After over 4 years of planning to share my thoughts about this, I've finally decided to sit down and get it off my chest. Maybe it’s taken me this long because I've been scared of how people will react to an opinion of this sort. Or maybe I've been procrastinating because it feels like a huge, impossible task to explain what I mean. Writing this all down and reading it now makes it all feel really silly and embarrassing, but it's something I must do, so here goes.
I'm sitting in a train passing by foggy mountains, about to start a new life in a new place, listening to The Witcher soundtrack after many years as I write this (well ok, that's where I wrote the majority of this) It seemed like the perfect moment to finally get to it. Hopefully, posting this will allow me to get over my issues and rediscover the magic and my love for the Witcher franchise. (Note: Due to the 10k word limit, I'll post the rest of this as a comment.)
I played The Witcher 1 in 2007, and it immediately became my favorite game ever. The story, atmosphere, the greyness of morality and the general weird, dark tone grabbed me and took me to another world. It was otherworldly, dream like and beautiful. I loved the strange environments, the dark, grimy cities, even the unique costumes and the strange, ethereal locations such as St. Lebioda’s Hospital and the village named Murky Waters. This tone was never recreated in the subsequent games imo. I loved the feeling of sitting in the tavern in Murky Waters at night, the warmth and coziness of the inside surrounded by the weirdness of the things that lurk in the darkness outside.
The village of Murky Waters
I wanted to immerse myself in that strange world with its unusual soundtrack, and eventually I started slowly reading the books. Unbelievably, they too held the same magic. They immersed me in a new world, better than any franchise had ever done before or has since.
The Witcher 1 has some of the best and most unique music
I couldn't wait for TW2, but upon release I found it a bit disappointing. It seemed to be going for a more Game of Thrones style political games plot. Upon a second playthrough, I was able to tilt my perspective and ended up really enjoying it. (Specifically by reading this and this article)
This was now my favorite franchise across all mediums. I treasured its soundtrack, and any mention of the game would make me super happy and it would take me to another world. Just reading the word “Witcher” would give me goosebumps. You might laugh, but it was almost spiritual (in a creative sort of way, at least)
One of my favorite images related to The Witcher. It captures everything that I love.
I was unbelievably hyped when The Witcher 3 was announced. I'd never been this excited for anything. This was going to be the best game ever, no doubt. CDPR seemed like intelligent devs (they are) that loved franchise. I trusted them to nail it (they did) An open world Witcher game? The world from the Witcher? I could actually immerse myself, explore and live in that world? Holy crap.
When the game reached my house, it was one of the most important days ever. I wore the shirt, framed and put up the map on the wall above my desk, and took a lot of pictures of it all. As for the game itself, I enjoyed it. I was mildly disappointed as the world didn't include many iconic locations from the books (like the forests of Brokilon) but also my ageing laptop that could barely run the game affected my enjoyment quite a bit. I don't mean that it isn't an enjoyable/ beautiful experience (I guess a 2nd playthrough on a new machine will answer that - I intend to finally do that after posting this blog!) but this post isn't about that. But maybe the framerate is one of the main reasons why I don’t have fond and strong memories of playing that game (compared to TW1, where I clearly remember many of the moments)
The game was doing very well and gaining fame, and at this time it didn’t bother me at all. I remember really enjoying Angry Joe’s review of it as well. A few months later, it started becoming REALLY famous. People/friends that don't play games, and those that casually play one every now and then began asking about it, buying it, and everyone wanted to own it, just because it was the cool, new thing. They’d ask me - "Have you played The Witcher 3? It’s a new game with the best graphics and the biggest world! You can do anything!" It was now “the new Skyrim”.
It was now becoming this ultra popular thing that had been pulled out of the darkness and into the light, under the bright lights of an examination table almost. This might be childish, but because of this feeling, it was hard to look back at TW1’s ethereal tone and atmosphere and enjoy it, because its new found popularity made it feel as if the mystery was gone, or revealed. Does that make any sense?
I loved this strange and beautiful album that came with TW1 ("Music inspired by the game")
Still, none of that actually affected me until an incident with a friend of mine. He'd keep talking about how much fun TW3 was. He'd keep shitting over the previous two games and keep calling them crappy games in all aspects just because they were old, without giving them a shot. He /we aren't young, we're in our late 20s. He probably just did this to annoy me (and succeeded) I’d try to explain how the previous games were great too, but he wouldn’t listen. Him continuously playing TW3 while poking/ intentionally annoying me is probably one of the biggest reasons for the negative feelings I have for TW3’s popularity. Even though I've gotten over my irritation with him about this, the negative feelings towards TW3's popularity have remained.
