overlook so many issues that are nagging at me at every turn.

@treetrunk: I mean really, what more needs to be said? He would know.

It's pretty standard, you have your main story quest, secondary quest, which are given to you by NPCs you encounter and treasure hunts. These are just treasures spread around the map. (The question marks on the map)

Also I just went for the Griffon, totally need more healing next time.

I'm stunned at how well optimised it is, my PC is a bit below the minimum req but I get a solid 30fps at 1080p, antialiasing, with most settings at high (no SSAO or hair stuff though), shadows and vegetation density at medium (veg at high slows things waaaay down). Almost didn't buy it due to my old PC but it looks beautiful..

For those with similar concerns, I have the 1st gen i920 (2.7ghz), 6gb RAM, GTX570 (1.25gb) - my mind is blown.

Been playing for 8hrs straight, great game all around - only glitch was me falling through the ground into an endless ocean...?

Used this guide to figure out what settings hammer the fps btw:

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-graphics-performance-and-tweaking-guide

Oh wow! The hair shit works on the animals as well! Yea, too bad that tanks my FPS 5-15 FPS. I could care less with it on people, but the animals do look quite a bit better with it on. Veg density and the hair seem to be the most demanding lol.

Here's a GeForce graphics & performance guide for those interested. As already mentioned, HairWorks and Foliage Visibility are the biggest performance hogs.

Been really enjoying it for the past couple of hours, already I can tell it is going to be one of the best single players experiences I have had in a very long time.

However, I have a question to anyone who may be GPU savvy. I am running this on my older 560ti. Its getting 40ish fps on low settings, but still it looks great and I am totally fine playing this way. But I have noticed the card is steadily in the low 90s range of temperature, once or twice hitting 94. Normally I stick to CSGO and DotA, so it is never at full load and hovers around 70c in game. Is there a chance I can drop into the low 80s by replacing my thermal paste? I am pretty confident in my air flow. I would love to play this without forking out a new card or destroying this one. Thanks in advance!

@sirpsychosexy: Replacing the thermal paste won't harm things as long as you're careful and don't remove any of the thermal pads (unless you've got identical ones as spares) which are also on many cards.

Have you thought about a more aggressive fan profile? I use MSI Afterburner's overclocking tool and, with a few fan adjustments, found my temps under overclock dropped by 15C.

Has anyone noticed that the FOV on the pc version looks a little ...funny? I can't really articulate it, but it's almost like a fish eye'd effect. Well, everything looks kind of squat, like the image is being compressed on the top and bottom.

Id be amazed if thermal paste droped the temp more then 5c. Youre below the max temp. I wouldnt worry about it, http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-560ti/specifications

Having a lot of fun. I feel like a medieval CSI, that noonwraith is so gonna get it!

I'm amazed it runs acceptably on my Radeon 5770, a 5 year old card.

As other people have said I am super surprised at how well it runs, I have a few things on ultra and everything else on high and it runs at 50fps. Haven't really gotten that far in just started the Griffin and the ghost quest.

i7-920, 6GB, Gtx960.

Every quest I have done so far has felt like it's meant something. They've all been pretty interesting, with voice acting and cutscenes for all of them. Even the job board stuff just directs you to a person that you interact with. I'm still only in the first area, but a lot of the self contained side stuff has been more interesting than main questlines in some games.

@shivermetimbers: That has never been the case with The Witcher games. Even the simplest witcher contract quests you get are more fleshed out and involved than the filler shit in DA:I, "found a piece of paper on the ground with 3 lines of random text and yet another arrow on the minimap pop up".

I got it on PC and have set most settings on high with some things on medium. It's running at anywhere from 35 to 45 fps with resolution set to 900p. I set post processing effects that i didnt like to off such as chromatic aberration, vignette, and motion blur. I really gotta upgrade my amd fx 6100 to something else to get more frames. I think my radeon 7950 isnt the problem so I might make the cpu change to intel.

I've been playing on the PS4 and it plays decent enough on there except for the fact that I've found some of the text, especially for the item stuff, to be just a bit too small to be comfortable readable at a decent distance. I have a 42" TV so its not like I'm running it on a tiny screen, but I just feel upping the text in a few places would make it easier on my eyes. Maybe its just me, but I took a look and found a few other people complaining of this as well so....

