Ok, so as of about an hour ago I finally completed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt officially. I played as a completionist trying to complete every possible quest in the game as well as randomly exploring everywhere I could. There are some chests I was never able to unlock, a level 48 archgriffin that I have no idea how you'd go about killing him since you can finish the game at level 35 which I just did, and about 5 failed quests (some due to game bugs), but I did every single visible thing that I was able to find in the game looking everywhere like Sherlock Holmes.

I absolutely loved the whole game and think it is the most epic, fun and entertaining game I've ever seen and played. It has it's bugs and glitches, pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses like anything ever made has, but the level of awesome this game has in it far far drowns out any of the weaknesses/bugs/issues it has from my personal perspective.

The actual storyline is pure epic story telling with Hollywood movie quality voice acting and motion capture, gripping drama, characters with emotions that reach out to you, and just all around very powerful story telling. At many many times throughout the game it felt like I was watching a high budget epic fantasy movie or television series in a way that I've never seen before in a game. There might be other games out there that do similar perhaps to some degree or another however I've never seen nor played one of them and am not aware of their existence if they do exist. The closest I've seen to this would have to be Skyrim, and while I feel Skyrim was epic in its own ways and very enjoyable, The Witcher 3 is several steps higher on the ladder in terms of what they were able to accomplish in this game.

I'm literally blown away as to just how entertaining the game was for me and the experience of going through it all. The majority of the game was constantly fresh and exciting and rarely felt repetitive. The only time I felt like I was doing something repetitive and tedious was visiting all of the optional smugglers cache and sunken treasure locations on the Skellige map which takes forever to seek out what is ultimately totally garbage treasure and a waste of time. I did all of those anyway just for completeness. Other than those though I found every quest and other thing to do in the game to be a non-stop unique experience that I've just never experienced in any game before let alone such a massive open world extravaganza.

Anyhow I am in a high-from-the-game mood right now and just wanted to share my enjoyment and admiration as well as my appreciation to CD Projekt RED for making this masterpiece, and for it actually working totally playably on my sub-minimum-req Radeon HD7850 GPU!

I only hope that as many people as possible who play this game are able to derive as much enjoyment out of it as I did. It was the best money spent on a game ever for me and I look forward to doing another play through in the future some time later on as well, probably after I complete Witcher 1 and 2 now, and probably after the expansion packs are out as well. :)

I never preorder games, but I made an exception this time and from the results I got, I will most likely be pre-ordering Cyberpunk 2077 and also The Witcher 4 when it comes out a few years from now <queue rampant speculation background music behind inevitable debate about that idea> :)

Thank you very much CDPR!

It's definitely not the best game I've ever played, but it is pretty good.
The glitches are hilarious.

What's your opinion about the need to play Witcher 1 and 2 before 3?

I have attempted Witcher 1 three times already and in all three cases abandoned it with disinterest shortly after the end of the prologue. I have not attempted Witcher 2, as I tend to play series in order.

I probably won't be playing Witcher 3 before 2017 or 2018, as I consider the $85 price tag well beyond my pale. I'll probably wait until the full game (with all DLCs and expansions) is available for about $25.

EDIT: After rereading your OP, I get the impression that you might not have played the earlier games yourself, so the question may be moot.

I've started The Witcher 1 two or three times just to "check it out" but without specific intent to play it all the way through and I liked the story line but found the controls/gameplay to be a bit awkward. I saw that not as a criticism of the game but rather as simply being a different type of play than what I'm used to of which a little practice is needed to get the hang of. It took a few hours of fiddling but eventually I got the hang out of the controls and started to get used to it. Personally I'd prefer the combat to be a little smoother with a different user interface but I'm rather adaptable to the games I play so it wasn't a major issue with me.

When I tried out Witcher 2 a few months ago I found it a big improvement over the first game but still complex game play and combat mechanics. Both had a lot of focus on timing and button sequencing that I find a little distracting. Witcher 3 changes that tapdance into something much smoother and more intuitive overall I think.

But as you surmised, I have not played through both of the first games yet so I can't answer with certainty how valuable it might be to have completed the first 2 games before playing the 3rd game. I get the impression that it is not necessary to have played them in order to enjoy the 3rd game, but that if you have played them and are familiar with the previous events it will add additional depth and value to various events that transpire in the 3rd game.

Since I don't have many hours in the first 2 games yet though I can't gauge to what extent that information builds out the story or provides depth or understanding but a few things do stick out in my mind.

