So I just read this book on history of games called “Blood, Sweat and Pixels” and was fascinated by the chapter on The Witcher 3 and mostly how the team put in so much thought and care in every single side quest. And seems that there are a lot of moral decision to be made on each adventure. So I finally decided to give it a try. Got any advice for me?
Kill all the cows in White Orchard. Repeatedly. Farm them. Good early game coin selling their hides.
ABC:
Always
Be
Cfancying a round of Gwent
First few hours can seem slow with the early map not being the most exciting, but if you make it through the huge world opens up and things start getting much more exciting.
When I played I printed out a side quest list to try to experience as much of the game a possible and checked off ones I completed. Side quests are amazing and better than the main quest as opposed to being the usual fetch quest with a weak or no story.
Tell your friends and family that you love them but you won’t see them for a while
I’m nearly finishing up The Witcher 2. Judging from the discussions, I’m afraid of starting Witcher 3 because I have other backlog of games I have to finish as soon as possible.
As other folk said, definitely do get the DLCs. There’s a whole other game in there.
It’s been a while since I last played, and this game IS a masterpiece, no doubt about that, but the one of the first sections can be rough. Iirc it’s gloomy af, there’s some hard monsters in some quests that can be demotivating and the combat/mechanics takes some getting used to which makes the previous point worse. Just know that the game opens up and there’s a whole world out there.
There are tons of side quests which are great, so you should do those but also don’t feel like you need to do all of them. It can be easy to get side tracked and then lose steam and quit on the main story.
Especially because like I said the DLCs are amazing. They are also quite self contained so it’s like a breath of fresh air
Enjoy this amazing game. I’m jealous of you
Don’t chase all the markers on your map, most of them are crap and you’ll burn out.
So much this. If I never see another Smuggler’s Cache again it would still be too soon!
Don’t try to go for both main romance options, the outcome isn’t worth it. Better to do two playthroughs if you really want to know.
Don’t try to romance Ciri.
/s
If you have the patience for it, try playing on a much harder difficulty. The medium and low difficulty levels don’t provide the same weight. Many systems in the game are unnecessary at lower difficulty levels but higher difficulty forces you to engage in them to get the extra edge over certain encounters.
Higher difficulties force you to engage in potion brewing, reading up on enemies, and making genuinely tough choices morally in order to keep Geralt alive. Lower difficulties remove all the tension from these systems.
Also as another user mentioned, don’t skip any dialogue and engage in the side quests/contracts as they give a lot of unique flavor and nuance to the world and story.
This, this game isnt about fighting, it’s about prepping, it’s about researching your prey and knowing what you need to get the edge on it before you go in, brewing the potions you need and knowing what to hit it with
Oh yeah, I really wish I had played on a higher difficulty for this reason. Especially because one of the most immersive and thematically cool parts of the game for me was the main story section near the end of act 1 where you have to make a blade oil to fight a >!werewolf!< . (Vague wording to minimise spoilers in my main comment.) I really liked this because it made me reflect on what it means to be a Witcher — how the knowledge might be more important than the mutations and the magic.
An additional point to the prepping is that being open-world means that you can potentially go to areas or take on challenges far beyond the “intended” level. On lower difficulties, I didn’t feel sufficiently punished for being audacious in that way, and I think the potential for punishment is part of the fun of the audacity. Especially when getting destroyed like this isn’t the game “fuck you for even trying”, but rather a “try exploring some more, find some new recipes and come back later (or just read the bestiary and find out that you already have the item you need)”
Do the side quests before the main quest as some of the side quests get locked off when you compete main quests.
A note on brewing potions: You only need the herbs the first time you brew any particular potion, after you’ve brewed it once it will get restocked automatically when you meditate.
Crafting armor is 100 percent superior to found and bought armor. But if you don’t like crafting, the found and bought stuff will get you through. Also don’t sell or dump old crafted armor pieces, you need them to craft the next tier up.
Don’t skip the dialogue, even if you use subtitles and are a fast reader. It sometimes switches from one sentence at a time to whole chunks of dialogue and action getting skipped. Plus, the voice acting is superb, and the physical reactions of characters can convey a lot of emotion.
Apart from White Orchard, you shouldn’t need to complete all side quests in your area before moving on. Particularly with witcher gear, it’s sometimes expected to need to come back at a later time when you’re more powerful.
Others may disagree, but I don’t bother dismantling gear and weapons. I find it simpler to just sell things and buy materials I need from vendors.
No advice really, just wanted to say I absolutely love the game and have played through probably 6-7 times now. Very addicting and is especially comforting to play in the winter, with all the beautiful scenery and sounds.
Dont forget the DLCs, both won awards independently of the base game.
Be supportive of your daughter…dont make my mistakes
“But I thought I was helping!”
-Me after the bad ending.
I should have had a snowball fight.
Also a good advice for real life. Another instance of games imparting good advice for real life (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
