Time makes fools of us all: it's been nine years since The Witcher 3 first released, well exceeding the eight-year gap between the now positively primeval (but still magical) Witcher 1 and Geralt's lauded third outing. If after all that hype and hubbub you still haven't played one of the best RPGs out there, it's only $13 on Steam for the base game and both expansion packs until May 26.
I remember being way more excited for Dragon Age: Inquisition at the time, which is funny considering which one I keep coming back to replay every two years or so. When I finally picked The Witcher 3 up over my winter break at the end of the year—the GPU punisher running at 720p, 30fps, with my chunky college laptop hooked up to my parents' TV—it wound up being the first game I lost track of time and played until 4 AM in I don't know how many years.
It's just one of the best examples of an RPG open world, with every quest feeling worth your time, every detail bespoke and meaningful. Geralt of Rivia, the fantasy novel cover art bad boy badass with the heart of a poet and a grumpy-yet-tender dad streak, has achieved Solid Snake levels of videogame mascot status, and the rest of the game's charming cast isn't far behind him.
While the Blood and Wine expansion—basically a new epilogue final act with its own open world map—rightly gets a lot of praise, the smaller Hearts of Stone was always the real winner in my book. It had the perfect Witchery mix of recognizable fable—in this case Doctor Faustus—mixed with something a little more alien, low fantasy, almost pagan in character. Affable avatar of pure evil, Gaunter O'Dimm, remains an all-timer videogame villain in my book.
So, The Witcher 3: it's worth all the hype, and if you somehow haven't played it yet, $13 for the whole kit and kaboodle is a steal. This sale and anniversary also fall just a day before CD Projekt is set to release a version of its REDkit modding tools for The Witcher 3, like it already has with Cyberpunk 2077. The Witcher 3's modding community has already done some amazing stuff even without that power at their fingertips, and I can't wait to see what they'll be capable of moving forward.