This is also reflected in many comments online by players that discovered the franchise through TW3 that disregard TW1, calling it boring, clunky and saying that it hasn't aged well. Focusing on all that seems to be missing the point of TW1, and that's mainly because of how different, polished and popular TW3 turned out be.
One time I walked into that friend's room and another friend of ours said "You know this game? We never uninstall it from our computers." A third friend called me over to show me how impressive the hair looked in the game. Around this time was when my eyes opened and I realized just how big The Witcher had become. It seemed like it had lost its magic, its feeling of strangeness and its air of mystique. Of course, then it began to parallel Skyrim as the best game ever, a game that you could play forever, etc etc. It began being pulled into debates and arguments about which of those two games were the best ever. Began being included in "list" videos on YouTube. Its name was mentioned everywhere - YouTube comments, message boards, social media. It became a part of the Internet culture, Geralt became a household name, began being included in memes…
Today, you’ll stumble upon comments such as these:
"-How braindead must you be to play this in with this kind of visuals and most certainly sub 25fps to boot? How braindead must you be to not having played TW3 by 2019? The only people who have never played it, will never play it because they're clueless dudebros that play fortnite or pre teens that are into kiddy games. No same gamer has never touched TW3 over four years after its launch.
-Who the hell hasn't played this that's the question this damn game is 5 years old lol
-I agree. Some live under a rock. Others are just so clueless that they have fund out about TW3 in 2019. This is what happens when you've been playing yearly CoD and Madden for ten years straight
-Not carrying about a random POS game is one thing. Not carrying about masterpieces such as TW3 shows how disconnected you're from gaming as a whole."
This… ugh. That special world that had the ability to creatively and spiritually inspire through its mystery has now become a part of all this, like everything else. It takes away from its aura, you know?
Next thing, there's a Netflix TV show being made on the franchise, with a super famous actor, known for big budget Superman films, being cast as Geralt. (Though I've heard he's a big fan himself so that's a good thing, at least) The franchise is only about to get much bigger. I suspect the show is going to be huge, with GoT having ended recently and a huge fan base behind it to begin with.
*Continued...
I'm sitting in a train passing by foggy mountains, about to start a new life in a new place, listening to The Witcher soundtrack after many years as I write this (well ok, that's where I wrote the majority of this) It seemed like the perfect moment to finally get to it. Hopefully, posting this will allow me to get over my issues and rediscover the magic and my love for the Witcher franchise. (Note: Due to the 10k word limit, I'll post the rest of this as a comment.)
I played The Witcher 1 in 2007, and it immediately became my favorite game ever. The story, atmosphere, the greyness of morality and the general weird, dark tone grabbed me and took me to another world. It was otherworldly, dream like and beautiful. I loved the strange environments, the dark, grimy cities, even the unique costumes and the strange, ethereal locations such as St. Lebioda’s Hospital and the village named Murky Waters. This tone was never recreated in the subsequent games imo. I loved the feeling of sitting in the tavern in Murky Waters at night, the warmth and coziness of the inside surrounded by the weirdness of the things that lurk in the darkness outside.
The village of Murky Waters
I wanted to immerse myself in that strange world with its unusual soundtrack, and eventually I started slowly reading the books. Unbelievably, they too held the same magic. They immersed me in a new world, better than any franchise had ever done before or has since.
I couldn't wait for TW2, but upon release I found it a bit disappointing. It seemed to be going for a more Game of Thrones style political games plot. Upon a second playthrough, I was able to tilt my perspective and ended up really enjoying it. (Specifically by reading this and this article)
This was now my favorite franchise across all mediums. I treasured its soundtrack, and any mention of the game would make me super happy and it would take me to another world. Just reading the word “Witcher” would give me goosebumps. You might laugh, but it was almost spiritual (in a creative sort of way, at least)
One of my favorite images related to The Witcher. It captures everything that I love.
