Spoiler warning: I don't spoil much of anything in the story at all. I have added two videos that are also very light on spoilers, so you should be good.

I decided to go with my heart on this as the other titles I had in mind were a little uninspired. Such as:

Witcher 3 is the game that Dragon Age Inquisition tried and failed to be. Witcher 3, this game is fucking rad. Witcher 3, enough fat asses to please Scott Steiner.

Actually, those all sound pretty inspired to me, but whatever, I've made my choice.

Let's get one thing out of the way: Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is abso-fucking-lutely massive. The in-game time tracker is broken so I can't actually know how long I've spent in the game, but seeing as how I've not stopped playing in about 5 days straight, I can tell you it's got to be a long, long time. And the funny thing? I'm not even at the end yet. "But wait a minute, what kind of reviewer doesn't even beat the game!?" Well, I guess me. But the point I'm trying to make is, Witcher 3 has already won me over in every facet and the end isn't even in sight.

Everything I do deepens the game, the combat, the story, the characters. And yet, after days and days of play time, I'm not even at the end yet. The countless monsters, bandits, quests, upgrades... after everything, there's still so much to this game.

And that's the thing, it's an open world game. An open world game that chooses its genre not because it wants to put endless fucking collectibles around the map and then tell you to fuck off and collect them for a couple of hours and then get back to the game. With the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the world is alive and filled with countless activities to uncover. Quests, missions to hunt and kill monsters terrorizing the locals, treasure hunts, random events, and, the most important thing... the game remembers. The game cares.

Take for example, an early activity I did in the game. And by early I mean it was like 10 hours into the game, but because it's so expansive and huge, that's actually very, very early. I was riding my horse along a path, I had just gotten out of the prologue area called White Orchard and into the meat and potatoes of the early game called Velen. I came across a soldier who had been tied up and left to die. He had come under attack by a group of enemies called Drowners, amphibian type dudes who usually stick near water and swamps.

Long story short, I saved him and he was grateful. So imagine how surprised I was that this guy showed up many, many, many hours later in my playthrough as a bandit leader in a a camp filled with the bodies of his victims. Honestly, the initial act was so inconsequential that I didn't even remember him until he mentioned it. I was amazed, even after all I had already seen and accomplished because, as I say above, it was so small, so unimportant.

The world is filled with things of this nature, characters calling back to things you did and or said. Another example that struck me immediately: In RPG's like these, where you have dialog opens in a list that you are allowed you choose what to say, I like to pick them in the order presented. I figure, I'm going to get the same answers anyway, right? What does it matter? Well, Geralt and Yennefer go through a particularly traumatic experience during some side quest and at the beginning of a dialog sequence, Yen is very clearly shaken and dishturrrrrbed by what had occurred and I had the options to say something along the lines of "What was that all about?" "What do we do now?" and "Are you okay?" (I'm paraphrasing, of course. It was like 800 hours ago). They were presented with "Are you okay?" last, so I decided to do that one last. So I asked her what we were to do now, only for her to reply with scorn over me not asking how she was, as she was clearly shaken. Shocked by this, I decided to choose the "Are you okay?" option, only for her to reply with even more scorn as she was offended that she had to practically tell me to ask if she was okay.

It was great, but for multiple reasons. 1: They actually call you out on your bullshit(Which happens a lot in this game), and 2: It was clear from interactions like this that CD Projeckt RED went out of their way to build the game from the ground up for moments like these, moments that help suppress your suspension of disbelief and immerse you into this deep, rich world filled with deep, rich characters.

When it comes to gameplay itself, I heard it was a very easy game to play, so I started it off on the hard equivalent and it feels great. I do a lot of damage, enemies do a lot of damage. My health doesn't regenerate during meditation. Blocking, using your magical signs and using healing items when the time is right can be the difference between life and death. That's obvious though, because how can you possibly hope to win if you play stupid? Man, I'm a bad writer.

