This is the first in a series of posts I’m imagining about coming back to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, almost 5 years after its initial release. My return to the game was spurred by the release of the Netflix series on December 29, 2019. Because that series presents events in non-linear sequencing, I want to provide a brief timeline of Witcher media releases for quick reference:
Media timeline
1992 & 1993 - the first The Witcher short story collections are published in Poland
October 30, 2007 - The Witcher released for PC
May 17, 2011 - The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings released for PC and consoles
May 19, 2015 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt released for PX and consoles
Dec 29 2019 - The Witcher (live action television series) released on Netflix
I was not the only one to gravitate back to The Witcher video games, particularly The Witcher 3 after the Netflix series came out. Video game platform Steam tracks a games number of concurrent payers, or the number of people playing a game at the same time. On January 2, 2020, The Witcher 3 had over 100,000 concurrent players - setting its individual high water mark. On launch day in 2015, it had topped out at just over 92,000 concurrent players. If you look at the list of games with higher player counts in the article linked previously, you’ll see this put it at #6 in the top ten games with the most concurrent players. What’s even more stunning is that games 1-5 and 7 (Counter-Strike:Global Offensive, Dota 2, PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds, GTA V, Rainbow Six Siege, and Destiny 2) all have deep multiplayer components and are what we call “live games,” meaning there’s an active development team pushing out new content and changes to the game regularly. The Witcher 3 is a single-player only third person RPG who’s last major story update released on May 31, 2016, just over a year after the full game’s release and nearly 4 years ago.
Sure, a new set of media set in this universe might bring me back to this old game like it had 100 thousand others, but would it keep me? I have tried to play The Witcher, the original PC title, 4 times. Each time I bounced off at a different point early in the story despite respecting a lot of what the game presented. “Respecting” just didn’t equate to “enjoying” enough to keep playing. The same is true of The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings, which was more accessible by dint of being available on consoles but still failed to grab me. The Witcher 3; Wild Hunt, was going to be different. Not only was it made for consoles, but it seemed to be made with first time players in mind in terms of story and mechanics. I grabbed it digitally on its release day. I played probably a dozen hours of it, struggling at times with the difficulty and not truly internalizing some of the systems that make a “Witcher” game a “Witcher” game. And once again, I bounced off the game.
But I kept it installed. I had purchased the Season Pass, entitling me to the two pieces of additonal stroy content released after the full game. And I kept the file updated as developer CD Projekt Red made tweaks to how the main character, Geralt, moved and other technical fixes. My save history shows I went back and tried to play more in December of 2017, but I had been away for so long I’m sure the controls were no longer intuitive, and I remember trying to pick the story back up at a point where I didn’t remember what was happening or who I was working with or against or why. I bounced off the game a second time.
Could 2020 be different? After watching Netflix’s The Witcher series I wanted to give it one more try - to really jump into the world of GEralt and Ciri and Triss and Yennefer presented in The Witcher 3. Everything else I had queued up to play were either shooters or strategy titles and nothing was screaming out, demanding my attention. I made sure I had the latest patch installed, and started a new game of The Witcher 3. That was two weeks ago, and I’ve played varying amounts every night since. The PlayStation 4 doesn’t provide an hour count of games played and The Witcher’s save system doesn’t appear to track this either - or t least doesn’t surface it to the player. In 15 days, I’d guess I’ve played an average of two hours a day for around 30 hours and am still in the first major area that’s opened up to the player. As I continue, I want to collect my thoughts about coming back to a game after so long and enjoying something years after release. I hope you’ll find future entries as worthy of your time as I’ve found my return to The Witcher 3.