The magic of The Witcher 3. What is it exactly?

[summerman1]

The magic of The Witcher 3. What is it exactly?

So i was looking for what new games i could play in my free time and trying to pick some games today. Could not really find anything. So thats when i remembered ''the magic'' of The Witcher 3 and how it changed my expectations when it comes to video games. This is something i realized long ago when i was just making my way through the game for the first time. And i find ''the magic'' interesting as i cant really put my finger on what it is. Lets see if we can uncover the facts/reasons behind ''the magic'' lol.
Now i dont play video games a lot. I am the kinda guy that check out and play 2-3 games in a year. But still i played a lot of games over the years. That being said let me try to explain what i mean by the title. There is something about The Witcher 3 that makes you feel really involved in the games universe. It is hard to explain why too. I ll give some examples. Like when you play BaW you can almost taste the wine:geraltfeelgood: i wanted to have some good wine when i played BaW. Also you get the feeling that the Duchy is a valley untouched by most problems. It is really convincing. Or in Skellige the place makes you feel like sitting by a fire and having a good conversation while having some mead. Velen gives you that uneasy feeling. Or when you visit Iris in that godforsaken place that was once a lovely home. I dont see these kinds of things in most games. Most games will try and hit you with similiar things but i am usually like ''meh, sure'' . The atmosphere has never convinced me before. Thats what i meant by ''the magic''.
So what do you guys think the magic is?
Do you think CDPR worked on that really hard or it just happened while they tried to make a good game.
Long story short: What is it that makes you wanna drink some good,fruity wine when you play Blood and Wine lol.

 

[Rawls]

Good writing, art design, quest design, world design and soundtrack are generally the things I think about when a game's atmosphere is the topic.

 

[cyberpunkforever]

all three witcher gams have their own "magic"
it's subjective, but i think it's the narrative, characters, story/plot, game world, environments, music, graphics, dialog options
awesome cinematics and cutscenes

 

[GrakanOfBelhaven]

A developer that thinks about the product first and the money second.

 

[Sunsibar]

Some SPOILERS coming!


Good question. I'm still wondering that after 4,5 playthroughs. At this point, when I have explored every option with every quest, every ?, every trophy and every ending, I'm skipping all dialogues but still enjoy wandering around the world.

I stop here and there just to watch landscapes, moonlight coming between tree branches, listen to NPCs talk, watch those funny geese running around, listen to birds sing... I just love that world. I can't tell what makes the actual magic work, it's the whole thing that makes me want more. I have spent over a year with this game and still keep going. I have managed to play ONE other game during that period. I have tried few other games too, but no luck. I always come back to Witcher 3. Maybe upcoming Gwent game can break the circle Well... Sort of...

Right now my mission is to see Yen in Corvo Bianco (Dandelion and Triss already have been there) and after that I want to see Ciri there. Maybe that Ciri ending is going to be my last. I want to end up this massive tourney with Ciri on my side. Maybe it's still not my last game with Geralt

Ah, so much time has been passed, but quests were great. I really wanted to explore all options. Characters are great and they can make you feel like biggest asshole or greatest person in the world. You really can feel that. You don't just push the buttons and make random choices, you really think what would be best. Sometimes you only have a little time to answer and that's when the panic comes What do I do? WHAT DO I DO?! You can't be sure what is the right thing to do. Someone always get's hurt. There is always that other side of the story.

I think I have used about 1000 hours with this game. I'm playing my fifth round right now and sixth is coming. So far I have played best games only two times, but this game has so much more to offer.

I really, really love this game!

 

[nfi42]

There is no magic, it's all just hard work by CDPR.

There are quite a few people that don't like the game (I love it).

 

[RageGT]

All the above plus a few things, IMHO.

Game started the series from an awesome literary material. LotR and all Tolkien's work about Middle Earth is still my favorite. But a movie out of it, made by a huge fan of his books, like PJ, was certain to be good. I love the books, I love the movies, extended edition of course.

As CDP stated long ago, and I believed it then as I believe it now (with some reservations in these days though - studios that grow big tend to go back in those kind of statement due to practical/financial reasons), The Witcher started as a PC game made by PC gamers who LOVE PC games! I am a PC gamer who love PC games of several different categories but RPG's were always my favorite. Ultima, BG, NWN (mostly online on heavy RP servers based on Tolkien's work), Gothic series, some other titles, and then I found The Witcher in 2008. What a breath of fresh air in an already declining market. "PC games are doomed" was heard so oftenly in those days.

Now, enter a crypt, without Cat, in The Witcher 1 and tell me about goosebumps, shivers or whatever it is called in English. A small studio broke the line that separates great games that will live forever from those that one may play once and shelf it, resell it, whatever. Of course, as they grow bigger, they had to answer to other concerns, other markets. But TW2 was still unique in the topics @Rawls mentioned. It did lacked some things from TW1 but was a worthy sequel to the series. I think The Witcher 3 went back to basics in some aspects and still kept some of what TW2 introduced. TW3 lost a bit in the process, like the intricate and absurdly well written politics and its games, in name of playability perhaps. But it took the RPG gender to another level which is miles away ahead of any other game I've ever played, other than Dragon Age Origins, a game that took some 5 years in developing and crushes any comparison with its rushed sequels, for me.

