I'd like to run the game without launching it from galaxy. Does the game still track achievements so that if I open up galaxy later it will retroactively update that I've done them? Or do I always have to keep the launcher up?

I would like to know that as well

anyone know? ._.

I think it only tracks it if it's up.

I got some achievements while I was running game through Steam, without having Galaxy running. Today I had Galaxy running, but got no achievements (should have one).

As far as I know you can only unlock achievements while playing online ( with the client open in the background )... ? If anyone knows better, feel free to correct me.

On the bright side, the game itself does keep track of your total playtime. I think it's listed on your character stat sheet.

I play the game primarily by launching witcher3.exe through Steam. To date I've unlocked 5 achievements while playing it in Steam. Galaxy client is usually but not always running in the background. Lately I've been shutting off Galaxy because notifications in it force Galaxy to steal focus and rip you out of the game and that's not cool.

So in short, yes you can play TW3 without Galaxy and achievements appear to still work. I presume it stores them on your hard disk and syncs them to GOG when you go online.

I got achievements.. i had problems with galaxy when i first installed the game, so i just played it by launching the exe file. Later i decided to fix my problem with galaxy, and when i launched it i had achievements unlocked. It did not track my game time tho.

I'd love to have achievements on Galaxy... problem is if I play with Galaxy it won't let me Fullscreen the game, bad luck I guess.

Thank you very much for the answer. Glad to know I can safely have GOG Galaxy turned off.

What achievements. I only complete quests :P