What can be said about The Witcher 3 that hasn’t been said already? The game has been out in the public for the past seven years and has set the bar of what is expected from a sixty-dollar large-scale RPG; anything less than is viewed as a disappointment. The game has also set how generous the developers, CD Projekt Red, are as game makers putting the players first and not following other trends that were happening at the time of release.
But a lot has happened since 2015; CD Projekt has nearly destroyed its reputation with gamers and are in the process of slowly gaining that trust back. The Witcher brand on its own has become successful outside of video games and the books it originated from, with Netflix turning the property into their own Game of Thrones with great success. Just in the last few days, there have been two major Witcher releases, a mini spinoff prequel to the Netflix series and the much more anticipated next-gen upgrade to The Witcher 3 for Xbox Series X|S and PS5. On top of offering established fans an excuse to replay the campaign all over again, also new fans “created” by the Netflix show to experience what many have deemed one of the greatest RPGs in the past decade.
The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt picks up a little but after the events of the last Witcher game, Assassins of Kings. Geralt of Riva is on a quest to locate his adopted lost daughter, Ciri. Throughout the fifty-hour campaign, you encounter so many different and complex characters, along with making so many choices that actually have an effect on how Geralt’s story will end. The story, along with the characters and the world itself, are the best aspects of the game and the main points that still hold up in the re-release.
The gameplay has gotten a tiny bit of an improvement with the upgrade. I notice it was a bit smoother than when I first played it back in 2015. But that’s what is expected when jumping from 720p 30fps on a base Xbox One to a dynamic 4K at a stable 60fps on an Xbox Series X. I’ve always heard that the game is a gorgeous looker on the highest settings on a powerful PC, but after playing it on Series X, I can say in the graphic department the game still holds up and then some. The amount of detail the environments have in some sections are downright impressive, even with the graphic fidelity that we are used to nowadays, but I remember being jaw-dropping back in 2015. Though at some moments, I didn’t notice the character models had some elements of jank attached to them, they never bothered me at all since I was so invested in the narrative at hand.
Many moments in The Witcher 3 still stand out to me, like the first notable difference when compared to other western RPGs is when you meet the King. In most games of this nature, most notably Elder Scrolls, when you need to meet a member of high royalty, you just spirit like a madman and spam the A button. But here, you need to get a shave and learn how to talk properly and how to bow, these moments might feel like a drag at first, but then you realize it’s getting you more invested in the world. But one of my favorite quests is one where to get a character to come out of hiding; you need to put on a stage play. The amount of interactively on display in this one section blew my mind when I first played, and it still does because it takes something that could easily be a cutscene but adds this element of player choice into the mix so you can feel like your acting abilities do play a part in the objective.
But when talking about quests in this game, you can’t end it without at least mentioning The Bloody Baron arc. The most famous and talked about story arc from this game because it plays with how one views themselves and how others view them. At first, when you meet the Baron, he is viewed as a ruthless warlord with no redeeming qualities attached to him. But as time goes on, you start to peel back the layers of his character, and you see the broken shell of a man who, through upbringing and war, turns into this terrible person. Showing that even the worst of humans in this world have some shred of humanity still with them. This was one of those storylines where once it switched from a main quest to a side quest, I immediately went and finished the arc. I was under-leveled, but I pushed through regardless. But that is just one of the many side-story arcs you will encounter throughout your journey.
I haven’t touched on what else you get outside the main game if you are buying this game new. You also get both of the expansions for the game, Heart of Stone & Blood and Wine. Adding up to an additional 50 hours of gameplay for no extra cost, and at release back in 2015, this was bundled for $20, the only other game you would see that amount of content for that low of a price is a Yakuza game. The expansion gives you more of what you liked about the base game, more quests, and more stories for you to discover.
As for the technical issues I had with this game, I did encounter some though not as bad as Cyberpunk 2077. I had moments where characters would phase through the floorboards, and sometimes the music would kick in till much later, nothing game-breaking. There was one glitch, however that caused my knuckles to go red, mainly due to this being an omen in similar games. Every time the game would autosave, the game would freeze for 3 seconds, and my stomach would drop because I feared it would hard crash to Home, but it never did. It’s more stable, to say the least than the original build back in 2015, but that is expected given this is an upgrade many years later.
There are so many aspects I haven’t even touched on yet, the game having a Monster Hunter fan’s dream game contained within, the game’s addicted version of Magic the Gathering. Also, the upgrade has finally added cross-save between all versions of the game, which was a godsend during the recent holiday storm when I was able to pick up my progress from my Xbox and play it on my Steam Deck while being trapped at the airport. But in the end, what else is there to say, The Witcher 3 upgrade is a masterclass of gaming; even without the additional content added and expansions bundled in, it still wouldn’t change my views. There is a reason after the Netflix show dropped and during the COVID lockdown, that everyone online was trying to convince anyone to try this game.
Because The Witcher 3 is a prime example of how to make a grand fantasy epic work and holding nothing back. This upgrade has cemented the fact that it’s one of the best games of the last decade and maybe one of the greatest RPGs of all time, and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.
Score: 10 out of 10
Reviewed on Xbox Series X & Steam Deck