I’m fed up of games that are huge for the sake of it. Games that make a big song and dance of how many hundreds of hours of “entertainment” their sprawling worlds contain without realising that spending most of that time traipsing around a boring environment picking up pointless collectibles isn’t actually very entertaining. At all.
Thankfully, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt isn’t that sort of game.
By which I mean that it is that sort of game in terms of being massive (around 50 hours for the main story, another 50 for the side quests, and perhaps another 50-100 for general exploring, investigating and tom-foolery), but its environment is so detailed and full of life, its story so engaging and its activities so interesting, that every hour spent in The Witcher 3’s company is a pleasure.
HUNTING THE HUNTEE OF THE WILD HUNT
As ever, the titular, monster-hunting witcher is the star, and this time his personality shines. He’s still as dry as a skeleton’s wishbone, but there’s more of a twinkle in his eye and cheeky wit to his dialogue. In flashback we see him training his surrogate daughter, Ciri, and it’s tracking her down that forms the crux of the main quest. The only problem is that she’s also being tracked by The Wild Hunt – a bunch of very nasty skeletal chaps with a penchant for wanton murder and turning everything around them to ice – and the whole story plays out with a monster-infested, war-ravaged country as its backdrop.
A BEAUTIFUL, HORRIBLE OPEN WORLD
Said trouble is most easily found on the village or town’s notice board. Here the locals will post requests for help looking for missing loved ones, clearing a house of an infestation of unpleasant creatures, or tracking and killing a nearby monster.
A WITCHER’S WORK IS NEVER DONE
Thankfully the preparation process is a bit more streamlined than in the previous games. Once you’ve brewed a potion once, it’s automatically restocked every time you meditate, and signs, bombs and other usable items (including the new crossbow) are available via radial pop-up whenever you like.
BLADE DANCER
Regular saves mean failure is far less punishing that it is with Bloodborne, but on anything but the easiest difficulty setting you need to be prepared for fairly frequent death. Even simple Nekkers or Drowners can take you down if they attack in numbers.
VERDICT
Only the most RPG-phobic should avoid it – everyone else will find The Witcher 3 to be one of the finest games of recent memory.