The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Initial Thoughts

About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)

 The Witcher: Wild Hunt is a story-driven, next-generation open world role-playing game set in a visually stunning fantasy universe full of meaningful choices and impactful consequences. In The Witcher you play as the professional monster hunter, Geralt of Rivia, tasked with finding a child of prophecy in a vast open world rich with merchant cities, viking pirate islands, dangerous mountain passes, and forgotten caverns to explore.

Previous Playtime

0 hours

What Was I Thinking When I Bought This

This is it. The last game I'll be playing for the blog (notwithstanding some unexpected gift in the next week). I wanted it to be something of a landmark occasion, so I knew I couldn't just play any old game that struck my fancy. But being an "event" put far too much pressure on my decision, so I put it up for a vote and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt won.

The reason it even got on the ballot in the first place is because I've been hearing about it for years and in all that time, I've seen nothing but praise. Also, it and all the DLC was on sale for 20 dollars and it would have been a shame not bring this thing full circle.

Expectations and Prior Experience

I think I'll first need to address the elephant in the room - I may not be able to play this game at all. I bought a mid-range gaming laptop about 8 months after it came out and it was able to play Fallout 4 just fine, but in looking over the minimum system requirements, it may be that The Witcher 3 is far more demanding graphically. It's hard to say because I barely understand the difference between graphics card specifications, but I think it will be a stretch. I'm not sure what I'll do if I'm wrong and it turns out the difference between my card and the GTX 660 is more profound than I thought. Declare defeat for the first time ever, maybe?

But why dwell on the worst-case scenario when I still have an hour left on the download (seriously, 43 GB, what the hell is going on with games these days). Supposing I will be able to eke something out on the lowest possible settings, I'm rather looking forward to this game. I liked the non-sexual parts of The Witcher just fine, and I can't help but think they must have learned something in the subsequent seven years. I do worry that the off-putting moral cynicism that encouraged me to cut the first game off at 20 hours might make a return, but maybe if it does it will give me the opportunity for one last long-winded philosophical rant. I'm in tears just thinking about it.

In any event, it's hard for an open-world action/rpg to go wrong in my book. As long as I can travel the countryside killing monsters and running errands for random villagers, I'll probably have a blast for 20 hours and beyond.