What makes The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt an epic game?

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a role-playing game that is a fantasy, action-adventure, third-person open-world game. This game was developed by CD PROJEKT RED. It’s one of the games that was highly praised by critics and loved by many gamers. It turned out to be not only a popular game but one of the best games ever made. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has won many accolades and earned The Game Awards for “Game of the Year 2015”.
Out of all the video games based on novels, which are only a few, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the most successful of them all.

 

What are we not going to discuss?

• Story or plot explanation which you’ll find plenty out there.

• Gameplay explanation which you’ve to experience it by yourself.

is it your must story?
It’s the must story for anyone who likes fantasy or if you ever played any video games, then it’s a must-play for you.

Many valid points can justify the epicness of the game, but the below six points have played a major role in its success.

 

 

Average Rating across platforms.

 

What makes Witcher 3: Wild Hunt an epic game?

1. Story

Is the story the dominant reason for the success of the game?
No, in a broader perspective, the story was a fantasy adventure which is a quite common genre, which many game series have opted for. Story contributed in some way but was not solely responsible for the success. 
When you have a story with a vast world and you want people to explore them, then the right choice of the story will be an adventure.
The missions of The Witcher 3 are an adventure that makes you travel to different places and discover the world. Adventure stories are quite engaging as they involve a lot of exploration and discovering unknown elements. It also gives you a sense of progress.
But, the story of this game doesn’t have any depth or complexities which doesn’t add layers to the story. 

 

2. Range of fantasy elements

The very first thing that can observed is the broad range of fantasy elements. In any game, you want to experience the full extent to which a particular genre can offer. Witcher 3 is the best example of this, it has most of the elements that a typical fantasy can offer.
From spells and potions to curses and rituals, races like dwarves, elves.. and some of its own unique beings. There is a range of fantasy creatures and monsters like trolls, sirens, giants, griffins, dragons, and werewolves, all the fantasy creatures that we are familiar with and together with its own stand-alone creatures.
There are roles like sorcerers, mages, witches, alchemists, bandits, and many more. Even the arsenal of weapons and armors are nothing less here. 
When you bring in these many aspects, roles, concepts, and ideas, it scatters the narrative. But Witcher 3 doesn’t let that happen, it prioritizes things very well and gives you the structured gameplay.
Presenting a wonderful play and exploration of the world, and never at the expense of storytelling.

 

3. Concept

Fantasy is one of the highly preferred genres. These days fantasy is getting near to action-adventure in every form of storytelling in terms of usage. There are myriads of fantasy stories out there and it’s now much harder than ever to make a mark in this field. The biggest reason why most fantasy works fail is that they fall into the pits of fantasy tropes, overused repetitive concepts, and ideas.  Many of them are inspired by a lot of other stories.
Witcher is not different when it comes to getting inspired by other ideas. But, one thing that makes Witcher stand out from the rest of fantasy works or stories is the concept of Witcher itself.
In short, Witchers who were formerly human are required to undergo relentless training. their physical attributes are boosted and sensing capabilities are highly enhanced along with that they hold magical powers to cast spells. They are built for hunting and slaying monsters. These results are achieved through various alchemy processes, mutagens, and other rituals.
The concept of Witcher brings in the idea of monsters, that’s why the game is home to a wide range of monsters. And, all other elements related to this Witcher concept like silver swords, potions, decoctions, and spells come into play. That’s the reason the game is rich in these aspects. Similarly, the Witcher contracts and treasure hunts are also the results of the concept of Witcher.
This is the true strength of a strong concept. It brings in other sub-concepts and elements into the story. It’s like a beautiful tree that is branched out into other fresh ideas.
Witcher has the potential to become a new being in the fantasy world.

 

4. Characters

There are many characters in this game, like most of the fantasy series. The character Geralt of Rivia had very much influence on the success of the game. The personality, the appearance, the thought process, and the best part, maintaining the balance between dark and gloomy and lively and fun, and not letting seriousness linger much.
This game has a lot of gloomy scenarios but, Geralt will make it look like a challenge and very much brings control over the situation, not letting the environment turn darker than necessary.
Witcher 3 is rich in violence, but the violence doesn’t feel heavy, because of the protagonist’s nature.
Similarly, the female characters Triss Merigold, Yennefer of Vengerberg, and Cirilla (Ciri) also played a necessary role. They brought in the feminine energy to the story and made it more lively and filled it with emotions that wouldn’t be possible just by Geralt alone.

 

5. Feel of Environment

Many of the open-world games have vast maps, which include many places or locations, but when you visit them it feels the same even though the landscape is changed. It’s like the same tone throughout the map only geographically changed.
But Witcher takes it to the next level and puts many other games to shame.
The maps of Velen, Novigrad, and Skellige aren’t just maps they showcase the landscape changes, the cultural shift, the diverse climate, a list of resonant background music, and finally the change in tone. It feels like you have entered a new world every time you switch between the places.
These places are designed in such a way that they work together in harmony despite having such differences in them. 

 

6. Gameplay

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a quintessential role-playing game and by the definition, it involves decision-making and choices which can alter the course of the outcome, that is, choices that you make changes the outcome especially the climax, this brings a feeling of ownership to the storyline and not just treats you like a bystander going through fixed plots.
The best part is that the outcomes vary from worst to best, which tells that if you make the right choices, you can get the best outcomes and a better ending, not just tinkering with the outcomes to make it slightly better. The same goes for the worst outcomes as well.
The character building feels so independent and it doesn’t feel like it’s at the mercy of the game, making it your own.
There are a lot of nuances that add up to make an impact on the game like the way the NPC (Non-Player character) reacts, change of weather, effects of decoctions, movements with different armours, and many such little details which you have to taste by yourself.

 

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is not just a game it’s an experience that has raised the bar for the other RPG games to come.