Game Review - The Witcher: Wild Hunt - Part 3: Gameplay

The combat mechanics in The Witcher: Wild hunt are quite simple. You attack and dodge with one of your swords (silver for monsters, steel for humans) and use one of Geralt’s five powers. Thankfully the developers made Geralt intelligent enough to automatically draw the right weapon. This was not without its faults, however, as I sometimes found myself charging into combat only to find Geralt deciding to use his fists rather than either of the pieces of metal strapped to his back.

The magical signs remain unchanged since the first installment with only minor tweaks in their output. I found I relied mostly on Igni (fire attack), more because it could incapacitate a group of enemies for valuable moments. Thankfully the developers created certain situations and enemies that could only be passed by using different signs, so you never fully neglected the less used ones.

I started on the second easiest difficulty but after playing for many hours I found the battles becoming too easy and not engaging, so I dialed the difficulty up to the level higher. I suddenly began to rely on potions, signs and guile much more and had a much more rewarding experience. I would strongly recommend anyone do this if they find themselves cutting down their foes with ease; this game is designed to be a challenge.

In a game of this size, glitches are almost inevitable, that being said I discovered no debilitating issues, frame rate dropping or hard crashes that apparently plagued the pre-release editions (I played on PS4). I did, however, come across some issues that ranged from comical to annoying. Sometimes silly things would happen, like my horse suddenly running on only its front legs as we go down hill, but these always righted themselves. I did have some camera issues where it would get stuck almost in first person, but saving and reloading fixed that issue. The most common and annoying issue I came across was what I called ‘slow personality loading,’ where I would run up to an NPC and then have to wait over ten seconds for the icon to appear above their head in order to speak to them. This was hardly game-breaking but it was really frustrating. In one instance, however, I was unable to speak to a character in order to finish a mission, which means I can never fully complete the game. The largest issue I had was the first one I had, and it was an issue some other gamers on PS4 had too. After the two enjoyable but long and unskippable cinematics the game got stuck on the first load screen. This happened three times until I uninstalled and tried again. By this time the night was almost over, I’d watched the cinematics until I hated them and the game that I’d been so excited for really annoyed me. Thankfully, everything beyond made up for this issue.

And really, these issues were tiny in such a huge and vibrant game-world. With so much to explore, so much to do, so many Easter eggs* and so many monsters there is so much to forgive.

*My favorite was when I found a dead Halfling in a Skycell – an allusion to Game of Thrones.

And so ends my three-part review of The Witcher: Wild Hunt - a review that got a lot bigger than I planned. I simply found that the only way I could do justice to such a huge and incredible game was with more than 3000 words of review. The long and the Short of it is this; The Witcher is a game that will go down in history as a milestone for the industry and the genre, and if you have a hundred or so hours to give up, there is nothing better to give them up on.