You've got your horse, named Roach, that you can upgrade with things like saddles, improving your stamina and allowing you to horse-sprint faster, saddle bags to allow Geralt to carry more weight, horse blinders which lessen the fear meter of your horse so you don't get bucked off when enemies are close. And most interestingly, you've got a "trophy" slot, a slot for you to take the decapitated heads of your fallen foes and tie them to the side of your horse. They range from pretty huge to normal humanoid sized heads. But it's not the size that matters, it's the stat bonus they apply. Some can allow you to earn 5% to 10% more experience from monsters and or humans, while other increase your chance to dismember enemies.

In the early game I found getting on the horse to be a nightmare, as it seems like you have to let completely go of the left analog stick before pressing X or else Geralt will just daze around waiting for something. Later on, and so far for the entire ride of the game, I've found that getting off of the horse can also be a nightmare. It usually always happens the same way, you're riding around looking for quests, monsters, bandits, bitches, anything, and you eventually run near an enemy. You try to get off your horse but for some reason it just doesn't happen, and then that enemy runs up on your horse, scares it, you get bucked off, and before you can even get up, you're dead.

The auto-saving is pretty good for things like this, but sometimes it can set you back a bit. When you're just out and about, time goes by in a flash. And to die so frustratingly can be extremely disappointing. Because I'm playing on hard mode, it goes by a lot faster than it probably would on normal, especially since even lower leveled enemies can still pose quite a threat.

Honestly, the massive open world reminds me, weirdly enough, of a weird mishmash of Fallout 3 and Red Dead Redemption. I know what you're thinking "Oh, the RDR comparison makes sense because of the wild open world and horse travel, but why Fallout 3?" Well, I don't want to get too metaphorical or deep, man, but the reality is... video games kind of sucked after Fallout 3. No, no, I'm not one of those "Video games today sucks" kind of guy, I mean, Witcher 3 is a video game today, so that wouldn't work.

What I mean is, Fallout 3 was the last real game I just hung out in. I would explore and explore and explore, and read whatever I could, look at whatever I could. I didn't care if there was a marker leading me there or not, I needed to see it. I had to interact with everyone, I had to know everything. I loved the world and gameplay and wanted to see all of it. And I did, across many a playthrough. And with Witcher 3, it's the first game that has such a busy, full of life open world that I can do that again.

You look at other games like Saints Row, Grand Theft Auto, Assassin's Creed, Watch_Dogs, Dragon Age: Inquisition, you name it, and you see their worlds and... well, they're dead. Void of life and activities for you.

They're static almost. They have people walking around, cars driving, deathclaws, uh, deathclawing, but that's just chuff. That's just filler. That's not alive. The most excitement I felt out of GTAV's open world was playing online and forgetting the singleplayer even existed. There was nothing to do, nothing to see anymore. The next logical step was online.

But with The Witcher 3, the world always moving. What with NPC's having dynamic dialog reflecting your journey thus far, or a random enemy getting a little too close and causing them to all freak out, or you coming across a crazy enemies lair and then fighting to death, completely unaware that this was actually a part of a quest you could have accepted, so now when you do, you just jump straight to the reward. The scripted-but-completely-natural-feeling random events that lead to interesting quests, the side quests themselves sometimes being far more important and grand than even the main quests. The incredibly weather effects that actually manage to instill worry in my gut as the winds howl and the trees bend, with the crack of lightning ringing out like a bell in silence. It goes on.

I haven't even mentioned the incredible voice cast in this game. I have yet to hear a single line of dialog that wasn't well delivered. Geralt, for example, is one sassy motherfucker and I love it. His voice actor sells the lines incredibly so. Mastercraft if I've ever heard it. Geralt goes from being friendly and kind to being a sarcastic and cheeky bastard. It never feels out of place or forced, as it is usually up to you to choose the dialog option yourself. Though, sometimes characters do call you out on it.

