The Lasting Legacy of The Witcher 3

In any discussion of open world games one title casts a long shadow over the rest. Released in 2015 The Witcher 3 featured a gruff Geralt of Rivia as the titular Witcher, a magically altered monster hunter. Thanks to the more recent television series Geralt’s story is well-known but at the time he was far from a household name beyond niche fantasy enthusiasts and die-hard gamers. It was the success of Witcher 3 that kick-started his exposure to a global audience and catapulted him into the mainstream.

Based on the Polish series of books by Andrzej Sapkowski it is set in a magical world inhabited by warring humans, elves, dwarves and a (very) large variety of monsters, featuring Geralt and a host of supporting characters hunting across several regions for his adoptive daughter, Ciri. She in turn is also pursued by the Wild Hunt, a cabal of powerul elves from a parallel world who need the power of her elder blood to save their world from the apocalyptic ‘White Frost’.

As the name implies it is not the first game made about the character by Polish games company CD Projekt Red. Although were it not for a sliding door moment they may not have made the game at all: the company was working on a PC version of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance when the project was abruptly cancelled. Rather than see it go to waste, CD Projekt took the decision to use the code they had developed to make their own game. It was eventually was released in 2007 and was followed by a sequel, Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings, in 2011. Although both were reasonably successful and met with general critical approval, it was the third game that proved the breakthrough and thrust Geralt into our collective consciousness.