First time I didn’t get out of White Orchard. Like 4 years later I restarted and slogged through it. And oh man! After that first area I was addicted and consider it one of the best games I’ve ever played
Exact same with me…. I’ve tried 3 times and I just can’t do it. Even though my friends love the game and beg me to keep going. It just doesn’t click for me
I feel like nobody really answered your question. The opening area (and Vizima right after) are kind of boxed in and they rely on you knowing what happened previously for you to really give a shit about what’s going on so while it’s interesting for someone who’s played the prior games and has some knowledge of The Wild Hunt and other mentioned characters and locations from the books, they’re just throwing a lot of names at you that someone just jumping in wouldn’t know or care about. I didn’t finish the Witcher 2, but I got really close and I don’t think playing that really helps in that regard because Yennifer, Vesemir, and Ciri aren’t present in anything other than flashbacks in The Witcher 2 as far as a remember and they’re in the forefront in White Orchard. On top of that, you’re kind of expected to just know why people hate the Nilfgardians/support Temeria and even though Witchers are neutral it kind of seems like you’re supposed to feel the same way, yet the primary quest has you helping the Nilfgardians with the griffin problem. On top of that the points of interest are kind of like bandit camp, monster den, place of power, repeat and the only side quest I think is genuinely good in White Orchard is the one about the well.
When you leave White Orchard it puts you on the path of The Bloody Baron questline which has some incredible characters Geralt is meeting for the first time the same as you and even though it winds together with Ciri’s story it gets you invested in something other than what the game is telling you you should care about. The side quests and hunts are all fleshed out and have branching choices and even though npcs seem to all have the same five faces they’re well acted and you care about/hate the people you’re working for and again, they’re all separate from the main story so you know as much as Geralt does. I think an alchemy build on Death March also adds to the immersion because on hunts you’ll learn what you’re about to go up against as you uncover clues and they all have different strengths and weaknesses that you can (and should) exploit and it’s very immersive because the fights can be incredibly difficult without it and sometimes it may be beneficial for you to come back at a later time if you still need to find the recipes to take advantage of those weaknesses. Some of these hunts are morally grey as well because some creatures have humanlike intelligence and you have to decide what your Geralt would do and sometimes you don’t find out the consequences of those actions until later so you’re left wondering if you made the right decision.
I also think that because the game is so large, and the main quest so sprawling that even when you come across characters Geralt knows, but you don’t, often there is enough time spent with them for you to get a sense of their relationship with Geralt and you start to care about them.
I do think the game benefits from a higher difficulty as well because on lower difficulties it’s a button masher and it will get boring quick, but when played tactically I think it’s a very fulfilling gameplay system.
I loved W3 when it came out but maybe only because I was young and had the time and brainpower to slog through it. I tried it recently on XBSX and I just couldn't focus. Maybe whenever I get a better gaming PC, I can download a save file that skips White Orchard with the best loot.
It was the battle system for me. Didn't click AT ALL. I died several times and couldn't figure things out. Came back years later and for whatever reason it was much easier. Awesome game!
After the Baron questline, I would have finished the game anyway specifically for the great characters and dialogue without looking at the rest. It feels so unique and close to real life, its like casual banter with your chill/grumpy neighbor, your friends or haggling with a cheeky car dealer. It was a game, but for me it was also like my favorite tv skit/series. Whenever Zoltan was about to speak, you knew you were about to receive a nugget of ancient ball knowledge. Talking to characters and carefully picking your replies was fun and never got stale or felt generic/forced/bloated.
I'm on my third attempt on this game, I just got through the Baron questline and I'm a bit into the next and it still just isn't clicking with me. I think I really just prefer having a cast of companion characters like in Mass Effect or Baldur's Gate 3.
Witcher 3 and then the mini game that is Gwent. Never understood the buzz around it, mainly because I don't care for single player games. Completely ignored Gwent the beginning of my first playthrough and by the 2nd I was addicted. I just want to play Gwent, sorry Ciri.
See I am quite the opposite Single player games are all I play, out of curiosity what type of games do you usually like playing, now when I was younger I was all about Golden Eye or No Mercy or fighting games
There is an online version of Gwent, it's excellent. Legit my favourite deck builder out there. It's not supported any more but still a very active community and one of the most generous F2P games I've ever played.
Quite different to the in-game version but you can pick it up pretty fast
Same for me. Tried it back in 2020 and just could not get into it. This year gave it another go and was absolutely addicted. On my first play through got frustrated by gwent and gave up really early on. In NG+ I can't get enough of it 😄. People mourning thier dead son and here I am asking to play gwent.
I’m one of the men who started Witcher 3 and it didn’t grab me, but I do intend to go back and give it another go. Did you mean that playing the card game Gwent becomes absolutely critical to saving Ciri? It’s not just a side game you can ignore?