The dialog is well written, which it probably should be since the games are adapted from novels. Combined with the fantastic voice acting and you can be safe to assume that when a cutscene comes on, you will be entertained. The framing is also pretty good. There's your standard "character talks, turns around so that everyone is facing their back and then says something dramatic" shit going on, but they make a valiant effort to make the shots as nice as they possibly can. And it pays off. Each shot is well directed, tying into the extreme amount of effort that went into the game. It's accented by some serious facial animation technology goings ons that show you what a character is feeling before they even say anything. It's not, say, as accurate as what we've seen from MGSV, but it has been one hundred percent effective at conveying emotion and tone. The eyes in particular are incredibly well animated.

Really, the storytelling in this game is exceptionally well done. There's one side mission in the game that goes from an almost slapstick comedy routine only to evolve into a deathly serious murder mystery. The tonal change is striking, but to be expected. The Witcher 3 may be fantasy, but there is nothing happy-go-lucky about this world. Darkness looms overhead at all times, reaching down from time to time to remind you that not all is safe. Yet there Geralt stands, like a pun-making beacon of light, ready to tell people to go fuck themselves and then stab them in the face with a sick ass silver sword.

Honestly, this review is a little off the wall since I didn't get into basic plot details or specific controls, you know, like a real reviewer would, but I mean, this game is out there, that shit is well documented already. I wanted to share my viewpoint, my feelings. From the heart or some shit. You know?

The Witcher 3 has a lot of heart, and it resonates well with me for more than just the reasons I've listed above, as I've omitted several story related spoilers as that's something that should best be experienced by yourself. But when it comes to my opinion, this game is one of the best. A must buy, for everyone.

Yo, I'm N7. I write "articles"(Glorified blogs) on my website, but nobody ever comments there because google is weird and tracks your browser history and sends it to the NSA or some shit so I try my best to contribute to the Giant Bomb community by posting them here as well. I don't do it to spam or try to get "e-famous" or anything, I do it because I just want to share my thoughts and generate a discussion. Holler atcha boy! Or don't. I mean that's cool. Hate the player, not the game, ya dig? Ah fuck it this blog is over.

I just had that conversation you referred to with Yennefer and although I never go through the list of dialogue linearly from top to bottom like you, I did choose in an order that resulted in her scorning me for not being concerned about her and then promptly asking how she was only to recieve more scorn. What's more is most of the dialogue options that appear to hold any weight are written in orange, but even for the flavour dialogue that's written in white which is purely just more conversation bends and changes as well. It may not be to the grand scale of quest outcomes but still having a game naturally react that way is something I've been wanting for years. It makes me feel like the writers are ahead of me and thought through what they were writing rather than treating each peice of dialogue as a singular thing.

There was another instance I was suprised to see (major spoilers for the "Carnal Sins" quest ahead).

As you go through the quest you meet a Doctor and his old acquaintance who is a Coroner (I don't remember their names sorry). It becomes obvious they have a bad history with each other and are no longer on good terms. At one point in the quest you're given the option to press the Coroner to find out what happened between them and in amongst the story he tells you that he was the Doctors lecturer at the Oxenfurt university. I noticed upon looking at both the Doctor and the Coroner that the Coroner looked significantly younger than the Doctor. To my suprise Geralt noticed this too (I had assumed the Coroner was assigned a generic character model) and it gave me the option to ask the Coroner why he looked younger than his student the Doctor. "Huh, that's cool" I said to myself, the Coroner proceeded to explain that being a Coroner results in him being in a dark morgue all the time working with emblaming creams thus his body has aged significantly slower than the average person. Content with this response I decided to carry on with quest and once all the sleuthing had been done the quest had come full circle you find out that the Coroner was the culprit and turns out, he was a vampire which is the real reason he hasn't aged. So not only do you notice he was young and the game allows you to ask why, it was also a key aspect of the quest and that NPC has a properly contextualized answer that lies to Geralt to throw him off. Because of this I have a friend who immediatly killed another suspect and thus totally failed to apprehend the correct person. Even better? The game never told him, he had no idea that he got the wrong person and his hasty judgement let the real killer go free.

