Finishing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - A Whole Lotta Content
Wednesday, February 23rd 2023
I’ve already talked once about playing video games here on the blog, so I figured I’d dive into a game that I was recently able to complete. You already know which game I’ll be talking about by reading the title and you might be saying to yourself, “Kyle, you just now finished playing that game? How long have you been at this?” My answer to such a question would be about 4 years. I remember buying the game, complete with DLC, on sale from the Playstation Store. It was late night and I was a bit tired (a.k.a. stoned) so I caved and bought the game. Little did I know how much the game had for me in terms of content and just how long it was going to take me to get through all of it.
At first glance The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt seemed to be like any other free roaming RPG. You had your main story quest, some side quests, witcher contracts, and treasure hunts. There’s a leveling system where you get ability points that you can put into different branches of mastery. You find weapons and armor that increase your abilities, as well as runes and glyphs to enhance them. Alchemy is a thing in the game, allowing you to craft different potions and oils from the materials you find throughout the world.
Describing it like this doesn’t do it any justice though. Everything is so much deeper than it seems at face value. Abilities you unlock through leveling truly effect the way you play the game. They can be modified with mutagens, stacking on top of each other if they share the same branch. Side quests can get as deep and interesting as the main story, taking you on mini journeys across the land. The contracts keep you busy while giving you coin to spend on new gear. There’s so much more that I don’t even think I got into during my playthrough of the game, like Gwent, the card game you can play in The Witcher 3. I honestly never got into playing Gwent. I know a ton of people get distracted by the game and do all the quests but it just never interested me. Maybe on my next playthrough.
Anyway, the wildest part about the game is that I haven’t even touched the surface of how much content there truly is. There is treasure literally everywhere, sometimes getting to a point where it is too much to even carry at one time. I found myself dumping items off at my stash constantly when I was exploring, even after I upgraded my carrying weight to the max. At times this was a little frustrating, as I’d rather have been able to explore the world without having to stop every couple of minutes. Out of all the things in the game, that’d be my one gripe: too much treasure. Which when you think about it, isn’t that bad. At least discovering the treasure is done in fun ways. There are markers on your map to show you where to go, but you never know exactly what you’ll be doing to get a treasure. You might be fighting off a monster that is guarding the treasure or reading a document that reveals its nearby location. This adds to the world and storytelling in a way the most other games don’t bother to do.
Other games with this much content seem to “copy/paste” a lot of the extra things, making it seem boring and “samey.” While there are some parallels between the different side content in The Witcher, it never gets old (well, aside from Smuggler’s Cache…) Just because a marker says “Monster Nest” doesn’t mean it’s going to be the same as the last. The amount of unique experiences found in the side content is astounding and gives the game a surprising amount of polish. There are few games where I want to explore and find all the myriad content a game has to enjoy, but The Witcher 3 is one of them. For most of my time with the game this past January I wasn’t doing the main quest. That only took me a handful of days to complete. It was mostly spent meandering across Velen and Skellige.
Speaking of the main quest that part was super fun too. The only thing that made it a little easy was that by the time I had done all the side questing and exploration, my level was through the roof! The final few missions went off without a hitch thanks to that. And if we’re being honest, I kind of liked not having to worry about that during the big story moments. It moved it along quickly, which was kind of nice after spending close to 100 hours doing everything else. Although it did take me nearly four years to complete the game after starting it, the in depth quest entries and glossary make it easy to remember all the little details about the story that you might have forgotten. Fuck, the more I talk about this game the more I’m remembering why I liked it so much. It’s just so good.
What else can I say about the game that hasn’t already been said by so many others? It’s just fucking brilliant. I haven’t even touched on the combat, with fluid dodging mechanics and weighty sword attacks. When you kill something in The Witcher 3 it just feels good, especially when you get an over the top finishing animation. Nothing better than watching that final bandit’s body get literally cleaved in two as you guide the blade through his flesh. Marvelous. And as I said before Gwent exists too and I never even played it! Oh, and I still have to get back and play the DLC at some point too, as I never did that. There’s just...so...much...content! In the best way too. Because you don’t want to put it down. Where as I’ve had trouble playing games with similar amounts of content, this one felt right. I’ll probably be talking about this game until I die. It definitely warrants another playthrough as well. I’m so thankful that my high ass bought this game those four years ago.
Alright, that’s enough about The Witcher 3 for now. As you can probably tell I quite enjoyed my time with the game. From the moment I started it I knew it was something special but I didn’t realize the world I was entering or the story it would tell. This monstrosity of a game will go down in the history books as one of the best games of all time and I can totally understand why it has been recommended to me so many times. Until next time – goodbyyyeeeeeeee!