What can I say after these two weeks of my life in the game universe?
Firstly, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an open-world role-playing game in which all the mechanics are perfectly implemented:
• the combat system forces you to look for an approach to each enemy, to find the right one by trial and error combat tactics, be able to combine and dodge enemy attacks in time;
• the character leveling system forces you to think about what skills you want to have, the experience required for this is not easy to earn, moreover, the number of skills that can be used at a particular time is limited, so you need to carefully prepare for each important battle not only repairing and selecting equipment and weapons, but also the skills required in a particular situation.
Secondly, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an interesting fairy tale, learning which you will have the opportunity to both laugh heartily and cry, this is a fairy tale in which there is a place for both love and betrayal, as well as cruelty , and self-sacrifice.
The plot of the game keeps you in suspense, it is important that the outcome of the entire story depends on not our most seemingly key decisions, however, as in life.
Moments of Geralt’s parting with Triss in the port of Novigrad, meeting with Ciri on the Island of Mists, the death of one of the witchers in the battle in Kaer Morhen, Geralt’s walks with Ciri in Novi Sad, after a seemingly joyless ending, as well as their subsequent separation made me empathize, awakened the most sincere feelings in me, touched me to the depths of my soul, made me think about how What could I have done to make things turn out differently?
Thirdly, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the result of a synthesis of an amazing graphics engine and the work of designers. The game perfectly maintains the visual style of each of the regions of the game world, the locations are worked out to the smallest detail: Velen, Novigrad, Oxenfurt, Vizima, Skellige are fascinating in their own way. Novigrad reminded me a lot of Prague with its narrow streets. Skellige with its inhabitants is a collective image of Scandinavia. There are countless places like Velen in our world; go to the countryside of any country in Eastern Europe, the atmosphere is conveyed perfectly.
Fourthly, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a game in which the main and additional tasks are equally interesting. Of course, first of all, you will strive to find out what happened to Ciri, you will strive to help your old familiar sorceresses, but to help the nameless resident of Skellige, who left one woman for another after ten years of marriage, on whose son, in revenge, his ex (local herbalist) cast a curse, it will be no less interesting.
Even after going through the main plot, without being able to talk with the main characters, the world will not lose a bit of its charm and mystery.
You trust the local residents, they have their own traditions, customs and you need to take them into account, and if in Velen they don’t trust non-humans, then on Skellige you won’t find this, but God forbid you offend the local deity.
Until I completed the game, I had not read any of Andrzej Sapkowski’s books, had not completed any of the games in the series, and did not think that anything could surprise me and take me back to the time when I was ten years old as a child , bought a second Gothic in an underground passage and then for many weeks spent whole days exploring the mysterious world of Khorinnis Island for the first time.
But how wrong I was...
Six months before finishing the game, I avidly watched Game of Thrones in its entirety for the first time and, of course, was under an indelible impression from this series, I wanted to erase my memory and relearn this story.
But now, ten hours after completing the main storyline of the game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, I am overwhelmed by emotions of a different order, because here I am not an outside observer, but the main character, and how everything ends depends only on my actions.
Ten hours after passing, I want to play snowballs with Ciri again, although I understand that she is no longer a child and the fate of the world is in her hands, I want to talk to Triss again, standing by the ship preparing to sail, I want again hugging Yennefer, sit on a ship abandoned on a snowy mountain and speculate whether love binds us or only the magic of an ancient genie.
I think The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the best form of interactive art I've encountered, it's a second life that's definitely worth living.