The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition

The Witcher 3 was an epic game. But this listing is not only for that game - it's for the DLC too. Their Metacritic scores say most that needs to be said - The Witcher 3: 93, Hearts of Stone DLC: 89, Blood and Wine DLC: 92. Blood and Wine in particular was about as incredible as the game's main story, and added a massive new game area. The amount and quality of content contained in this Game of the Year Edition is staggering - I am doubtful that better value exists elsewhere in the world of gaming.

As I'm writing this review, I've beaten main storyline and most of the side quests of the vanilla game. Also finished Hearts of Stone. Still have Blood and Wine left. However, I feel the urgency to express my feelings on this artform of a game. Ever since the beginning of my gaming experience (early 00's) nothing came close to the feeling Gothic series used to give me when I was a kid. Vast environments, a sense of freedom and an illusion of real and breathing world topped with sensitive RPG mechanics. Elder Scrolls were never my cup of tea, as it gave freedom, but never had enough rationale to use it. Until Witcher 3 came along. It's everything and more one could wish from a game. Emotional rollercoaster instead of a main plot, dozens of hours of well-written side stories, dialogues that don't feel like boring randlomly generated chunks of quests. Lore as deep as an ocean. And a vast open world that doesn't feel boring for a second. Hearts of Stone just emphasizes the brilliance of W3 with its dark and emotional story that takes you for a roughly 10-15 hour thrill ride of joy, fear and sadness. The world of Witcher 3 is so realistic you can almost smell the ozone in the air when it rains. And it's the first game after Gothic, that gave me that feeling of something familiar. Something that feels like home. It took that feeling and multiplied it with excellent execution. Witcher 3 is the best game I've played in my life.

For the benefit of those who haven't played this epic game, I just thought I'd weed out the few negatives I came across when playing. They can be tough to identify among all of the deservedly glowing reviews. Firstly, no matter what you do, you're always Geralt. Sure, you have choices as to how you level up (more on that below) and how the story unfolds, as you should have in any decent RPG. But Geralt is a pre-defined character and everything you choose just results in different shades of the same gruff monster slayer. TW3 is not about building your own unique character. Secondly, there is less build variety than might be apparent at first. Signs, potions and your crossbow are all useful but they are better suited to supporting swordplay than being a primary means of defeating enemies. At the end of the day you'll spend a lot of time hitting stuff with fast/strong sword attacks because... well, you're Geralt. Thirdly - and this was my biggest gripe with the game - there is only one key/button for casting signs. In previous games you could map different signs to different insta-cast keys. Here, though, you have to manually switch between signs before you can cast something different. It's not impossible to do but it's much more fiddly than before. If you're like me, you'll end up casting just one sign for most battles, which makes Quen the most useful sign by a large margin. Everything else (except perhaps Aard) becomes much more situational. Finally, there's Velen. It's the largest area in the game and you'll spend more time here than anywhere else. In isolation it's interesting enough but (a) it feels very similar to the starting area, White Orchard, and (b) it's just less interesting than most other locations. When you've been roaming around Skellige for several hours, going back to the grubby, depressing villages of war-torn Velen can be a bit of a letdown. And that's about it. The game is frankly fantastic, and worth every cent.

I used to be a JRPG fan and hated western or open-world RPGs. Witcher 3 changed that forever. I played 400 hrs on PS4 and bought an Alienware desktop to play it over on a PC with a new monitor, and I'm not regretting that at all! So many details to attention, attractive characters, and beautiful sceneries are just the beginning. Can't recommend this game enough! I will recommend this even in 2030.

to. a degree that may not be healthy Let me explain. One day i was in game stop. I don't play a ton of games. I 'm busy i work at a bit software firm, and i usually get a bit board if I'm honest. I was in game stop this was maybe 2017 and some kid came up to me and asked if i needed some help. I said man you know i like skyrim, dragon age you have any games like that. He looked at me and he said i have just what you need. Handed me witcher 3. I never had heard of Witcher (was in college then starting career when the other two came out). At first i put the game in I remember White Orchard. It took me a bit it takes maybe few hours i think to get into it. Then i went to Novigrad, OMG. Let me just say since then i've read the books and this was basically the only game i've played. I finally just started wither 2 though which is also quite good. I honestly don't know what to tell you here. I've played though this game three times, but to me ti's not a game. I'm almost embarrassed to say it but at this point I'm so invested in these characters they seem real to me. The game took some great books and made them even better. I love all the characters even a lot of the "antagonists". Ok so i thought the main game was good then i played the dlc, it was better. As far as Im concerned they should have a team of people always working on this game and adding content. i would pay for the story to continue. Ok back to the beginning of the story. Some years later maybe 2020 after spending thousands of hours on this game i finally went into gamestop and asked if they had anything as good as the witcher 3. The answer not one time, but two times from different stores is is no "Witcher is a masterpiece" . I agree. THe one bone i will throw to you is please give witcher 2 a try. It's pretty good. It actually is extremely story focused and fills in with a lot of dialog that fills in a lot of things in w-3. What i'm hoping is they decide to do a little more with the universe asap