The first game starts out in Kaer Morhen with the fortress being attacked by a powerful mage with some hired help. They have a creature called a Frightener with them and they break through the wall of the fortress in their assault. In Wild Hunt you can see the damage that was done to the fortress in the first game - various scars if you will from the battle mark up the fortress inside and out. Someone who hasn't played the game series before will not know this and it shouldn't affect the enjoyment of their game either way - however if you have played the first game and are aware you will take note of these minor details you observe as you roam around the fortress. There are the stairs that give out under Geralt's feet as he flees some attackers as well. That tower is now in a greater state of disrepair in the new game. Another thing I observed was while wandering around Kaer Morhen I discovered a monument of sorts on top of a small hill. It turns out this was the grave of Leo - a Witcher who dies in the first battle in the first game. I thought it was cool to have a tip of the hat to Leo in the new game but again - it is just one of those "ahhh" moments and not something that makes or breaks understanding of the game or the prior story. It's kind of like watching the movie Lord of the Rings and seeing Gandalf's dragon firework that the halflings set off. It's supposed to be Smaug the dragon from The Hobbit, but not knowing that doesn't ruin the story or anything.

But unfortunately that's where my knowledge of The Witcher universe of the first 2 games more or less comes to an end at the moment. Suffice it to say though that it is my understanding and experience is that the 3rd game is immensely fun and entertaining on its own right even if you haven't played the first 2 previously, but that if one has experienced the first two and is aware of the events that transpire, they will experience a fuller story with more depth and understanding, often a lot of background details, character history and the sort.

I plan on going back and playing the first 2 now in order to have that deeper understanding of the whole story being told, then replaying the 3rd game to see what new things shout out at me.

Thanks. I guess I'll have to make the decision when I get Witcher 3, so there's still a while.

Don´t get me wrong

Is the TW3 awesome? Yes it is.

I do admit, I haven´t played a lot yet!!!

Graphics wonderful....Noooo absolutely astonishing... Quest, not like hunt 10 XXX or whatsoever...

They out quite a bit of work into the DETAILS,,,,,,

IMHO if you like 1st person action/RPG, get it, but if you are looking for like SSI or similar, no, not for you ;)

AND

Decisions stay with you!!!! It is also about YOUR decisions......

Oh, I don't expect to love it as much as the OP, but perhaps I will enjoy it, perhaps not. At least I'll know in three years from now what all the ooh-aah had been about back then in mid-2015, or not.

One of the things that turns me off many modern games is "open world" and I believe TW3 fits that bill. I don't like not knowing where to go next and I loathe retracing my steps. I greatly prefer linear, plot-driven games (ideally with instant teleportation between locations) and I tend to prefer that my decisions do not affect the plot too much. For me, there is no joy in seeing a different outcome upon picking option #2 instead of #4 in some dialogue. I don't consider that gameplay. I believe I could enjoy a game where the gameplay itself modifies the plot, as this could lead me to experiment and replay the game or portions thereof (if the gameplay was good), but I don't know of any such game.

I also detest games with large towns full of colourful NPCs with loads of filler dialogue, which probably fits TW3 too. Being a completionist, I feel obliged to click on every one of them and I quickly learn to dislike it (the primary reason I never finished Fallout 1 --- and abandoned Witcher 1 early on).

For me, it's primarily about the tactical gameplay, which in an RPG usually translates to combat. Which is why I find turn-based games a lot more enjoyable than real-time ones, for the options one has in a good turn-based game are immensely more rewarding (for me) than those of a real-time game (especially since I never bother to learn any combos ---- playing Darksiders now -- about 1/3 - 1/2 of the way through, I'm guessing -- and 90% of my battles simply involve repeatedly pressing the X button while moving between opponents and occasionally dodging madly -- the exploration is nice though).

But there are exceptions, a great real-time action RPG that immediately comes to mind is Vagrant Story. Pity GOG does not sell emulated console games.

Witcher 2 sounds like it's right up your alley. It connects better to the plot of Witcher 3 than the first game (which has maybe one or two references, but the events of which are otherwise ignored), its story is linear and focused despite having two different "paths" that the story branches from, and the combat is slow and tactical, rewarding careful planning more than meaningless button-mashing.

Plus you can play it without having played the first game because there isn't much of a connection between 1 and 2 apart from a plot thread that's unceremoniously dropped. There's even a recap video that covers everything that happened in the first game to get new players up to speed.

Yeah, there's no harm in waiting it out of course. :) Especially once all of the free DLC is out, and the expansions are out and Redkit 2 SDK and people have really gotten into modding the game etc. too. I think it'll be popular for quite some time to come.

Plus, if you upgrade any of your hardware it'll just be that much better too. While I played through on a recommended system with an under powered GPU it was fine with minor tweaks, but I'd absolutely love to play it through again on say... a 4k display with everything maxed out and getting 60FPS or better, that'd be a trip for sure!

