The Witcher III: Wild Hunt
(Warner Bros)
Available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC
Four stars
Geralt of Rivia may be trapped in medieval times, but he’s the epitome of a Renaissance man.
The hero of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt is a monster slayer, ghost hunter, swordsman and wielder of vicious fireballs. He's also a detective, an alchemist, a playwright and a Casanova.
As he tells one client: “I solve problems.” Geralt’s biggest problem at the start of the game is that his best student, a supremely gifted young woman named Ciri, has disappeared.
The search for her takes Geralt on an epic journey across a battle-scarred land known as the Northern Kingdoms. It’s a vast world, whose main areas – swampy No Man’s Land, urban Novigrad and the frigid Skellige Isles – are each larger than the entire landscape of the previous Witcher game.
The main objective of Wild Hunt is simple – find Ciri – but to get there, you have to resolve a series of complicated quests.
Along the way, you can also earn cash by taking on Witcher contracts, which typically involve tracking down and killing a monster. Other challenges – boxing matches, horse races, card games – provide some relief from the high drama.
The Witcher games, developed by Warsaw-based CD Projekt Red, are inspired by the fantasy novels of Andrzej Sapkowski. Wild Hunt draws heavily from European mythology, with Geralt battling werewolves, vampires, sirens, cyclopes and other fictional monsters. But there are also echoes of other recent games, from the frontier exploration of Red Dead Redemption to the big-game hunting of Far Cry and the hand-to-hand combat of Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Wild Hunt sometimes stumbles over its own ambitions. It suffers from long loading times, occasional graphic glitches and a messy inventory system. But those are minor quibbles in a quest that offers several memorable moments and clever conversations.
But in the end, it’s all about Ciri, the impetuous, tormented fighter who brings out Geralt’s paternal instincts. It’s a rare game that can establish such a powerful emotional connection – that’s likely to linger long after the monsters you’ve slain.
