On the one hand I’m always excited for more Witcher. On the other hand Cyberpunk 2077. More seriously, I hope they make a great game and it that lives up to the expectations people are going to have for a new Witcher game, but I’m keeping my expectations in check until I see the finished product.
Cyberpunk’s patching has showed me that ~1-1,5 years after release is a really good time to jump in.
By which time, between patches and mods, the worst stuff is dealt with and the experience can be really nice, if a bit tepid due to bad design decisions that mods cannot fix. Still, enjoyable game after patches and at a discount.
I’m hoping the initial backlash from cyberpunk actually registered with them. Other than that I’m also worried about what kind of story and characters they’ll use considering the way the last dlc for witcher 3 ended. Not sure I’ll be into Ciri based gameplay. That was my least favorite part of Witcher 3, and I don’t really want them to retcon the end of blood and wine either to continue with Geralt.
They need to go back in time to when all the witcher schools were still going and you can choose which school you’re a part of at the beginning, make your own witcher instead of one playable character.
That sounds really bad on paper, tbh. The cool parts about the player character all stem from how it’s a defined person with an existing personality and place in the world. If it becomes Skyrim: Witcher Edition, we’d probably also inherit the shallow~inexistent storytelling of that.
While I do kinda agree with you, I think CDPR is a lot better at writing interesting quests and characters than Bethesda. Still not as good as larien but I don’t think it would be todd Howard bad.
I could see them doing interesting things with Ciri’s magic, but there is a good chance they use a different witcher. Or maybe significantly earlier than the existing witcher games? Young Geralt or maybe Vesimir?
Not sure I’ll be into Ciri based gameplay.
I’d love that. Sure they’d have to really re-do her combat style since it was only a brief intermission before, but it feels natural to progress to her eventually. And honestly, it’s high time Geralt takes a bow after 3 games as big as they are, and as awesome as those were. Exit before they eventually ruin him. 😅
I agree. After the ending, I was happy my boy could get some rest too lol
Witcher 3 is probably my favourite game of all time, largely because of the semi-parental storyline with Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri. That said, I think the weakness with the Witcher 1-3 series as a whole is that the plot is too complex. Since most modern AAA RPGs have many, many side quests, I think the main plot of a long RPG should be relatively simple or else risk diluting its dramatic effect.
I feel like CD Projekt Red did a better job with that aspect of story-telling in Cyberpunk, even if the overall emotional arc is less intense than that of Witcher 3. There are lots of cool things to do and interesting side quests in Cyberpunk, but the main arc is pretty simple. You can go off on hours of side quests and still come back to the main plot without forgetting what’s going on.
I believe I heard that some developers in CDPR were going on strike? Has anyone else heard about something like that?
Good. I hope Witcher 4 will rock! Still not preordering anything. Especially not from CDPR after Cyberpunk.
Never pre ordering anything for any reason ever has been a pretty good piece of advice to live by, I’ve found.
Good. I pre-ordered the collector’s edition of Witcher 3 and it was worth every penny. After the Cyberpunk launch debacle they need to earn back that trust.
I hope it gets all the love and care The Witcher series and its fans deserve. They are going to have to make up a lot of ground with consumers to get back to W3 standards though.
I hope the praise heaped on Cyberpunk 2077 now doesn’t let them forget the absolute shitshow of a launch so that they don’t try to rush out the next game half-baked as well.
Can’t wait to try this about a year or two after it releases.
I guess I’m one of the few people who thought Witcher 3 was a bit bland. I was already getting very bored at Novigrad and at Kaer Morhen I totally lost interest and have been unable to pick the game up since.
What do people like about it so much? I’ve read all the books, and generally speaking thought they were good, so I’m not exactly lacking in lore either.
The world is interesting, Geralt is a cool character to play, combat is nice enough, and first and foremost every quest is worth looking into.
The game has a ton of side quests that had more thought put into than the main quests of other games
Keep in mind that the main comparison point for it was Skyrim, which was pretty much the previous RPG people got sucked into.
The story was pretty good and it had a good number of meaningful side quests. Gwent was also a lot of fun, and the Blood and Wine DLC was another step above to keep the hype alive for longer. The combat can get fairly involved without feeling overly complex. Rather than the blank slate of many games of the era, you play as Geralt, who actually has relationships in the world to draw you in.
Basically, rather than the unfocused sandbox of random stuff in Skyrim, it was a more involved story-rich experience that a lot of people appreciated.
That said, the hype was ridiculous. It’s a very good RPG, not the second coming of Christ. It didn’t really do anything new, it was just a solid experience.
It’s a very good RPG, not the second coming of Christ.
That just shows what people want. Just a solid game, playable from start to finish. Due to time constraints i never finished Witcher 3 and barely made it past the prologue of BG3. But both those games are highly celebrated.
They don’t reinvent the wheel. They are just very solid games and come without predatory pricing.
The story telling is what really did it for me. I consider witcher 3 to be the greatest game I’ve ever played. The quality of that game is still extremely high even to today’s standards.
Skellige Island and the two expansions were actually great. Blood & Wine had an amazing flow. Otherwise I agree. It was a rehash of The Witcher 1, but not as charming.
Unpopular opinion: Many hyped up games fail immensely at some parts. But due to the social group effect criticism gets drowned out. Currently playing Elden Ring and while it makes a massively great impression all around it shows really bad game design cracks after more intense looking, especially in the boss and arena encounter design as if they were inexperienced. Cluttered, glitchy arenas impeding gameplay, just annoyingly specific roll tells, bad hitbox choices and the requirement to memorize full boss combo routes like a multiplayer fighter add to that 1-2 kill combos and it is terrible at times to me not we the effort. I am at Leyndell with almost all available side content/areas done. Waiting for the obligatory git gud chads storming in.
Movement and combat in every Witcher game is so unpleasant for me that I find them unplayable. I’ve literally gone through YouTube “Choose Your Own Adventure” style videos of the games because the stories are great but I hate how Geralt moves.
I played the full game and the dlcs. Only the 2nd dlc and the baron stories are good. Id suggest people just play the blood and wine dlc, its really great. The game isn’t very fun, but I do love the atmosphere and city design. I was totally sick of looking at wet horse ass. Gwents more fun than monster hunting though sadly
I remember going into the first sandbox, and then going forward with no xp very fast. Then it was just me being weak as hell and rolling around to dodge and using a cast to make a shield around me to avoid dying. Then I stopped. Load time were horrible. But I want to try the remaster on ps5.
For me it was too long. I finished it with all the DLC for the first time a few days ago. I generally enjoyed it but was also quite happy to be done with it when I finally finished it at around the 110 hour mark. I actually took a break after Hearts of Stone and played a couple of shorter games before I came back to finish off Blood and Wine.
I haven’t yet played a single player game that I thought needed to be more than 60 hours no matter how engaging or well made it was.
I’ve played it like 6 times. Just love the whole world.
I still have to start the witcher 3. I’ve like 5 or 6 games on the go at the moment so it will be a while yet. I also plan to get cyberpunk goty or whatever edition for like 5 ducats in a future steam sale.
You, pal, are in for a treat. Block your calendar.
I wish I could erase the memory of having played the game multiple times.
I think it’s time for a New Game+.
Thanks 🙏. Yeah I’m looking forward to it. I just need to get through the current lot and dedicate a nice block of time to sink my teeth into it.
