The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt (2015)

 

The Witcher 3 is one of the most celebrated games of the modern era. It iterates on the gameplay style of the Witcher 2 by adjusting the combat system and shifting to a massive open world peppered with an exceptional amount of uniquely crafted content, much of it with full voice acting.

CD Projekt Red clearly wanted to finally get its video game version of Geralt more aligned with the literary version, so the story in its early phases sees Geralt summoned to an audience with the emperor of Nilfgaard, the Germanic empire that invaded the northlands at the end of the previous game. Geralt is soon reunited with Yennefer of Vengerberg, his canonical love interest, who's been serving the emperor as an advisor, and the emperor tasks Geralt with tracking down Ciri, Geralt and Yennefer's adopted daughter because the emperor is her biological father and wants her with him. Ciri, as the long-lost daughter of the queen of Cintra and the descendant of a crossbred elf-human line with incredible powers (sort of the Witcher universe's version of Dune's Kwisatz Haderach), is an important person, both politically and genetically, so she spends a lot of time evading people who want to take advantage of her, and in this game she's on the run from the Wild Hunt, a group of extremely ill-tempered elves from another dimension who like to snatch people and press them into serving their ghostly hunting party. Geralt is revealed to have been in their clutches before he was freed and rendered an amnesiac, explaining how he got into the state he was in as the original game began. 

So off Geralt goes to track down leads on Ciri, reuniting with old friends and enemies, and generally having a variety of new adventures. Occasionally, when Geralt finds where Ciri has been, the game will switch to a flashback in which the player gets to control Ciri and enjoy her ability to teleport around the playfield, zipping behind enemies and backstabbing them.

As with many open world games, the overarching story isn't very compelling, little more than a thread to keep players moving into fresh, unexplored areas. What's more notable is what goes on as the player wanders around that world, running into monsters or bandits that need killing, visiting towns and picking up contracts for witcher's work, or just stumbling across strange happenings that need sorting out. When the game is at its best, there is no game that better conveys the sense of being a wandering swordsman simply getting into adventures. The life of a sword-and-sorcery protagonist who's more interested in making some money or satiating some curiosity about strange local rumors instead of saving the whole world. The major subquests, such as the one about the Bloody Baron, often feel like they could pass as well-drawn short stories or novellas in an extra volume of Geralt's adventures. Even the main storyline, to its credit, is really just about Geralt trying to reconnect with his daughter; Ciri might be of world-shaking importance but Geralt is "but a witcher."

The game is a triumph of presentation. The graphics are beautiful, with various environments convincingly rendered with crisp art direction. The music brings a classically Slavic flavor that has never really been popularized outside Eastern Europe. Most notably, the game has a very large amount of unique writing that makes even the most disposable content feel special. Wiping out a generic group of highwaymen will usually yield at least a letter or journal that explains who they were and why they were there, completely unlike any other generic bandit group who have their own brief stories. And the game handles a variety of tones. Much of it is grim and horror-tinged, but there are times it goes for humor or well-earned sentimentality. It brings back the Grimm fairy tale and Arthurian influences that Sapowski worked into his original stories.

Where the game is less triumphant is in most other aspects; i.e., the gameplay. Although it improves on the combat system in The Witcher 2, adding a nice side-hopping move to the full dodge-roll from the previous game, the combat is still rather unsatisfying in many ways. Geralt has a maddening tendency to auto-target the wrong enemies and in more hectic fights the player could end up fighting the controls as much as the characters in the game. Geralt's context-sensitive moves can be hard to predict - sometimes he'll perform a simple quick stab, but many times he winds up with a slow-developing pirouette. And the combat is often formulaic. Many situations come down to dodging or parrying a strike, hitting exactly two counterattacks before the enemy gets its guard up, and then repeating until the fight ends.

The controls for horseback-riding and swimming under water are also frustrating. The player has to keep Geralt facing forward at all times for them to work correctly, lest they start reversing over and over until the player resets the camera behind Geralt and gives the game a moment to settle down. With Geralt's limited air supply, you can literally drown while trying to get the swimming sorted out.