I've never ever done it before but I think when I play the game through again I'm going to buy a new hard disk for data archival and reallocate one of my 2TB drives to recording video of the entire game. Could make for some fun editing after the fact, in particular if Redkit 2 comes with video editing features. :)

Many modern open world games have queues/aides to tell you where to go next though too, and The Witcher 3 is no exception on that front. When you receive a new quest it goes in your quest log and when you select it as the active quest the game puts markers on the map telling you where to go. Your Witcher senses and other queues guide you in the right direction all through the game also. For those who prefer a bit more of a challenge though, these queues can be turned off on the map if desired also so it has hand holding to a degree but it's mostly optional or to get back on track if you get lost.

The game is mostly non-linear in presentation but of course like any game it has a story line progression which progresses in a linear order as you move through the main story line. Most of the secondary and optional quests can be done in any order so long as you can handle it and your decisions in the story don't change the preconditions for a quest. For example, if completing a quest involves talking to someone specific and that person is mortal, it is possible they could get killed and prevent you from completing the quest. It's rare but I had it happen once where the person who I was supposed to talk to got attacked by wolves and I couldn't save him in time. Mind you this sort of thing isn't common and doesn't happen on the main story line, but it makes the side stuff a bit more realistic so to say.

Wherever possible the game presents the main story line quests in parallel to let you decide what order you'd like to do things in but it also gives a suggested character level for all main and secondary quests in the game. You can still do things in the order you choose, but of course can choose to do them in order of recommended level in which case the game would become much more linear in nature from level to level, but within a specific level you still have flexibility to choose the order of quests you wish to do.

The game does however make your decisions have consequences, both good and bad and often it isn't even about good or bad but about a grey area in between, not knowing what the right decision in a given situation is. So as part of the "role playing" element you need to decide either up front what type of character you want to play between the extremes of good and bad so to speak, and try to make decisions based on your perceptions of people and what the type of character you wish to play would do - or you can be inconsistent with it too and play each situation to how you feel at the time. It lends to some great variety to say the least.

As an example, you see someone struggling or perhaps their life is endangered. Your natural tendency might be to rush to the aide to your fellow man - not knowing anything about them either way. So perhaps you save them from being murdered by a monster, they're immensely greatful to you and you part ways. Later in the game you might find that this person you saved is a bandit and murderer or some other terrible person that you'd have been better off not saving because saving them ended up costing the lives of many innocents later. You might regret your decision and kill them, or you might decide that the Geralt you're playing doesn't give a shit and just wants his money reward - it's up to you. But the townspeople know what many of your deeds are too, and you might help them and it ends up they see you as interfering in their business and despise you even though you know you did the right thing - or they might love you and want to name their child after you. It is a very different experience than other games in this regard - you can never know for certain what brings the greatest peace - if that's what you wish to achieve, you can only do what you think is right and accept the consequences of that both good and/or bad or both even.

Some of your decisions may indirectly cause people to die that you couldn't have forseen completely too and that you'd have chosen otherwise if you'd have known. In some cases it is immediate and you can reload a save game if you wish to change your path, and in other cases the decisions you make now affect things much later on in the game. It's quite dynamic or at least feels that way. I really enjoyed that aspect of the game although some might not. Pretty much all RPGs have that to one degree or another and TW3 is no exception, however the quality of the dialogue is much higher in general, much more diverse and varies from place to place. There are a lot of individual personalities in the NPCs in the game, and while they are duplicated here and there of course, there are so many of them that it gives a good illusion of many personalities. Listening to their dialogue can give you hints about quests or other aspects of the story, or just straight out make you laugh. This is mostly just background conversations and chatter they have amongst themselves, and not interaction directly with Geralt. Most direct interaction conversations are specific and to the point, some optional questions that give info that pads out and also choices that clearly get you out of conversation sooner if you don't wish to hear all of someone's details. I found it non-intrusive personally. I like both real time and turn based RPGs and for different reasons in each case. I also don't care for combos and memorizing button mashing sequences. The first 2 Witcher games have a bit of that and I found it awkward, but TW3 doesn't really have that, at least not by default any way. I think there is an option in controls for auto finishing moves that is enabled by default, but I'm not sure what turning it off makes you have to do on your own, I played with it in the default on position and found it works great. So TW3 can be played like you describe where you hit the attack button and/or the block/parry button as you see fit and move between opponents however you wish. There are dodge and roll buttons too but I used roll almost exclusively and almost never used dodge. Roll is pretty easy, just whack the spacebar. I more or less fought by hammering attack, and using roll. With some enemies and with the optional fist fights in the game, I learned the finer details on combat where you block and time counter attacks and whatnot as it's necessary to complete the fist fight challenges if you wish to do them, but it didn't take long to learn how to do that and felt rather intuitive after small amount of practice even though I felt awkward with it at first.