The best thing about this game is things like this are just the icing on the cake. This is that game to me that compiles all of those thoughts while playing other games where I say "wouldn't it be cool if they added this?" this game adds them.

Good review, I pretty much share your entire opinion with TW3 and your comparisons to its contemporaries. Just one thing though Yennefer > Triss.

I know many people are riding high on the storytelling in this game, and maybe the multiple endings help, but having just beaten it I was bored, and then actively disliked, most of my time playing the third act of the game.

I absolutely disagree with you about Geralt (Doug Cockie) delivering a good performance. It may be an impossible character to perform. Geralt is emotionless in only certain contexts but often sickeningly sentimental and all the while he is on a murder/fuck rampage. None of this forgives the silly gravelly voice that guy chose to do.

I will disagree with your disagree. I found the voice of Geralt to be a pretty good representation of who he is, or at least what he's supposed to be... and this comes from someone who has not played the other games or read the books. He's "the white wolf". An introverted loner by nature and trade. Someone who has to deal with impossible odds in a world that pretty much hates him. People hate him until they need him, monsters certainly hate him.

Clint Eastwood came to mind. A warrior wolf wizard Clint Eastwood. It makes sense to me. But then the voice seems to be a polarizing issue with these games, with people loving it and hating it. So I get it.

Indeed. The word "effort" comes to mind when I think about this game.

You look at Dragon Age Inquisition, a game that I love, love, LOVED, at first. It was quite honestly the biggest open world RPG I'd ever seen at the time. It had so much stuff to do, so much stuff to find. It was awesome... then, I thought about it. I call these games "second thought games", or "second look games". A game you play and love until you actually think about it and you realize it was pretty poor.

The intense world size of Dragon Age Inquisition is completely meaningless and ultimately detrimental to the game experience because they only fill it with shitty fetch quests. Quests that are pointless in every way, save for your "inquisition power" getting a +1 by the end of. So many levels, so many very huge levels, and they are effectively useless.

Then there's the fact that you are "The Inquisitor", a powerful leader of a powerful army, yet no one seems to care about you. You don't interact with kings, queens, dignitaries, leaders of men/women. You just do fetch quests until your points are high enough to do main missions.

In fact, every time something memorable or "important" happens in Inquisition, it goes straight to the war table to never be heard from again. "Oh boy, Inquisitor! You've united a powerful army and defeated a huge thread, now fuck off to the war table and read 5 paragraphs of story because we don't have the time or money to actually render this shit out". It's a total cop out.

But all of that is the complete opposite with Witcher 3. You're Geralt, a witcher. A person of authority, someone people need to depend on. And they do. They hire you when you come through town, leave up notices for you to... uh, notice, they seek you out whenever possible. They need you, because this world dark, and full of terrors.

And the world is huge, even more so than Inquisition, and yet it's filled with meaningful content. Characters will remember specific things you said 40 hours ago that you don't even remember. Quests break off and multiply by the end leading you onto even bigger and better things. This isn't a game about you making "decisions" that will be 100% retconned in the next game, it's about making an experience through the things you say and do.

Maybe I'm just a cynical asshole, but like I said, at one point I loved Inquisition. Almost put 200 hours into it. But it was meaningless, flat. I don't get any of that with The Witcher 3. I get a memorable experience that rewards me by remembering me.

Fuck Dragon Age: Inquisition. Merely listening/reading all of the joy people have expressed over Witcher 3 has made for a more satisfying RPG experience than DA: I gave me.

Haha, the best thing I did in Inquisition was to just buy "power" from a merchant in the skyhold, and then power through the second half of the game (by the time I had realized that all sidequests were complete, story - lacking shite)

Even some of the main quests were bad story - wise, but I did enjoy the ball held by the Orlesians. That was quite beautifully done. Everything involving Morrigan was very well done. Infact, Morrigan saved the game for me, she provided that link to the only good game in the franchise: DA:O. I loved the whole thing involving her, her child, flemeth and the well of sorrows. Very mysterious and tragic.

