Lost in Novigrad

Today is the last day of my holiday break, and it is around this point that I realize I did nothing but play games, or in this case one specific game. I am not sure if I care that this was the case since I spent most of the break fighting some sort of bronchitis nonsense. Holiday break has been one of those times when I dive into particular long games. During one such break I replayed all of Mass Effect starting from the first game carrying the save forward to the third game. This time around after having watched and loved the Netflix series, I dove headlong into playing The Witcher 3. I realize I probably should have started with the second game, but I also don’t think I would have stuck with it had I done so.

Witcher 3 is a weird game that seems to give no care what soever for you being confused about the setting. It is a game that more or less expects you to have either played the first two games or have read some of the novels. This makes it deeply enjoyable for those who have, but also extremely obtuse for someone who has not. I remember the first time I played the game some years back I bounced pretty heavily because it felt like I had no investment in the setting and was immediately being told that I love this woman enough to try and jump through a bunch of hoops to go find her, The Netflix series however gave me enough of a grounding in the setting to be able to start to care about how intricately crafted this world is.

To date I have spent 77 hours wandering the backwoods of the northern kingdoms, and I am completely hooked on the world. The Witcher 3 is among the most interesting and intricately crafted roleplaying game experiences I have ever participated in. I even tried my best to go back and get a foothold into the original Witcher game, but again didn’t make it super far thanks to the awful interface. I do however think I will be able to play the second game now, since I remember my key problem with it has been it did not like alt tabbing and I have other solutions to work around that. I’m even contemplating starting on the novels because I want to know more about this rich setting and the characters within it.

I don’t want to go into anything even vaguely close to spoiler territory because this is a game that I feel everyone should experience for themselves. I will say however that for a game that released in 2015, the game still looks phenomenal. Like I am not sure if I have another game that looks anywhere near as good as this one does in 4k. All of this gives me extreme hope for what Cyperpunk might end up being like to play, but really… I just want CD Project Red to get that game finished so they can create another epic set in the Witcher universe.