The Game is Afoot - Witcher 3: WIld Hunt

There's a dearth of epic fantasy in pop culture these days. Books, movies, TV, witty Internet memes...the ceiling on sword-'n-sorcery seems boundless in a genre that used to struggle for one cobwebbed corner of the market. Ask anyone who grew up in that corner seeking refuge in magic realms – Yours Truly included – and they'll tell you this blob-like expansion is a double-edged +1 Sword of Mixed Blessings. The reason is simple: success breeds greed, greed breeds copycats, copycats breed crap (and a dwarven ton of it). Success also breeds a fish-and-houseguests closeness that eventually turns to contempt. I love Game of Thrones, but now Game of Thrones is on the lips and minds and Facebook pages of every teenage girl and fifty-something co-worker, and discussing it has become something of a chore. Take heart: this is not an “us versus them” platitude about true geekery, but a lament for the mainstreaming of a culture that has always drawn strength from scarcity. Even for all the acres of literature rightly called fantasy, the war for even a scant handful of shelves at a bookstore seemed a losing prospect weighed against crime fiction, pot-boilers, and forty magazines about cars. Now things have changed, and chainmail and dragons saturate the zeitgeist. How to keep things from going stale? More importantly, how to challenge the consumer, shock him, unnerve her, keep him coming back for more?

Video games almost more than any other popular medium have relied on fantasy as a perennial workhorse, a staple since the days of Zelda (and some Atari titles that pre-date my right to reference). Tepid efforts and ho-hum clones abound, but they're all alike in that they'll set you back in both time and cash. Finding something worth both is a dicey prospect, and game developers who actually give a damn are working harder than ever to find the magic – real magic – that puts their disc in the tray instead of the other guy's.

Which brings us to Witcher 3 – Wild Hunt, a prime example of high fantasy going the distance to stay fresh. And it succeeds. Wildly.

(Pause for polite laughter). (Realize no polite laughter is coming). (Blush, cough awkwardly, loathe self, attempt recovery).

First, a confession: I never played Witcher or Witcher 2, being a neophyte with PC games (save Starcraft, still the Alpha and Omega of PC games), nor did I read any of the novels on which the games were based. I went in cold, spurned on by early buzz and a sample of reviews from sources I trust. I don't doubt the experience is different – and yes, maybe better – if you're familiar with the earlier material, but one of the oft-repeated enticements was that this latest offering was designed with noobs in mind; you don't have to know what happened before to get the full effect. That said, it would be difficult to believe a game could unfurl such a richly detailed world without a wellspring of earlier work from which to draw. This is a universe-in-a-bottle, a patchwork of little stories, nuanced characters, meticulous detail, and organic settings that form an ornate tapestry. It is also very clearly a product of a hundred little innovations made by other games from many genres, incorporating mechanics recycled from straight action titles and other RPG predecessors, but honed into a player-driven approach that lets you maintain an active role in the proceedings. This is NOT a title for button-mashing spectators or level-obsessed completionists. Witcher 3 demands brains as well as brawn, and a patient approach to complex quests where rewards are rarely immediate and the goals never straightforward. Expect your many solicitors and hangers-on to entreat you for just 'one more thing' about a thousand times before you can cross a chore off the checklist for good and all.

That approach can be maddening to some; if you favor the straight line instead of the wide circle, this game might not be for you. But Witcher 3 is a tale that grows in the telling, and after racking up a few victories and overcoming those preliminary jitters, only the most boorish of gamers could fail to become invested. This novelty of delayed rewards, of really working for your dinner, is a big part of what makes Witcher 3 stand out from the crowd of recent titles where rewards are only a map marker away and the tasks are rote. Here you become invested far more in the means and the methods rather than the end result, and consequently your actions feel a great deal more relevant and the eventual payoff that much more satisfying.

Largely a gameplay element, this considered approach also translates to the writing, and particularly to the enormous cast of supporting characters. Without the need for mindless leveling quests, the developers were free to populate the world with three-dimensional people, and to tell their stories in thoughtful acts instead of stock soundbites. Reeling drunkards can be penitent fathers. Peasant fisherman can be good samaritans. Cringing housewives are the knowingest sages. The narrative stratum is impressive.