I was unbelievably hyped when The Witcher 3 was announced. I'd never been this excited for anything. This was going to be the best game ever, no doubt. CDPR seemed like intelligent devs (they are) that loved franchise. I trusted them to nail it (they did) An open world Witcher game? The world from the Witcher? I could actually immerse myself, explore and live in that world? Holy crap.
When the game reached my house, it was one of the most important days ever. I wore the shirt, framed and put up the map on the wall above my desk, and took a lot of pictures of it all. As for the game itself, I enjoyed it. I was mildly disappointed as the world didn't include many iconic locations from the books (like the forests of Brokilon) but also my ageing laptop that could barely run the game affected my enjoyment quite a bit. I don't mean that it isn't an enjoyable/ beautiful experience (I guess a 2nd playthrough on a new machine will answer that - I intend to finally do that after posting this blog!) but this post isn't about that. But maybe the framerate is one of the main reasons why I don’t have fond and strong memories of playing that game (compared to TW1, where I clearly remember many of the moments)
The game was doing very well and gaining fame, and at this time it didn’t bother me at all. I remember really enjoying Angry Joe’s review of it as well. A few months later, it started becoming REALLY famous. People/friends that don't play games, and those that casually play one every now and then began asking about it, buying it, and everyone wanted to own it, just because it was the cool, new thing. They’d ask me - "Have you played The Witcher 3? It’s a new game with the best graphics and the biggest world! You can do anything!" It was now “the new Skyrim”.
It was now becoming this ultra popular thing that had been pulled out of the darkness and into the light, under the bright lights of an examination table almost. This might be childish, but because of this feeling, it was hard to look back at TW1’s ethereal tone and atmosphere and enjoy it, because its new found popularity made it feel as if the mystery was gone, or revealed. Does that make any sense?
Still, none of that actually affected me until an incident with a friend of mine. He'd keep talking about how much fun TW3 was. He'd keep shitting over the previous two games and keep calling them crappy games in all aspects just because they were old, without giving them a shot. He /we aren't young, we're in our late 20s. He probably just did this to annoy me (and succeeded) I’d try to explain how the previous games were great too, but he wouldn’t listen. Him continuously playing TW3 while poking/ intentionally annoying me is probably one of the biggest reasons for the negative feelings I have for TW3’s popularity. Even though I've gotten over my irritation with him about this, the negative feelings towards TW3's popularity have remained.
This is also reflected in many comments online by players that discovered the franchise through TW3 that disregard TW1, calling it boring, clunky and saying that it hasn't aged well. Focusing on all that seems to be missing the point of TW1, and that's mainly because of how different, polished and popular TW3 turned out be.
One time I walked into that friend's room and another friend of ours said "You know this game? We never uninstall it from our computers." A third friend called me over to show me how impressive the hair looked in the game. Around this time was when my eyes opened and I realized just how big The Witcher had become. It seemed like it had lost its magic, its feeling of strangeness and its air of mystique. Of course, then it began to parallel Skyrim as the best game ever, a game that you could play forever, etc etc. It began being pulled into debates and arguments about which of those two games were the best ever. Began being included in "list" videos on YouTube. Its name was mentioned everywhere - YouTube comments, message boards, social media. It became a part of the Internet culture, Geralt became a household name, began being included in memes…
Today, you’ll stumble upon comments such as these:
"-How braindead must you be to play this in with this kind of visuals and most certainly sub 25fps to boot? How braindead must you be to not having played TW3 by 2019? The only people who have never played it, will never play it because they're clueless dudebros that play fortnite or pre teens that are into kiddy games. No same gamer has never touched TW3 over four years after its launch.
-Who the hell hasn't played this that's the question this damn game is 5 years old lol
-I agree. Some live under a rock. Others are just so clueless that they have fund out about TW3 in 2019. This is what happens when you've been playing yearly CoD and Madden for ten years straight
-Not carrying about a random POS game is one thing. Not carrying about masterpieces such as TW3 shows how disconnected you're from gaming as a whole."
This… ugh. That special world that had the ability to creatively and spiritually inspire through its mystery has now become a part of all this, like everything else. It takes away from its aura, you know?
Next thing, there's a Netflix TV show being made on the franchise, with a super famous actor, known for big budget Superman films, being cast as Geralt. (Though I've heard he's a big fan himself so that's a good thing, at least) The franchise is only about to get much bigger. I suspect the show is going to be huge, with GoT having ended recently and a huge fan base behind it to begin with.
*Continued...
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