Hey everybody, did you hear The Witcher 3 is out? Although some review codes went out weeks ago the majority of outlets have had to wait until yesterday to start playing the game. Unless something pretty major rears its head at E3 this year, this will very likely be the biggest RPG of 2015, so we will of course have a review; however the size and scope does merit spending more time, so rather than rush out a final score for the game I figured I’d share some of my impressions based on my first few hours with the title.
First of all I am playing on PC, we’ll have some impressions of the console versions later, but anything you read in this article is specific to the series’ original platform.
I was able to try the game out with a nVidia GTX 960, keep in mind that the game’s minimum requirement on PC is a 660 or Radeon 7870 and they’re not joking. I did try playing on my old GTX 560 for kicks and the game is literally unplayable. The 960 runs pretty nicely, probably averaging somewhere between 45 and 60 FPS while on the second highest graphical settings. If I’m being honest I’m not sure that the game really looks good enough to merit its hefty specs, that’s not to say it doesn’t look nice, but I really wish I was getting better performance for the card.
If you’re playing with a mouse and keyboard you may notice like I did that the mouse cursor has an unusual input lag to it. Buried at the very bottom of the “Graphics” menu under your Video options is a feature called “Hardware Cursor”. If things feel weird to you I would highly advise you turn that on while playing the game.
There’s no way that I’ve found yet to take screenshots of the game on PC, so for now you’ll have to enjoy the stock photos. Leave a comment if you know the trick for non-Steam players.
And so once more we join Geralt of Rivia as he searches for the love of his life and all around incredibly dangerous woman, Yennifer. The game promptly deposits you in a nicely sized area known as White Orchard. I’m yet to venture too far out of the current world map, but I’m sure the world will be even larger than what you’re initially presented with.
You won’t be wandering White Orchard long before coming across a very angry Griffin who, despite Geralt’s efforts to ignore it, will quickly wind up being your first major hunt in the game. I’ve done all the sidequests up until my big fight with the beast, and I would estimate that I’ve probably put in about 4-5 hours of game time. It’s difficult to gauge exactly how long I’ve been playing and I’ll explain why later.
At its core The Witcher 3 is very much like its predecessor. Combat doesn’t have any real significant changes beyond aesthetics, consider for example Geralt’s new ability to chop human enemies up into the itty bittiest of pieces. The systems and inventory are all still as bloated and cumbersome as always (which fans of the series likely don’t consider a bad thing). All the core magic signs return, as does your ability to brew up enhancing potions and bombs. I found all of my choices and abilities every bit as overwhelming as I did in The Witcher 2, but nevertheless die hard fans of the series are going to feel right at home immediately.
You won’t be in White Orchard long before you find some faces that need punching.
I feel like crashes are something of a Witcher tradition. Bugs and hitches have been commonplace in both the game’s previous installments. In fact The Witcher 1 had a crash so bad in the game’s final chapter that I was actually never able to complete it. Within an hour or so of play this time around my game had already locked up my PC so badly that not even a CTRL+ALT+DEL could save the day. I eventually had to hold the power button on my PC and start again.
There are little bugs to report as well. Despite only playing for 3 hours or so my game clock proclaims I’ve been playing for 15. I’ve also noticed that occasionally Geralt’s impressive finishing moves will often send enemy corpses flying high into the stratosphere, much further than I believe was intended. For the most part it’s minor stuff, nothing that has impeded my progress in any real way aside from the full crash. The best advice I can give? If you’re going to be an early adopter, save often. The game does auto save but it’s few and far between so when my game did crash I had a good 10-15 minutes that I had to replay as a result. CD Projekt Red always takes good care of their games post release, and I’m sure The Witcher 3 will be no exception, so honestly while I’m disappointed to see game crashing bugs this early on, I’m sure they will be ironed out eventually.
If you’ve got the patience to deal with a bug or two, (there are plenty more crash reports out there, most of them seem centered around the game’s inventory system) then there’s certainly no harm in picking up The Witcher now. As I said earlier, CD Projekt Red has something of a reputation for releasing games that are buggy on launch and then cleaning them up while throwing in a little extra free content along the way. There’s certainly no harm in waiting to pick the game up, and in fact you might have a better experience as a result. Ultimately it’s your call, I’m definitely having fun with The Witcher, and if you’ve enjoyed the games in the past you almost certainly will love this one as well.