But what of the hero? Geralt of Rivea, a professional monster hunter-slash-medieval detective, part of a dwindling band of shadowy loners who enforce order in a world beset by extra-dimensional horrors. His realm, which on the surface would pass for Dark Ages Europe, commingled with another centuries before in a reality-shattering event called the Confluence of Spheres. Magic was birthed in the world as a result, and a bevy of monsters straight out of Brothers Grimm. Witchers were the answer to this: equal parts warrior and shaman ,wielding steel, sorcery and alchemy to protect the populace and make some honest dough. As usual, though, the worst hellspawn of the netherworld can't match humans for depthless cruelty, and Witcher 3 begins at a time when a ravenous empire of common jerks is waging war against regular folk. The monsters are incidental, a cleansing sorbet from all the bush-league vermin. But Geralt is focused on another task altogether: finding his young ward Ciri, a gifted mage/hottie who just happens to be the daughter of the dickbag emperor hellbent on domination. The bulk of the game is spent in pursuit of Ciri, though the chase takes a hundred detours. Laid end-to-end, Geralt's story is brief and uncomplicated, but the wandering road he takes to arrive at the climax will consume nearly all the playtime. As a protagonist Geralt is pleasant company, appropriately gruff and Batman-esque half the time while alternately coming off as a deservedly smug shit bemused by how badass he is. He's a less tortured tortured soul, and there again is something that keeps the formula fresh. As with the very likeable casts of the BioWare universes – Mass Effect and Dragon Age – the heroes aren't adverse to having a little fun while saving the world.

This does not bode well for the Hunt for Scented Candles...

Developers CD Projekt Red achieved a hell of a balancing act here, threading a middle path between combat and magic, story and questing, character and customization. Wanderers can lose hours exploring miles of seamless countryside (the size of two Skyrims, as the pixel travels) while players more interested in Geralt's mission will be able to pursue it fixedly thanks to a graduated challenge system, with only a minimum of risk they'll be overpowered by higher-level bad guys. Fighters will enjoy the deceptively fun combat system, but spell-slingers will love the selection of upgradeable magics. And though Witcher 3 has only one protagonist – no personalized avatars here – there is ample opportunity to tailor Geralt to a variety of play styles. That this balance is maintained throughout the game with only rare missteps is an even more commendable achievement. There is no Karma Meter, no pendulum weighing your every action for good or ill, no arbitrary metric for how much of a 'hero' or villain' you become. As in the really real world, all your choices have consequences, some obvious, others less so. Every action you guide Geralt toward – or away – will change the world somehow, resulting in a butterfly effect that may not become apparent for fifty hours or more. Here again is probably the most potent example of how the designers were going for a truly epic approach, a novel in video form, and how they turned the old formula on its pointy elf ear to create something unique. A quibble for the item management system, a casualty of the sheer volume of stuff you'll acquire in your adventure. Organizing your weapons, armor, consumables, quest items, alchemical ingredients, trophies, totems, books, letters...whew!...is a chore, and one likely to add to your frustration early on. Like everything in Witcher 3, however, it gets easier with practice.

Fair warning: this is a tough game. It gets easier once you log some hours, largely because the play style takes some getting used to, but early on it can be a discouraging slog. Being overwhelmed and outgunned is SOP, and though you're a badass witcher and your foes might be gap-toothed cockney-spewing peasants, you will frequently succumb to the sheer weight of numbers. Just as often you'll blunder into an enemy miles out of your league that will swat you down if you're dumb enough to challenge it. The game does its best to warn you when you're about to bite off more than you can chew courtesy of “suggested level” indicators before each quest, but the truly open, truly realistic mien of this reality makes no allowances for you being an unobservant knucklehead. Werewolves and water hags just sort of happen in this game, and if you aren't paying attention you'll get your sac handed to you on a platter. Mastering swordplay is a must: mere slashing gets you nowhere; you must parry, feint, dodge, leap, and apply your combat magics with precise timing. Manage that and you'll not only win but actually look forward to a five-on-one scuffle. If, like me, you're coming off of the lush-but-easy Dragon Age: Inquisition, this title will shock you with how challenging it can be on a minute-by-minute basis.

Technically, Witcher 3 connects and goes over the fences. The visuals are stunning, and a reminder of just how good we have it here in the era of 'next-gen'. The color palette is enormous, from the ever-changing skies and virtual weather to the gory detail of the inhuman foes – the fangs, the claws, the nightmarish deformities – right down to the variety of herbs, roots, and grasses that hug the rutted country roads. Even more impressive are the elements that transcend video technology: the art direction, set designs, costumes, and creature concepts. That the developers were inspired by Lord of the Rings, Excalibur, Conan, and, yes, Game of Thrones seems obvious, to say nothing of the original material harvested from the Witcher novels. You feel the muck under Geralt's feet and smell the horse crap in your nostrils, from tiny villages to tower-ringed cities. Kudos also for the voice acting, so often a misfire in these cast-of-thousands productions. Every actor (save for the blessedly infrequent narrator) does a bang up job here, with a gold star for the thespian performing Geralt, Doug Cockle, but whose name might as well be Not Troy Baker. I kid – I adore Mr. Baker and his prodigious talents – but even I was starting to worry he'd become too much of a good thing. Point is, it's one thing to have an ambitious fantasy game, quite another to follow through narratively speaking, and still another to utilize the time and money to pull off the technical chops required to make it all fall together.

Like gin, oysters, or Jennifer Connelly, Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an acquired taste. It takes time, temperance, and more than a little smarts, but you won't regret the results.