Post-Play: The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt

For one of the best games ever made, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt contains numerous moments that leave a real mark on the player, solidifying CD Projekt Red as one of the best developers in the industry. It's also one of the few AAA games released that is unanimously enjoyed by almost everyone. It’s become one of my new favourite games over the past few months and for this post-play, I thought I’d combine two pieces into one. Please enjoy my personal take on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s highest peaks and most irksome annoyances.

WARNING: The plot is going to be spoiled like nothing else here so make sure to play the game for yourselves if you haven’t already.

5. Cery’s brains over brawn approach in Skellige

Shortly after arriving in Skellige, the choosing of their new king begins. Who do you choose? Hjalmar may have taken on one of the last giants but Cerys is the smarter of Crach an Craite’s children, carefully thinking and investigating before pushing forwards. The setup to her bid for leadership involves the haunting of a community, something which scares its Jarl night after night. Sure, you can handle things the traditional Witcher’s way, researching preparing and fighting but Cerys has a cunning plan. The way to trick the Hym? Throwing a baby in an oven… yes to mislead the ghost into leaving the Jarl’s settlement, he must believe his child is dead, thus driving the evil spirit away. It’s quite a shocking moment that catches you completely off-guard but once it took place, I was completely convinced that Cerys was the best heir to the Skellige throne. Afterwards, her mental prowess continues as she works with Geralt to determine who unleashed bears into Crach’s feast. I felt a real sense of pride for her as she was crowned the first queen of Skellige, a phenomenal end to Geralt’s extended stay on the islands.

4. The Last Wish

After reconnecting with Yennefer (which may or may not involve a stuffed unicorn), Geralt’s original lover has a request on Skellige, one which turns into one of the more heartfelt character quests in the game. Having read the books, much of the plot throughout makes it clear that Geralt and Yennefer are made to be together, while Triss seems to be fawning over the white haired Witcher a fair bit. With this context in mind, I stuck with the raven-haired sorceress all the way through and it came to a head with The Last Wish, a simple yet lovingly crafted venture that sees Geralt search for another genie in a bottle. In truth, Yen wants to remove Geralt’s wish to see if they still have their romance without being bound by it. Laced with references to the books and topped off with a breath-taking vista atop a mountain, the two find they’re just as in love as they ever were; a very sweet moment all-around. That final shot of Geralt and Yennefer arm-in-arm on top of the mountain really stuck with me long after I finished the quest.

3. Something ends, something begins

Reaching the conclusion of The Witcher 3 took me just over 60 hours, a massive stretch for a truly epic adventure and the ending I received was no exception. After the Wild Hunt is defeated, Ciri saves the world from the White Frost but becomes the Empress of Nilfgaard shortly afterwards. With the entire world (outside of Skellege) under her rule, Ciri will be able to enforce an ever-lasting peace, rooting out injustice wherever she finds it with the strong teachings of Geralt at her back. While she won’t see Geralt and Yennefer nearly as often, it certainly won’t be their last goodbye. It’s the best ending of the bunch in my opinion, even though in the eyes of others it may feel bittersweet; the snow that rests around White Orchard is a peaceful sight to behold while bringing The Witcher 3 full circle. Every major character has their happy ending, it couldn’t have been more final.

2. Geralt finds Ciri

After many game hours of searching, it’s finally time. Sailing into the isle of mists and helping a stranded band of seven dwarves (Snow White anyone?) Geralt’s adoptive daughter is finally found. A single violin hangs over the hut as Geralt enters; he turns Ciri over without response and a wave of heartbreak rushes through him. He cradles her in his arms and just when you think she’s gone, a light enters the room, Ciri’s lifeforce and she awakens, her arms closing around the weary Witcher and the game flashes into a memory. Like the ending of Sapkowski’s second book Sword of Destiny in motion, Geralt and Ciri run into each-other’s arms in a sunny meadow, a beautiful moment that portrays their relationship so vividly that even those just getting into the franchise will be touched by the connection they share. It’s stunning in every way possible; CD Projekt Red crammed in the emotion to breaking point and delivered characters that anyone and everyone will end up caring about, perhaps more than any other role-playing game in recent memory.