Ultimately I think this game is going to be remembered for a very long time as a huge epic game of it's day. In 15 years it will sit alongside Planescape and the other popular D&D games in terms of "bestseller" status I believe. It will certainly be considered a gem anyway.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did when you get a chance to play it, it was a wild ride.

Thanks. I'll definitely bear it in mind.

If this game was a woman I would marry it.

I'm personally an advocate for playing the first two games... but before that - reading the books.
I'll just put this post of mine from another thread a while back...

"The short answer: no, you shouldn't skip the first two games. Yes, you would be missing out.

The long answer: I highly recommend you (and anyone who hasn't) read the original books first. Not only are they fantastic books in their own right, but they add so much to the series, it's almost criminal not to have read them before the games. Yes, criminal I say! ;)
For one thing, the books give the background of Ciri and Yennefer, who as you likely know are very important characters in the third game. The books provide, in my opinion, much needed back story and development which aids the game so much. I feel that one can't truly appreciate the full intricacies and complexities of the characters or story without the books.
There are, as others have stated many little nods, references and what have you in the later games that you won't fully 'get' or appreciate until you've read the books.

Not all of the books have been officially translated, but all have been fan translated (and the translations are pretty good), so you can check those out. You'll be able to find them easily enough with a simple search.

tl;Dr - read the books, I say!

But okay, I hear ya, sometimes ya just don't got no time for that readin'... You just want to play the games (especially with your seemingly sparce time OP)!
Well then, Id definitely still play through the first two games. Once again there's a plethora of characters, lore and back story that you just can't appreciate unless you play them. And there are also many characters who make their return, so you'll want to understand who they are too, and Gerald's relationship with them.
There's also the whole progression of the story and Gerald's development as a character from game to game that you miss out on. While it's certainly possible to jump right in at 3, you end up missing a lot of the point to the trilogy.
Part of what makes the Witcher series so special is the gradual changes, the interactions, the whole epic adventure. The series is more about Geralt discovering who he is and his relationships. It's cliché, but it really is the journey and not the destination that's important.
And by starting at number 3, you miss out on that.

I'm sure there's a lot of fun to be had with the game standalone, but you need to ask yourself what's important to you? Playing a great game now or waiting, taking your time and experiencing something phenomenal.

So, you know my stance, but ultimately you'll need to decide what works best for you. I can certainly understand having limited time and wanting to get right into it.
So, in the case that you decide to forgo the previous entries in the series, here's some good supplementary material for you to check out:
the Witcher Wiki on the book saga. these have some decent summaries of each title, so you can get an overview of what happened in each one.
Witcher series timeline (again on the Witcher wiki).
The wiki is a pretty good place to read up on this stuff and has a wealth of information, as well as summaries for all of the games, characters, etc.

Finally, two videos that cover and recap much of the book content, lore and past games:
The Story of the Witcher
Witcher Story Recap

Okay, so hopefully that helps you come to a decision.haha.
Regards, and best of luck with your journey into the world of the Witcher!"
___

Of course, this was a little more focussed on the original thread, but you can probably gain something from it anyway.

And of course, none of that is to say that one can't enjoy the third game without having played the previous entries. skeletonbow is a good example of just how much one can enjoy it.
But, I think one can gain so much more from it, with that background.

OH! And you said that you stopped playing after the prologue of Witcher 1. I can attest to the fact that the game is a little slow, and dare I say a bit boring early on, but it gets better as you go.
Of course, if you hate it, you'd probably be better off just reading a summary or something and moving onto the second game.

The second is, I think better in many ways (though worse in others), especially for people who may not have liked the first. It's also pretty linear, so there's that if you're not a huge open world fan.

Of course, considering you probably wont be playing until 2017+, this may not do you a lot of good, but I guess it's here if you, or anyone else for that matter, wants it.

For the record, Witcher 3 isn't my favourite game, and I don't like a lot of the decisions that CDPR made, but it's definitely the best Witcher game thus far.

After about 11 hours in, I'm enjoying it a lot. Its a great game. Though I kind of wish I finished the first 2 first but I'll play through them at some point. xD

I disagree; the books aren't written very well (in my opinion) and the third game is really the only one to benefit from that knowledge at all because they effectively made a sequel to the books. Even then, events from the books are recapped when characters reminisce about their time together, so book knowledge is rendered virtually irrelevant in the series as a whole.

Heresy, I know, but I think it's better to appreciate the games for what the developers put into them than to project a bunch of outside knowledge of the universe onto the series.