I never imagined CDPR will completely change my understanding for a good game
I know, I know… The official release was on 19th May. It’s now more than 2 years at the time I’m writing this. Now, that this confusing element is out of the way, let’s talk a bit about what became my favorite Role-Playing Action Game of all time – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
I still remember the hot afternoon of this Sunday in August 2015. I had heard of a 3rd game of The Witcher series being out. I knew it was announced as a big deal. The boredom took over me and I thought, oh hell, why not… I’ll give it a try. My favorite MMO game – Star Wars The Old Republic was experiencing its regular yearly Summer lethargy and I had some time to kill between updates. That’s right. SWTOR was receiving content updates more frequently back then. Installed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Played through the tutorial, didn’t understand much. I mean, ok, who is Ciri, why are all these man in the empty semi-destroyed castle taking care of one little girl? Continued playing and by the time I was out of White Orchard and heading to Vizima with Yennefer, I knew what a big mistake I had made.
The mistake…
The 1st of 2 mistakes, atually. Let me take you back to ~2007-2008. A good friend of mine told me that there’s that cool new RPG called The Witcher and I ought to try it. But, no, at that time I was still obsessed with Star Wars Galaxies. SWG was my first MMO and to this day I only keep the very best memories I have from this game and its community! I spent 5 years in it and met many good people and some fantastic Star Wars fans. There was no way I would leave Star Wars for another game.
Back to a more recent times, another mistake I had made, was starting The Witcher 3 with no proper set of mind, preparations and expectations. I thought I’d kill a few hours or a couple of days exploring it. This casual thought now has escalated in a total of over 700-750 hours I have spent in the Northern Realms.
It’s been 2 years, really?
Around that same time when I was heading to Vizima I decided to start reading Sapkowski’s books. Thankfully all of them were translated officially to Bulgarian (my native language) years ago. The books were quite different than the game in terms of expressions, speech and general behavior of the characters. But it was the source, after all. I quickly adapted to it. After I had read all of them and had completed my 1st Playthrough of the game, I realized how much research, analysis and devotion CD Projekt Red have to the original source, despite of what Sapkowski tends to think about the Witcher video games series and video games over all.
It’s almost 2 years now that I’m playing the game and it’s amazing that there are still details, places and events that surprise me and feel new or different each time. I may think I have explored all corners of this game and have seen everything possible, but we all know this isn’t true! Even the developers of the game (a /deep_bow before them!), have said it that to this date there are still a few hidden secrets that the world has not yet discovered. Amazing, indeed!
A special and unusual game
I want to do a couple of did-you-know’s here, if you allow me.
Did you know that on this day 3 years ago the “Sword of Destiny” trailer was released? Obviously, I didn’t see it at the time, because I wasn’t really paying attention to the still upcoming game, but I’ve seen it about 10+ times in total by now :)
Did you know that The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt was developed for ~3,5 years and with a budged of ~81 million US dollars? That doesn’t sound impressive at all, does it? What if we compared it to the newest GTA with its ~$250 mill? It kind of makes The Witcher 3 look like cheap.
Oh, it turns out I have one more! Did you know that this is the most awarded video game ever? I have heard it in many videos and seen it in plenty of articles and posts. Obviously, I have no way of counting or checking if this is true, but I want to believe what I read on the giant media portals is always correct and verified information (D’OH! :P).
What the Witcher 3 means to me
I can’t really say it means much more than a game and a source of entertainment. It is true that the game changed my way of thinking at least a little bit, but in the end it’s still just a game. A long and incredibly detailed fun to play game. In fact, I am having so much fun, that I have replayed it 5 times now and am still enjoying it. I wish I could say that for SWTOR’s latest expansions KOTFE and KOTET. Believe, me I REALLY wish I could! It’s not all about the beautiful vistas and incredible level design. It all started for me with the great and deep meaningful story. But, where does it end? I cannot say yet as even after all this time spent, I haven’t reached the point where I would say I’ve had enough of Geralt. Going back to replay the 1st and 2nd games was the least I could do and recently I also started reading the books for the 2nd time. The announcement that Netflix is working on a Witcher TV Show came as a complete surprise to me. Can’t say that it inspired me to replay the game again… I was currently in the middle of my 5th playthrough. In fact I had just finished my Hearts of Stone 3rd Walkthrough video series for my channel.
In conclusion, your honor
That’s right. This is a quote I borrowed from everybody’s favorite Disney Princess – Carrie Fisher.
I am currently in the middle of what looks like to be 3rd and final Walkthrough YouTube video series for Blood and Wine (2nd expansion to the Witcher 3). While I have no intentions to stop playing the game and will likely create yet another new save in a month or two, I think this will be the final series from me for the game on my YouTube channel. For now. Ha! You know that only a sith deals in absolutes! Even though I don’t plan any more big Walkthrough series, I will likely continue to upload highlights and small cinematic moments that have impressed me in my “Blood and Wine Best Moments” and “Wild Hunt Special Moments” series.
CDPR have stated that they are currently focusing on Gwent (I love the stand-alone card game!) and Cyberpunk 2077. While the first is currently in Open Beta and available to everyone for free, the latter is still in early development, despite the fact that it all started 5 years ago.
Here it is, my friend – the real conclusion of this… I want to call it a blog post. If for whatever reason you have never tried The Witcher games, specifically the 3rd one, I highly encourage you to do so! If you have given it a try and couldn’t like it, please, don’t tell it to me! It’s like when someone tells me they don’t like chocolate or ice-cream :)))
Thanks for reading this and I am looking forward to see and hear your thoughts here in the comments section or in my live streams.
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