I think that, now, CDPR has still PC gamers that love PC games in their ranks and had to add Console gamers that love Console games to the team. As long as they don't fire the PC gamers and keep making awesome PC games, not lousy ports, I'm OK with that. (I cannot even move, much less shoot a thing, the few times I went over a friend who was playing FPS on a console. With a KB+Mouse I could kick ass in BF 1942, the only FPS I've ever played =). I'm not flaming another plataform war here but when I see this, which needs a console enabler for PC to be done, I really wish that Console players can have it too!
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/thre...ots-Spoilers?p=2695541&viewfull=1#post2695541

It was awesome to have a CDPR writer or game designer, can't remember it now, @Garrison72 might, coming to Bioware's BSN forums and sharing with us stuff from TW2 in our TW2 thread there. Is was absolutely fantastic to see some stuff from TW1 back in TW3 and now, with BAW, a lot more of those TW1 stuff was added to the game. I still do my The Witcher marathon, every once in a while, playing all 3 games in a sequence and I love it. But I might die of pure emotion if CDPR released a toolkit and allowed the community to use TW3 technology to make a TW1 version with it!

Check Bioware's forum in these days. They've killed BSN and became an EA Forum. People are not allowed to have an Off-Topic Section anymore! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, CDPR, STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM EA CLAWS FOREVER!!!!

 

[Pawel1995]

Open World, Freedom, brilliant voice acting (at least in polish (and english?), Sidequests are better written than many moment in the main quest (which makes them so amazing!), great graphics, great animations, great humor, final game of Geralt.

These are the key-points, why this Game is so good for me.

 

[Guest 2081505]

All the above plus a few things ...

The new degrees of freedom (compared to combat / movement in TW1/2): Wonderful! Breathtaking! And from the very beginning ...

 

[summerman1]

?SPOILERS MAYBE?

Good question. I'm still wondering that after 4,5 playthroughs

About the same here man. I still remember the every bad decision i have made in the game and really felt as if i done something wrong in real life.

Right now my mission is to see Yen in Corvo Bianco

Speaking of which i just realized something. I do not know if this has been mentioned before, but Corvo Bianco is meant for Yen i think. Judging by the name Corvo: Raven, Crow and Bianco: Fair, White. As people who have seen Yen there will better understand. It may be little things like this that add up to the magic. The world and The writing is deep and meaningful.

 

[cyberpunkforever]

a very important element is the fact that witchers are poor, hardened in the hunt for monsters to protect the other "monsters" they are neutral, and even though they have no emotions or feelings the can have very deep and comlpex personalitis, for example geralt, neutral yet very complex, one part of the magic is its originality
for examplewe are used to beautiful elegant elves, but in the witcher world, elves can be terrorists, outcasts, they can have scars, they can be drug dealers, murderers, corrupt, etc, it's that twisted fantasy that makes this universe so unique

:geraltfeelgood:

 

[DinkzOfRivia]

Just playing the game makes you feel that you really part of that world. It's currently my fourth game and as soon as I arrived at Velen, the soundtrack on my ears is just full magical eargasm! I can even hear it on the back of my head before I sleep (sometimes Skellige's OST, LOL). And sometimes, before making a very small decision in the game, you pause it and rethink all options and consequences.

This is the best game ever! *witcher sobs in the corner*

 

[Phinnway]

Everything - music, dialogue, writing, environments - feels like it belongs in the world rather than being a plot device created to drive the story forward.

It's the special attention paid to details that makes The Witcher games "magical."

 

[Goodmongo]

To me the magic is if I can form a relationship with the character I'm playing. Is there a tie? Do I care about the character?

The Witcher series did a great job of that. I slowly changed into Geralt and how Geralt would be. It was not some video game character. it began to feel like he's a real person and someone that I was invested in.

Shepard in Mass Effect and somewhat less Revan in KOTOR also did that. Through superior writing and interesting choices I often sat and wondered how these characters would feel and what their choices would be.

Now Geralt was much more defined than Shepard. There was a back story and history. There were rules and standards set. All of that made it even more enjoyable. Unlike really open characters Geralt would never be a killing psychopath. And those restrictions made the game so much more enjoyable.

Of course you need a story and a goal. You can have a great character but without that story it means almost nothing. The series did just that for me. This is where Fallout has fallen behind. The Witcher 3 almost lost their direction with Ciri being the focus so much. But in the end, and especially with the DLC's it came together for one of the most enjoyable and fascinating games in the history of gaming.

Gosh I'll miss Geralt and Shepard.

 

[Frybread]

Great side quests, great humor, endearing characters and more freedom than in the first two games.

 

[arkhenon]

It's the special attention paid to details that makes The Witcher games "magical."

I second this. Of course there are many amazing things in Witcher games. The dark/twisted fantasy is a breath of fresh air among all the high fantasy games, the multi-dimensional characters and motives are amazing, the sheer amount of work poured in the side quests (which are comparable to most of the main plots, if not better), the music and graphics are brilliant and so on. But the "magic" is definitely their attention to detail. From the world building (each village having a main occupation that "makes sense" based on its geography and closeness to a city, etc.), to architecture, to geography (who the hell takes erosion and heavy trade wagons constantly moving on a road into account when designing pathways?!..), to people, to inside the houses, and so on.

 

[TrophicMist]

Its the great story and huge amount of interesting things to do that did it for me.

 

[MattS71]

There is no magic, it's all just hard work by CDPR.

There are quite a few people that don't like the game (I love it).

People that don't like Witcher 3 are crazy people. For myself, I love the characters and the lore. Just complex enough that its rewarding, but not so much that you have to read wiki pages back and forward to understand what is happening. Monsters are cool, too. The ladies of Witcher aint bad either.

 

[M4xw0lf]

Aard, Igni, Quen, Yrden, Axii.

Oh wait, that wasn't your question...