The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — the final part of Geralt of Rivia's adventure trilogy. In 2022, all its owners received a free next-gen upgrade to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Complete Edition — the most comprehensive edition of The Witcher 3, including all expansions, The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine and The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone, as well as many graphical improvements.

The events of the third part begin shortly after the end of the second. Nilfgaard has successfully conquered Temeria and plans to subjugate the remaining northern lands. Meanwhile, the famous witcher Geralt and his wise mentor Vesemir track down the missing sorceress Yennefer, a long-time lover of the White Wolf. You can expect a game world full of adventures, a captivating story, excellent combat system, stunning graphics, nonlinear gameplay, multiple endings, and a cozy atmosphere of Slavic medieval times.

The role-playing game in the vast fantasy world of Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released for PC, PS4, and Xbox One on May 19, 2015, and is a sequel to The Witcher and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings , completing the trilogy about Geralt of Rivia.

With the release of Witcher 3, CD Projekt set new standards for the genre, received worldwide recognition, and gained the love of fans. During the game's development, the author of the series of novels "The Witcher," Andrzej Sapkowski, consulted with the developers.

The REDengine 3 studio engine offers high-quality multi-platform graphics and dynamic weather changes. For the first time in the series, high-poly models of main characters, detailed models, and animations of monsters were created. Nvidia technologies were used for creating grass, shadows from objects, hair, fur, and fabric.

Witcher 3 is the first game in the series with a fully open world, set in the Northern Kingdoms during the third invasion of the Nilfgaardian Empire. The game zone of Witcher 3 is 30 times larger than that of Witcher 2, and players can use a horse — Roach — for travel.

The world is divided into different regions by landscape and development, inhabited by various peoples. There are 15 fully-fledged states and more than 20 duchies and free cities, which, depending on the player's actions, will unite to resist or be conquered. The design of settlements resembles medieval Eastern Europe, but there are also Scandinavian-style buildings.

The rest of the game world offers entire mountains and valleys, fields and forests, rivers and lakes, caves, and underground vaults. There are swamps and "dangerous places" where monsters usually dwell. The Witcher 3 bestiary is extremely diverse; along the way, players will encounter not only bandits and wild animals but also vampires, ghosts, ogres, earth elementals, griffins, succubi, and other monsters.

The game world is filled with many events, both random and planned, programmed as closely as possible to real life, so that traveling through it is interesting.

The "Wild Hunt" is not just a title in the game — it is an elite squad of spectral riders from another dimension, a dying world of elves, trying to settle in the human world. It is led by the elven king Eredin, who is willing to do anything to open a portal, kidnapping people capable of leading him to Ciri. The antagonist even does not realize that Geralt is comparable to him in strength and wit.

At the same time, the Nilfgaardian Empire is conquering the Northern Kingdoms one after another. The player can choose a side in the conflict to participate in battles and sieges, contributing to the political structure of the game world. Meanwhile, Emperor Emhyr orders Geralt to find and rescue Ciri.

Unlike other role-playing games, the mechanics of Witcher 3 allow the player not to accept secondary quests for completion; events will unfold regardless of whether Geralt participated in them or not. Each main quest offers several development options, affecting the game's ending. The writers carefully developed the story, dialogues, and added many cut-scenes.

Secondary tasks set a high standard, as most of them are well-developed and significantly different from standard open-world quests like "kill" or "bring." The story can be completed quickly in 40 hours, or as intended in 50. The same amount of time will be spent exploring the game world and completing secondary quests.

The combat system has been completely redesigned so that Geralt can fight multiple enemies at once. The combo and attack chain system is absent; the player must simply time their strikes, defend, counterattack, dodge, and take cover. The mechanics of silver and steel swords remain unchanged, but an alternative has been added — bombs and a crossbow.

The system of five magical signs has been improved; now they can be used both in combat and in everyday life. During quests, you often need to use the "witcher's intuition" and interact with the game world. Monsters and creatures have strengths and weaknesses; knowing the latter helps you defeat them quickly.

Alchemy has been made more complex, but by drinking potions, Geralt gains special abilities, enhances his stats, or increases damage against certain enemies. The maximum character level is 70, but it varies depending on the difficulty setting. As before, Geralt can improve his talents by choosing a specialization and relevant skills.