As an RPG, the game feels like it has an identity crisis, similar to its predecessor. Most of the game's design is in line with standard action games and the inclusion of classic RPG mechanics like gathering experience and leveling up feels at odds. Why is Geralt, such an experienced witcher, clowning around much of the game at a low level? Even late in the game, it's possible to encounter random bandits who can slaughter you in a single blow because they're 10 levels ahead of you, so powerful that it's possible you won't even be capable of hurting them no matter how well you've mastered the controls. And the game doesn't even gate off areas with monsters at significantly higher levels. The whole world is open to you right away and it's possible to run afoul of such monsters at any time, leading to pathetic scenes of Geralt fleeing like a wimp from routine drowners or ghouls.

As a major AAA release, The Witcher 3 is also predictably conservative in how it handles exploration and quest design. It insists on holding the player's hand at all times. Although it's possible to switch off HUD elements like the minimap, you'll still need to refer to the map to get anywhere because the game never bothers to use detailed directions when describing objectives. A character might tell you to visit someone in a particular city but they won't give you an address or note landmarks - you have to use your GPS/quest markers to find out where they live. Contrast with a game like Morrowind, where an early quest involves locating Caius Cosades and the player has to work out on their own where he lives based on information provided. Interesting locations in the game world are marked with question marks until the player gets near them, taking some of the fun out of simply wandering the world, wondering what's beyond the next hill or in those ruins off in the distance. Now you just check to see where the markers are and head over, never needing to bother with empty, unmarked spaces.

As a very large game, some pacing issues do occur at times. The game's second major phase, where Geralt visits the island country of Skellige (a nation of pseudo-Celts who follow Norse religion), often demands that Geralt circulate high mountains or sail from island to island. Although it's quite visually stimulating, the relative slowness of the travel can become wearisome and unlocking fast travel options becomes a priority.

Ultimately, the game and the series as a whole exemplify games that succeed based on their storytelling and general ambiance over their actual game design. They resonate with fans who enjoy the characters and the situations they get in, and with those who appreciate games that prioritize choices and consequences, less so with players who would rather just have a nuanced and exciting combat system.

The game does offer a tremendous value for money. In addition to already being a big game, CDPR created two substantial expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. Hearts of Stone provides a major new subplot in which Geralt has to literally beat the devil, taking part in other activities such as organizing a bank heist along the way. It also brings back Shani as a supporting character, giving fans of the first game who missed her some closure.

Blood and Wine is even bigger, so much so that it's almost a full-fledged sequel in its own right (Witcher 3 and 3/4?). Geralt travels to the French high medieval-flavored duchy of Toussaint to hunt a vampire, and it also serves as a homage to the early short story "The Lesser Evil" in how it involves a princess born under a bad sign. Blood and Wine serves as a sort of victory lap for the character and the series. After trudging through so much blood and mud in the northlands, the sunny, colorful climate of Toussaint can be a relief. Sapowski's stories portrayed Toussaint with a bit of a satirical attitude, falling maybe a bit closer to Don Quixote than The Amadis of Gaul, but in the context of the game it's refreshing to explore a place where the beautiful, well-dressed people seem to actually take chivalric virtues seriously (too seriously at times) instead of simply all being bitter-minded cynics and hypocrites. When the expansion closes with Geralt chilling out at the vineyard he's inherited, there's a feeling he's earned his rest and arrived at a better end than what Sapowski chose for him.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition (2011)

 

Witcher 2's story picks up a month after the conclusion of the first game. After saving King Foltest from an assassination attempt, Geralt has been drafted into being the king's bodyguard. Unfortunately, Geralt is unable to stave off another assassination attempt and he's even framed for Foltest's murder. Geralt escapes custody and embarks on a quest to find the real killers.

With the first game becoming a sleeper hit, CD Projekt Red moved on from the Aurora engine and created their own, the REDengine, for the sequel, giving the new game an immediately obvious jolt in graphics and faster, more action-oriented gameplay. Cutscenes are impressively directed and performed. The first game never made it to a console release, despite some plans, but Witcher 2 seems to have been designed to be console-friendly. The mouse-driven interface of the first game was replaced with a series of lists (lists in big, brutal font on top of a putrid yellow background) that could be navigated with a modern gamepad. 