Digging almost everything about it after a good day of playing, game is fantastic so far, time for sleep zzzzzzz

Yeah, I've definitely had to lean forward for some stuff. It feels like when you would try to play games built for HD on an SD TV and everything would be scaled wrong. It's not *that* bad, but it's still less than perfect in some places

@tajasaurus: @blupotato: If you are playing on the PS4, you can use the zoom feature in game to read text better. Just hit the home button plus the square to zoom in. To turn it on go to settings, accessibility, zoom.

@claude: @claude: I didn't know that thanks! Shouldn't have to though. Just a few points up in font size would be great Im sure its fine on a monitor you are sitting close to but that text its tiny for anyone with any kind of eyesight.

Playing on PS4 and loving it. Past the Tutorial Griffon area and have progressed a few hours more. The only thing I dislike is the dotted line that points to your objective. Finicky little thing has a mind of its own.

Really loving the different quests and the stories that come out of it. Having never played a Witcher game before I was hesitant I would like it. But after barely getting in to Skyrim and having troubles with the way DA:Inquisition played, this is the game I have been waiting for.

I'm only a couple of hours in, but I like it so far. As others have mentioned, the controls and movement animations are look and feel awkward, but it's not a deal breaker by any means.

It looks terrific on PC, and I appreciate that they've taken the time to implement proper frame rate options. Not only can you cap it at 30 or 60 Hz, but the frame pacing is rock solid and it features a pretty decent motion blur implementation. That might sound like a minor thing, but it's surprising how many PC games ship with erratic frame pacing (Dragon Age: Inquisition and Far Cry 4, I'm looking at you) and poor technical compensation for sub-60 frame rates, so it's nice to see a game buck that trend.

It kind of sucks that the first time you meet Yennifer, a seemingly vital character who they've talked about incessantly over the last couple of games, it's with her ass hanging of a chair like a piece of fruit. I can't say I'm too surprised — The Witcher series has always had a creepy, voyeuristic fascination with showing its female leads in various states of undress— but it's still kind of shitty and distracts from what was actually a well done and informative scene. Plus, if you're going to show asses, show everyone's ass! Gerald is right there in the tub! Ass equality, is all I'm saying. Anyway, I haven't played enough to know if they do that character justice, but it left an initial sour taste in my mouth. Maybe I should just count my blessings that we've moved on from sex cards.

Oh man, totally loving it so far. I have had one crash going from cut scene to regular world. I'm playing everything on high on a GTX 970 and the frame rate is amazing and looks great.

I forget how much I loved learning about enemies, creating and applying oils and kicking ass. I love how fleshed out the side stuff is in Witcher games, everything feels "major".

Just finished up the Griffin quest, looking forward to being let loose in the wider open world.

FOV is making me ill. Glad I didn't pay for this (free with videocard) because from what I'm seeing there's no way to fix it. Great.

Spent about 5 hours rolling around the starting area checking out all the stuff. Straight up this game might have the best soundtrack of the year, the composition is pretty damn impressive.

There seems to be a bit of a random crash bug where the game will lock up every so often when accessing the inventory screen.

@conmulligan: Concerning Yennefer: It was a dream and it pretty much fits with how Geralt met her for the first time in the books (naked and in bed and shortly thereafter taking a bath in front of him), so while I get your point, this case seems perfectly fine to me. (The sex cards in the first game were stupid of course, but like you said, they are a thing of the past.)

Sex is a huge thing in the books, with pretty much all female characters being very aware of their "powers over men" and just being sexually open in general.

I'm really loving it. I'm done with the monsters in the first area and have moved on in the story.

It has completely hooked me. The music, atmosphere, dialogue, facial animations, side quests are all great and the main story is showing promise.

When the wind is blowing and you are auto-horsing along a dirt road with the music playing... it's just wow.

I am playing on PS4, I have some slowdown in cutscenes but it's not extreme and gameplay has been fine.

The only movement aspect I have an issue with is underwater swimming. The rest is manageable and I am definitely growing into it.

@sessh: I hear what you're saying. To elaborate a bit, I don't have a problem with what actually happens in the scene or Yennifer's sexual agency. It's more about how clumsily that stuff is presented. That scene in particular is weird because, despite that fact both characters are naked, they tend to linger on Yennifer's figure for extended periods of time while also being very deliberate in how they show Geralt.

@conmulligan: Okay, I certainly get your point too. Maybe it's just like this because it's more of a perspective thing (the player's POV is Geralt's, at least to a certain degree) and then again maybe it really is just to deliberately shows her. Who knows, but I agree that they could have handled this better.