By Mina Summers:
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With the Witcher 3:
Wild Hunt, CD Projekt Red’s saga has grown into something magnificent. It’s a
game of truly epic scale that still displays an eye for every detail. It’s one
that sees its hero, Geralt the Witcher, fully transformed from the
sword-swinging Mr Loverman of the first Witcher into a mature, reflective hero,
and one where story, systems, art, music, action and lore all seem to mesh
together into one dazzling whole. It’s the best fantasy RPG of its type since
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and sets a new benchmark for the genre.
All the same, you’re probably expecting more from a
review than just breathless hyperbole. Well, imagine a game that takes
everything you love from The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings, Skyrim, The Legend
of Zelda from Ocarina of Time to Twilight Princess and Red Dead Redemption.
That pretty much has Wild Hunt covered. With the third Witcher, CD Projekt Red
is playing in the very biggest leagues.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the slowest of slow
burns. Developer CD Projekt Red has stated that it would take something like
200 hours to play through absolutely everything the unprecedentedly dense open
world has to offer. After spending about 50 hours with the game since its
release, I easily believe that.
It's worth saying immediately that the
characterization and storytelling of The Witcher 3 is considerably better than
The Witcher 2. Where that game often felt like a litany of confusing schemes
and plots, The Witcher 3 introduces its actors smartly and efficiently — even
as the cast ballooned in the middle third of the game, I never felt especially
lost or confused about the various intrigues in play.
The Witcher 3 opens with Geralt in search of
multiple people, namely former love interest Yennifer and his adopted daughter,
Ciri, whom appears to be the object of the attentions of the nightmarish Wild
Hunt. The story rapidly spirals outward, involving kings and their agents,
aligning the political machinations of sorceresses and rulers both with and
against Geralt as he seeks to find Ciri and unravel the mystery of her
disappearance.
The Witcher 3 might have the best-designed quests
of any RPG ever, too. Missions in games like World of Warcraft or Dragon Age:
Inquisition can feel like busy work; in The Witcher 3, everything – no matter
how trivial – has a point. There are the story missions, of course, which
propel the main narrative, as well as Witcher Contracts, which require careful
research and planning, but it’s in the side quests where the game really
shines. If some amphibious horror isn't trying to drown their children, there's
a disease-spreading ghost trying to wipe them off the map, or some other
magical catastrophe to handle. Add interference from armies on both sides, and
life is pretty grim for the have-nots who use the last of their savings to hire
Geralt, asking for protection from just some of the things trying to kill,
corrupt, or kidnap them.
So far, every secondary mission has a strong
narrative backbone, with at least one plot twist or legitimately challenging
moral decision thrown in. Quests usually follow the same formula – talk to a
villager, look for clues using Geralt’s “Witcher Vision” (basically, Arkham
City’s Detective Mode), and kill a monster – but the circumstances are always
different. The stories are all fairly intimate, too, making Geralt’s decisions
feel both important and personal.
A lot of the game between quests is spent on
horseback bouncing from village to village and investigating points of
interest, as one does in any number of open world games. And what beautiful
points of interest they are.
During the past few weeks and even earlier, I have
shaken my head reading disgusting crap (pardon the French) about the graphics
being allegedly “downgraded,” or pundits shaking their fist at the title’s
moral compass. I mean, sure, compare it to the original screenshots and it
isn’t quite there. But even so, I have found myself - on more than one occasion
- sitting on a hillside, with my trusty steed Roach, watching the sun dip below
the horizon. Which is all the more impressive when a raging cockatrice is
flying at you through the glare of it.
The Witcher 3’s detailed settings and breath-taking
landscapes are worth sacrificing a few frames per second. Even better, the game
is just as big as CD Projekt Red promised. While the beginning area, The White
Orchard, seems perfectly manageable – and even a little repetitive – the rest
of the world opens up after a couple of hours, and it’s full of interesting
things to do and see. The Northern Kingdoms are incredibly deep as well. Ruins
don’t exist just because the landscape needs some scenery; those castles are
there for a reason, and they’ve got history behind them.
So far, fighting is the only weak link.
Mechanically, the combat system falls somewhere in between the Arkham games’
rhythmic button taps and Assassin’s Creed’s semi-automatic “parry until there’s
an opening” sword fights. Most of the strategy comes during preparation, not
combat itself. Making sure that Geralt’s equipped with the right potions,
explosives, and oils is key, while battles quickly devolve into mashing the
dodge button and occasionally attacking. The gory finishing moves sell Geralt’s
prowess with his blade, and players will feel powerful, but early on the combat
is a little too easy.
The game’s user interface feels like a first draft,
too. The menu system is clunky and tedious, and inventory management is – to be
charitable – a complete mess. Geralt and his horse, Roach, stagger around like
they’ve had too much vodka, and the finicky controls and unpredictable camera
can make simple tasks (especially looting dead bodies) a chore.
The game’s crafting system is deep and not nearly
as complicated as it looks, and almost all of the side activities (except for
horse racing; see above, regarding the game’s controls) are interesting
diversions. The Points of Interest – basically, mini-quests involving things
like bandit camps or hidden treasures – offer some welcome surprises, and never
take too long to clear out. That’s nice, given that there are literally
hundreds of them. Gwent, The Witcher 3’s in-game card game, takes a while to
get the hang of, but it’s deep enough that it could easily be a stand-alone
game of its own, similar to Hearthstone.
And yes, with its rampant sex and violence, The
Witcher 3 can be pretty exploitative. During Geralt’s more, ahem, intimate
moments, the camera remains stuck in Geralt’s point of view, with lots of
disconnected, close-up shots of naked breasts and his partner’s mouth, which
hangs open with near-orgasmic pleasure. It’s pretty much textbook
objectification. Violence is similarly fetishized, with slow motion shots that
show off every brutal decapitation and dismemberment.
That’s worth bringing up because the storytelling
itself is so sophisticated that it’s actually jarring when The Witcher 3
devolves into a reductive, macho power-fantasy. Rated M for Mature and real
maturity aren’t the same thing, and it’s not always clear that CD Projekt Red
knows the difference.
Or maybe they do. After all, this is a game that
cuts to two rabbits humping in the middle of an otherwise serious cutscene,
features a love scene on a stuffed unicorn, and opens with an act of violence
(something involving a raven and a man’s eyeball; you’ll know it when you see
it) that’s so ridiculous it’s hilarious. Despite its deep and nuanced story,
there’s definitely a pulpy, Robert E. Howard-esque undercurrent to the
proceedings. It’s pretty clear that CD Projekt Red is in on the joke; whether
or not it’s a funny one is up to the individual player.
With commiserations to Bioware and Bethesda, Wild
Hunt is the new RPG by which all other RPGs should be judged. Not only has CD
Projekt Red delivered the largest and most convincing fantasy open-world we’ve
ever seen, but a storyline, quests and graphics that make it an incredibly
compelling place to run around in. It’s the GTA V of sword and sorcery sagas
and the biggest, most breath-taking game you’re likely to play this year.
9/10