The game feels more like an action game in that its combat follows modern trends in third-person gameplay: quick/fast attack, slow/strong attack, block, dodge (one of those really exaggerated dive rolls seen in so many games), and some alternate actions such as the use of magical signs or secondary weapons (bombs, traps, and ranged weapons like throwing knives). However, the developers seemingly didn't want to wholly abandon the action-RPG roots of the first game and kept the action rooted in "under the hood" mechanics like percentage-based "dice rolls". It's hard not to notice and be a little frustrated when Geralt clearly slices through an enemy and not only fails to get a response but fails to even damage the enemy because the game calculated that you actually missed, contrary to what your eyes saw. Fortunately, the game doesn't have level-scaling, so whatever Geralt struggles with in the early game will become little more than an annoyance by the closing chapter, so the combat's flaws become more tolerable as the game proceeds. Unlike the first game, where Geralt's early-game futility could be chalked up to his amnesia, in Witcher 2 he's simply a level 1 weakling at the outset. Potions can now only be consumed during meditation, but they and blade oils don't last very long and they seem less effective compared to the first game.

It also doesn't take long to notice that a lot of the environments, particularly the forested area around the town of Flotsam, are comprised of narrow pathways with dreaded invisible walls keeping the player from wandering off. The camera can be difficult, especially in combat, as it can swing around behind trees, completely blocking the player's view of the action. The game also includes quick-time events, particularly for boss fights or major setpieces, and the presentation is so heavy with visual and aural details that it can sometimes be hard to discern what the game wants the player to do to overcome situations like the kayran battle. There are also occasional stealth sequences that feel underdeveloped. As an action game, or at least an action-RPG, Witcher 2 is mediocre. The combat in the first game may not have provided an action-packed, adrenaline-soaked thrill ride, but at least it was reasonably comprehensible and consistent through the whole game.

It's in the storytelling that the game makes its impression. The designers clearly tried to push the concept of choices and consequences as hard as they could, most obviously in the story branch that occurs in the second of its three chapters. At the end of chapter 1, Geralt can accompany one of two parties and whichever is chosen will cause a different version of chapter 2 to play. Geralt can choose to join Vernon Roche, a special forces operative pursuing the scoia'tael terrorists, sort of a fantasy version of the kind of ruthless G-men that J. Edgar Hoover would dispatch to take out public enemies. Or Geralt can join Iorveth, the bloodthirsty leader of the scoia'tael Roche is after. Joining Roche causes Geralt to end up in the camp of King Henselt while Henselt's armies attempt to conquer a disputed province. Joining Iorveth puts Geralt in a dwarven city on the opposite side of the province, among an unruly army of human peasants, nobles, and nonhumans hoping to carve out a free kingdom. Although the stories are distinct from each other - not merely opposing halves of the same story - playing both versions will provide the player more insight into the characters on both sides; e.g., if you play on Roche's path, you might find yourself confused by the rebel army's Joan of Arc-like commander Saskia and her relationship to the dragon that appears in the first and last chapters, but playing Iorveth's path helps you get to know Saskia a little in person. You can still pick up enough of what's going on, but actually replaying and making the opposite choice makes things more explicit. And this chapter branch is only the biggest choice to make; the game is loaded with many decisions that can have ripple effects that are reflected later in the game, on top of whatever major choices were made in the first game, assuming the player imported his final save from it. It's not perfect - there are definitely some continuity errors that crept in despite the designers' efforts - but the amount of detail accounted for is very impressive.