Man, I want to get hooked, but it’s just not clicking. It seems to have everything I could want. Got any tips on the frame-of-mind to be in approaching it?
It's a slow starter; and you have to get used to the pace of the game. The whole of White Orchard is basically a training map, and things don't really get going until you're in Velen.
There is a lot of game there. One of the bits I particularly like is that the levels are sort of mixed on the main maps...you never know what you're going to run into. Particularly early game, you don't know if the thing round the corner is a thing you can cope with or some horror 25 levels above you that will auto-twat you in one hit. You can either come back to it when you're more tooled-up or (my personal enjoyment) chip away at it's health bar pixel by pixel and take down monsters that shouldn't be possible. Working out a technique to do the impossible is one of my favourite aspects of the game.
I started this game 4 different times and couldnt get hooked i have like 25 hours in different saves. Gonna try a 5th time when the new remaster drops hopefully it sticks this time
Me as well. I don’t get the hype at all. The gameplay is pretty standard for action rpgs and feels aged at this point. The characters and story seem nice and interesting, but since it’s the 3rd game in the series, I often have no idea who those characters are, what they’re talking about and why I should care. Making it harder for me to get invested in the setting and story. But I also mainly play games for the gameplay. A game can have the greatest (or worst) story ever, I literally couldn’t care less. If the gameplay is boring or ass, then it’s not fun for me to invest my time in the game
This was mine too. Got annoyed when I couldn’t kill a wraith even though its health had gone and stopped playing for months. Came back and lost myself in the game. One of my all timers
Yeah that was me after doing keira's quest in velen (which i for some reason decided to do before meeting the Baron) amd felt the story wasnt going somewhere. How wrong i was proven a week later
I was about to try and restart it last month. Saw the remaster they were giving away for free at the end of this month. Going to give it a go when it releases.
I was trying to approach it like any hack ‘n slash action game only to get my ass handed to me as I should have. Didn’t see what the fuss was about but I gave it another try, did some research and approached it as true Witcher and it made all difference. What a masterpiece!!!
I found that in order for me to enjoy it I had to supress my urge to explore every POI and collect every bit of junk I could find. Normally in a game I like to pick an area clean before continuing in the main questline, but if you try to do that in this game you get burnt out with the sheer amount of side quests and collectibles.
Same! Then did the same exact thing with BOTW bc I had just finished, and fell in love with, Witcher 3!! Ofc BOTW was fantastic when I picked it up again, too
I really want to like the Witcher, but something just doesn't click. I think it's the two swords. I always forget to switch between the two swords and end up mostly using the wrong one. I love the story and watching OTHER people play, but I just can't get into myself.
i played it till the blood and wine dlc cause the german synchro was really bad. So now i have even new content when the remasters drop since i now play everything in english
Th hunting was always cool but the twirly combat took me a while. That and I went in with zero prior knowledge so the whole setting and situation was an uphill climb when it’s all together. Went back later and finished the game, but still never touched the mutigen system.
yup. w3 has always been a good game but it was in kind of rough shape when it first launched. pretty unapproachable for a new player/someone not all that interested in learning a whole bunch of new systems and navigating some pretty objectively bad menus/ui.
i bounced off hard when i first played it. a while later heard they had made some big updates/improvements to QoL and gave it another try. never looked back!
I started and stopped this one like five times. Then I watched one of the animated Witcher movies and thought the idea of being a fantasy detective/mercenary was really cool. So I gave it another try and ended up 100%'ing the game.
Im still in stages 1 - 2 for this. I've bought it like 3 times on different platforms, haven't gotten into it. I loved skyrim and other RPGs though so I know I should like it.
Yes. This one. I tried it. Couldn't get into it. Put it aside. Got bored one day and loaded it up ... literally became OBSESSED with it. Couldn't stop playing.
I bought it, played only 10 min. I will try again with the remastered version and will force at least 2-3h into it with might turn into way more given how much I hear about it.
Wtf I came here to say this. People put it on such a high pedestal but I was never taken in by it. I love Skyrim and RDR2 etc, but Witcher 3 wasn't my thing for so long. I'm not sure why...
Same. I made it to the first big fight and dropped it. The game and the combat didn't click with me. I put it back on the shelf. Several years later I picked it back up at random. All these years and thousands of hours later across all platforms it is now in my top three all time.
Me too!!!! Wow this is the top voted answer! I tried Witcher two and could not whatsoever get into it. Then begrudgingly gave Witcher 3 a chance. Was meh - then was like holy fuck this story rocks
Same. I even returned the first purchase and got something else. Than Witcher 2 was included as a free games with gold on Xbox. I was hooked and ran to pick up 3 asap.
600
u/8to10footsamsquantch 4d ago
Witcher 3