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Softonic review

A beautiful 3D fantasy RPG

The Witcher® 3: Wild Hunt is an immersive role-playing video game wherein you must save the world against a monstrous threat. Developed by CD Projekt Red, this is the sequel to The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and is the third and final installment in The Witcher video game series.

Just like its predecessors, The Witcher® 3: Wild Hunt—or simply The Witcher® 3—has you donning the sturdy boots of legendary Witcher, Geralt of Rivia. This time, he has been hired to track down the missing Child of Prophecy—whom he had once trained and raised as his own.

Is Witcher 3 Wild Hunt worth playing?

The Witcher is a series of fantasy action role-playing games that are based on the book series of the same name by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski—acting as non-canonical sequels to the story of the books. The plot of the game franchise revolves around the adventures of Geralt of Rivia, a monster hunter known as a Witcher with superhuman abilities. He is often embroiled in various dangerous missions and his actions and choices during his travels either directly or indirectly affect the fate of the world.

In The Witcher® 3: Wild Hunt, Geralt’s story continues after the second game and his latest big contract involves finding Ciri—the so-called Child of Prophecy and living weapon who can either make or break the world. The job’s even more complicated for Geralt as Ciri is also his adopted daughter, whom he had raised for a good part of her childhood as a Witcher. With old allies such as Yennefer and Triss from the past games, Geralt must hurry to locate her before the sinister Wild Hunt do. 

The gameplay here is just like the previous games, wherein you control Geralt in the third-person perspective. You can run, roll, dodge, jump, block, counter, and even ride your horse to combat different monsters’ fighting styles. There are two modes of melee attack: the fast but weak light attacks, and the slow but strong heavy attacks. Take note that your swords will require repairs after a while. Aside from physical damage, Geralt can also deal magical damage via spell signs.

The enemies you’ll encounter have advanced AI and you can learn more about them in the in-game bestiary. One of the most beloved features in the game is the open-world environment, where you’re mostly free to roam and encounter various side quests and treasure troves. Geralt's Witcher sense comes in handy here, as it can find objects of interest in the current area. Defeating monsters and completing quests reward you with experience points, which level up Geralt and give you ability points to spend on skill trees.

A little bit of polish goes a long way

Aside from the gameplay and exploration, The Witcher® 3: Wild Hunt is well-known for its riveting narrative and in-depth interactivity with NPCs. You, as Geralt, can respond in different ways to other characters and events that you encounter—and this can affect a myriad of things as you play further. A side quest’s ending can unfold differently or the fate of a small town can change for the worse, depending on the choices you make. There are 36 different endings, which are simply variations of how each major quest closes.

The game became popular enough to spawn two expansion packs: Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. Both of them mostly add new story content, which is still on par with the main game in terms of great writing. Despite it being available on different platforms, all of them get the free next-gen update for the game: Patch 4.0— which contains various visual, performance, and technical enhancements, aside from the usual bug fixes and new content. 

  • Graphical and technical performance improvements
  • New online features
  • Additional content
  • QoL (quality of life) changes
  • Gameplay adjustments

First, new visual improvements like ray-traced global illumination and ambient occlusion have been added. Popular Steam community-made mods like “The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project” and “Immersive Real-time Cutscenes” have also been allowed and included to make the graphics even prettier. The character models got a much-needed upscale on their textures to 4K, too—and they can now cast high-resolution self-shadowing even outside of cutscenes. Numerous graphical settings have been tweaked and added, as well, such as a new weather type and “ULTRA+” PC settings.

Regarding online features, there is now cross-progression between platforms and your saves will be auto-uploaded to the cloud. Plus, if you sign up for the MY REWARDS in the game, you can receive numerous cool items. There’s also additional content available—like a new side quest, an alternative appearance for Dandelion, and an alternative Nilfgaardian Armor set—which are inspired by the series’ 2019 Netflix TV series adaptation of “The Witcher.” The alternative appearances can be enabled in the Options settings for Gameplay. Plus, Chinese and Korean voice-overs were added.

There are also a good amount of QOL changes implemented. You can now do Quick Sign Casting, which lets signs be switched and cast without opening the radial menu. This can be toggled on and off in the “Gameplay” section of the “Options” menu. A new default toggleable map filter is now available, which hides some icons to reduce clutter on the map. The minimum height for fall damage has also been adjusted and herbs can now be instantly looted. 

Lastly, some gameplay adjustments were made. The mod “Full Combat Rebalance 3” has been added and tweaked for the game, so players can directly enjoy it. Some of the preexisting mods’ issues were also fixed. There are some small fixes to the main game’s quests and cutscenes, as well. All in all, this patch is brimming with changelog notes that can excite any old player of the game. Just take note that the game’s minimum specs don’t support 32-bit systems and it requires at least 50GB of storage.

An RPG anyone can start with

The Witcher® 3: Wild Hunt is critically acclaimed for a good reason. Cited as one the greatest video games of all time, this fantasy RPG delivers not only fun gameplay, but an immersive world full of life that makes you feel like your choices truly matter. While it’ll be heavy on your storage, it’s worth the purchase and download since it’s been enduring as a highly-popular game this whole time. 

PROS

  • Open-world exploration
  • Third-person POV gameplay
  • Interesting storyline and quests
  • Beautiful 3D graphics

CONS

  • The minimum specifications doesn’t support 32-bit systems
  • Heavy on the storage

Program available in other languages



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