I've always loved the Witcher series, and this is exactly the kind of game I expected 3 to be. CDPR has delivered and I never doubted they would. I've also always loved Geralts voice acting, and it fits his character from the books. Heck I even read the books in the same voice :P

Also what you said about the facial animation and voice acting - there was something particularly beautiful about the conversation I had with the herbalist in White Orchard. I couldn't decide whether it was the story she told, or the music in the background, but it was definitely helped by her facial animation:

Also, I LOVE how every NPC looks so unique and different. Always excited to see a new face in the game. Makes it so much more realistic and beautiful! There's so much I want to say about this game that at times it gets overwhelming. I could discuss it for hours, and only the best games can make you feel that way.

PS: I do love the open world in GTAV a lot, even GTA IV. To me it seems very real and beautiful. As brad discussed in one bombcast, when game worlds get too close to reality there's some really poignant (I think that's the word he used) and beautiful feelings that they evoke. (He was talking about GTAV)

I'm unable to explain what I mean, but it's pretty much what Brad said in that episode.

If they make an audiobook with Doug Cockle or David Hayter reading it like that i would finally delve into the books.

It really does seem like a step above most other open world games that have came out in recent years. White Orchard, which is the extent to which I've played the game, might be one of the best "tutorial" areas in any game ever. I know they have you do a proper tutorial prior, but I mean more for the way the game introduces you to all the mechanics and themes which (I assume) cover the rest of the game. CD Projeckt's attention to detail is apparent from the very beginning. It just feels like every building, every piece of debris, has a reason behind it other than "we needed to fill this space with something". One of my favourite moments from playing the early game was hearing a couple of NPCs in town talking about rumours regarding a missing boy, a drowner and a witcher. Then much later I found interrogation notes on a dead Temarian soldier (presumably killed by the nearby bandits) that talked of a Witcher choosing "trial by combat" after being falsely accused for the death of a young boy. Which then became a quest in and of itself. Not since Red Dead Redemption or Dark Souls have I simply wanted to look around at the environment and think about why things are placed the way they are.

Whilst I await the arrival of my new PC to start playing the game proper, I decided to pick up the "The World of the Witcher" book and study up on the lore from the books and the previous games. I won't say that the book is required reading if you want to enjoy The Witcher 3, but understanding the parts of the world that the game isn't showing you gives you a certain appreciation for everything that it does let you see.

Had DA:I released after The Witcher 3, I'd totally be with you, but I feel like DA:I came out in a time when I was feeling starved for that kind of story-driven fantasy RPG. And thus, though I certainly have complaints about the quest design in Inquisition, I still have fond memories of those characters.

@armaan8014: The Herbalist was one of the first instances of the incredible facial animations. The pain she evokes with just a look, really incredible. The other was the hunter you meet while tracking the Griffon.

He was going over his backstory and it was sold really well by the facial animations. Super well done. This was a small character but it had an impact on me as a strikingly well done.

You have to back it on Kickstarter to get David Hayter :P

But now that you mention it, having the entire series of novels narrated by Geralt is a really interesting idea. I'd like that.

I do love their attention to detail. I just ran into a guy who was a Star Wars easter egg, and he talked a big game about these really strong bandits and how he'd like me to help bring them in. Well, the funny thing was, I killed them like 20 hours prior. So after this guy does the whole "sell", Geralt goes "Oh, so THOSE were the *insert fantasy name* brothers". It was funny how they do that. Quite interesting.

Also, a little off topic, I got to what I thought was the end of the game a few hours ago, but nope. It keeps going. It shocked me a little with the "POINT OF NO RETURN" warning, but it really wasn't.

It seems like this game will never end. And I love it.