The story itself, whichever path is taken, is heavy on the in-universe politics, for better or worse. There are some little pockets in which the folklore of the original stories makes it through, such as a memorable subplot in which Geralt has to deal with a troll living under a bridge outside of Flotsam, but mostly Geralt is focused on clearing his name, rescuing Triss Merigold, and unraveling the assassination conspiracy. Stuff like the witcher contracts, the boxing, and the gambling (somehow worse than in the first game) subquests make a return, but they feel slightly out of place, like the designers just wanted to make sure Geralt had some vestigial witcher stuff to do in between his primary missions. Compared to the first game, in which Geralt just had to explore a particular region and hope to hit on leads to follow while making ends meet, Witcher 2 has a much more insistent story that sweeps him along. And as dark as the first game could be, Witcher 2's emphasis on politics leads to even murkier outcomes regardless of what choices are made. A player could get through the first game and feel satisfied that even if he couldn't save the whole world, at least he could make reasonably informed choices according to his ethics, but Witcher 2 is more likely to sucker-punch the player by revealing how choices made with reasonable intentions can still result in mass murder, cities aflame, and evildoers getting off scot-free. There isn't really a lesser evil to be chosen, just equally bad endings with different origins.

An impressive game in many ways, and a must-play for fans of Sapkowski's stories, but with some real flaws, too.

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (2008)

 

There are very few cases of sword-and-sorcery characters being officially licensed for video games. Conan is the big one who gets a new game every few years, and there have been some odd cases such as the text adventure based on Roger Zelazny's Amber novels. Some aborted attempts at making an Elric game over the years. Betrayal at Krondor is a classic RPG based on Raymond Feist's Riftwar books, but that's more in the epic fantasy category. It's significant that CD Projekt Red not only made a game based on Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher stories but they made a big splash while doing so.

The game opens with a well-rendered CGI adaptation of the very first Witcher story, in which Geralt of Rivia cures a young princess of a curse causing her to transform into a monster. Upon starting a new game, the player sees Geralt, the witcher nicknamed "White Wolf," being transported to the witcher stronghold of Kaer Morhen. It's made clear that Geralt, who was in no shape to be having adventures at the end of Sapkowski's novels, is an amnesiac, a common device in RPGs to justify why an otherwise capable hero needs tutorials on how to fight and navigate the game world. During the opening tutorial section, Kaer Morhen is invaded by mysterious assassins who steal secrets on how witchers are created, and the resident witchers are ordered to the four corners of the world in pursuit. Since it's Geralt's game, he's obviously the one who finds the right lead and finds himself untangling a deadly conspiracy.

CDPR originally started with the idea of making a roleplaying game set in Sapkowski's world that would allow the player to create his own witcher, but later chose to center the game on Geralt. This seems to have somewhat disrupted the development of the game's story, which involves the hero meeting various people from the original stories for the first time and getting involved in a story that is broadly reminiscent of how Geralt became a father figure to a mystical child of destiny. The player is allowed to romance either Triss Merigold the sorceress or Shani the nurse, two relatively minor characters from the books. It's similar to how the Blade Runner game creates a story very similar to and overlapping yet distinctly different from the movie's story. The developers use the amnesia concept to smooth over how Geralt could be involved with this stuff but it generally would have worked better with an original character. It would be like making a Conan game that ends with Conan as king of Vendhya with Yasmina as his queen - the names and lore would be recognizable but readers would be distracted by how it violates canon. On the other hand, Geralt made for a more marketable hook and CDPR obviously did something right because the game was a big enough hit to pave the way for even more successful sequels.

On a limited budget, CDPR licensed Bioware's Aurora engine and then heavily reworked it to suit the game's needs. Instead of a simple combat system of clicking on enemies to strike them until dead, they tried a timing-based system in which the player has to click again at critical moments to continue combos. The player can assume one of three stances (strong, fast, or group-focused) and perform dodges. Although they deserve credit for going with something a bit different, the system isn't very engaging. They also tried to adapt the witchers' elegant fighting techniques in the game as more advanced combinations. It's easy to imagine Sapkowski's pirouette-filled descriptions as something like Hollywood swordfighting made practical through the witchers' superhuman reflexes and balance, but the gratuitous backflips Geralt does in the game while fighting just look hilarious. Also, despite the occasional incline or decline in elevation, the settings suffer from the sort of flatness often seen in RPGs of the period. And there are a couple of cases of what should have been major setpieces that simply don't work because of the engine's limitations; e.g., a recreation of Geralt's battle to cure the princess of the striga curse can easily devolve into a comical scene of Geralt and the monster simply running in circles around the monster's sarcophagus until morning. Finally, the game suffers from a problem common in RPGs in that a lot of quests involve running across large expanses to speak to someone, deliver something, or kill something, then running off to the opposite side of the world to do much the same, which creates the sense that Geralt is the world's toughest errand boy rather than an intrepid adventurer.