1. The Battle of Kaer Morhen

Many moments of The Witcher 3 were brilliant in their own ways but the war between Geralt’s company and the Wild Hunt at the Witcher stronghold is absolutely incredible; I haven’t played a quest this intense since Mass Effect 2’s suicide mission back in 2010; it’s the ultimate battle of the series, bringing together so many characters in an all-out assault on the Witcher’s home. The joyous reunion between Ciri and the members of Kaer Morhen is a lovely start, pushing into the planning stage and finally the siege itself. What makes it such a fantastic sequence is how every character recruited to fight gets their own moment of glory; Yennefer holds the shield up while Geralt, Lambert and Letho take on the Wild Hunt warriors together, Triss bombards them with fire, Zoltan gets a backstab in, Keira tosses the attackers around like rag dolls, Eskel duels with the Wild Hunt’s lieutenant Caranthir and Roche, Ves and the druid Ermion all lay down support. Between the Wild Hunt pouring in through portals, all the characters you recruited helping and the final devastating loss that occurs, signalling the unleashing of Ciri’s power, the Battle for Kaer Morhen has everything; it sent chills down my back the whole way through. By the end, I was almost tearing up as Vesemir’s funeral was held and every character who took part gave their own perspective. It really does deserve to stand alongside the best moments in gaming history.

Five niggling things

1. Inconsistent movement controls

For CD Projekt Red’s first attempt at an open-world game, Wild Hunt generally succeeds at allowing Geralt to traverse it at his own pace but it does have some issues here and there. When Geralt enters a building, he’s put into this walking pose with a close-camera that can make it difficult to select certain items. Diving and surfacing in water is fiddly with Geralt seeming unsure of whether to rise or dive. Fall damage could have also be dialled back as well; while holding the jump button on landing puts Geralt into a parkour roll, he seems incredibly fragile in this regard. I ended up dying far more times to falling than I did with enemies later on in the game. Yet despite these problems, the improvements to combat and open-ended nature of the world do manage to make up for these inconsistencies.

2. Roach’s handling in traversal and combat

Of all the games these days which have horse travel, Roach is the only one I’ve come across that can’t jump over obstacles, resulting in some sluggish moments. Instead of sliding down a hill or jumping a fence, Geralt’s stubborn horse will come to a screeching halt which can really hinder you in races and travelling overall. He’ll also get caught on objects which tends to happen when you’re trying to land critical sword strikes on horseback; not to mention the slow-down effect when fighting being incredibly fiddly. It’s the one area where Witcher 3 lags behind its contemporaries and the problem does occasionally get in the way of exploration.

3. Iorveth, Saskia, Aryan La Vallete and other characters missing in action

This is a problem with many trilogies and The Witcher is no exception; certain characters don’t make it from one game to the next and while Wild Hunt and its expansions hold all kinds of call-backs and references to the books and previous games, there are still some memorable characters which didn’t make the cut. The most glaring of these of Iorveth, the rogue Scoia’tel elf leader who Geralt could choose to side with back in Witcher 2; just like Vernon Roche, he’s a very detailed character, with several memorable moments. Apparently in Witcher 3 him and his band of elves are either hiding out in the forests or killed off-screen in the ensuing war between Redania and Nilfgaard. Considering how major a choice this was in the previous game, this is rather disappointing. Similarly, Saskia the feisty yet powerful woman warrior cursed to be a dragon by Phillipa Eilhart is also absent in Wild Hunt; there could have been a way to work her into a side-quest, perhaps even allowing her to join the Battle of Kaer Morhen. Instead she’s given the spotlight in the Matters of Conscience comic, released alongside the Hearts of Stone expansion. Other lost characters that could have an appearance include the Dryads from the original Witcher game and the Priestesses of Melitele featured in the books. They don’t dampen the game’s story in any major way but if you’re played Witcher 2 like I did, it’s still noticeable.

4. Trouble with loot levelling

With a slower levelling system combined with such a massive world, there will be many points where you find loot in The Witcher 3 far lower level and far less powerful than you need. On the one hand, this can be a benefit as you can sell and break down items you don’t need to form more pricy crafting components and stronger items. On the other hand though, it can feel like padding, particularly with Skellige and its endless supply of smugglers caches floating around the island waters. You can swim for miles but usually once players reach the islands in the latter half of the story, they’re already levelled up enough to outrank most pieces of loot, making some of the exploration later on feel a lot less engaging. The same also applies to the master swordsmith questline which gives Geralt a very underpowered weapon for getting an Novigrad elf named Hattori out of debt with the local gangs. Some more fine-tuning of the loot system would have held the open-world package together a lot more.

5. No giant creatures or deadly hazards in the game world

This last thing also relates back to Witcher 2, specifically the Kayran battle that took place in its first act. The boss was at least five times the size of Geralt, towering over him and lashing with its snaking tentacles. You felt daunted by this grotesque creature in Assassins of Kings and it stands as a missed opportunity that CD Projekt Red didn’t include any similar sea monsters for Witcher 3; imagine while swimming in the depths of Skellige you came across a massive sea monster in its natural habitat and your only choice was to hit its weak spots with the crossbow and swim away. It would add a real danger to underwater exploration and really showcase the deadliness of monsters in the world of the Witcher. You could also do the same to the edges of the map; rather than warping back, instead have an undefeatable monster come crashing out of the woods.