What the game does do well in terms of visuals is that the depiction of the City of Vizima and its outskirts, which comprise nearly the entirety of the game, have exceptional atmosphere and a sense of authenticity rarely seen in western fantasy games. Perhaps it's because Polish developers will understandably have a more intimate familiarity with the types of architecture the setting calls for. The city has a used, lived-in look without being overly fixated on griminess or dishevelment, the swamps are so oppressively murky that it's easy to imagine flies or mosquitoes everywhere even though the game can't render them, and the forests are verdant while still housing many hidden dangers. There are also nice touches such as dynamic weather changes and the way people run for cover during rain storms, how birds soar across the sky, and how the characters all obey simple schedules, going to work during the day and then turning in to bed at home at night.

The game's biggest triumph is in simply adapting Sapkowski's concepts relatively faithfully. The writing is cynical but doesn't cave in to adolescent overcompensation. Geralt is constantly faced with problems that seem to demand that the player choose a lesser evil, but there's usually enough nuance that the choice can be made according to a player's particular views without feeling bad about it (at least assuming the player isn't expecting a perfect world to arise from his choices). Many video games attempt this sort of writing but fail badly at it, including so many tradeoffs and so much moral ambiguity on all sides that every choice flattens out into being equally unsatisfying. The sense of scale probably helps in that despite the implications of the game's story, Geralt is ultimately just a man, not a prophesied world-savior. He's a blue collar figure who just wants to do his job with as little fuss as necessary (it's hard not to notice that some variation of "Got any work for a witcher?" is usually one of Geralt's first dialogue options). For all his fame and accomplishments, he's ultimately part of a dying tradition of dedicated monster hunters and he just doesn't matter very much in the scheme of things, so his choices won't necessarily have earth-shaking impact. He might save or condemn an individual or a few people, not entire nations. And the game loves to record the choices made and belatedly indicate consequences of those choices, even if the overall plot of the game never changes much (e.g., the identity of the villain is always the same, but his stated motives might shift slightly).

The monsters are mostly drawn from the books. Drowners, kikimores, giant centipedes, bruxae, ghouls, wyverns, demon dogs, etc., in addition to various types of human enemies. The game ties the vodyanoi from Slavic folklore in with Lovecraftian horror through a connection with Dagon. The general setting is basically Tolkien-esque fantasy with a cynical slant. Among the backstory is the idea that a cosmic event called the Conjunction of the Spheres caused the inhabitants of various overlapping dimensions to be deposited on a single planet, causing long-lasting ethnic strife as elves and dwarves see their lands encroached on by surging human populations, with monsters also causing significant ecological damage because they're transplanted to a world on which they didn't originally evolve. 

Much as in the books, gathering information on how to kill monsters and then mixing potions and blade oils specifically suited to the tasks are important. Crafting systems have become a tedious feature in many games today, but The Witcher is one of the very few games in which gathering wild ingredients and using them in a crafting system is genuinely consistent with the source material. Geralt can also use limited forms of magic such as telekinetic or pyrokinetic "signs" to get an edge during combat. The game isn't particularly difficult at the medium setting, but the use of the potions, oils, bombs, and magic can make things go quite a bit faster and easier, and they're recommended at the harder setting.

Sapkowski's books, at least in English-translated form, are entertaining enough reads, although not necessarily among the best of S&S (it's been said that he has some very clever wordplay in the original Polish editions that is difficult to translate), but even if The Witcher game had never received any sequels, it would still rank as among the better licensed games ever done in terms of respecting and capturing the flavor of the source material while still being an enjoyable gaming experience, and depending on one's preferences it might even be an improvement. It's certainly more action-packed compared to the somewhat languorously plotted and dialogue/exposition-heavy novels.