Geralt of Rivia is a legendary monster hunter, a weathered warrior capable of annihilating some of the world’s most dangerous beasts for piles of coin and Continent-spanning renown. Put simply, he’s a badass, to the extent that his reputation now precedes him following the blockbuster success of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Unfortunately, he’s unable to survive jumping off what I can generously describe as a small curb. I’m serious, you can’t explore the luscious fields of White Orchard without fearing that a sudden drop of roughly three feet is going to grant our illustrious monster hunter an early death – a bit weird when you consider he’s after single-handedly taking down a royal griffin without suffering so much as a single scratch.
Whenever I’ve played the game on PC, I’ve immediately installed a mod that disables fall damage and encumbrance, allowing me to explore the gorgeous open world of The Witcher 3 without having to worry about falling victim to obtuse mechanical flaws. I can deal with carrying too much, and realise why games decide to implement systems pertaining to being overencumbered instead of allowing you to carry a neverending stockpile of weapons, armour, and potions.
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But I prefer it this way – being able to ignore realism in favour of further immersion in a fantasy world whose primary purpose provides us with a heightened capacity for escapism. If I have to constantly stop to consider my inventory or avoid what should be completely harmless pitfalls as I roam across rolling hills, then I’m taking myself out of the experience – The Witcher 3’s fall damage sucks, and there’s no two ways about it.
Having played the game to completion on Xbox One X, I had to train myself to approach environments in The Witcher 3 with a certain level of caution. So many of its environments – in Skellige especially – are filled with towns, mountains, and shorelines awash with verticality. You’ll often find yourself hiking up hills in search of hidden treasure and points of interest on the map, so it’s incredibly frustrating when the finicky movement controls suddenly decide it’s time for Geralt to slide down this hill of his own accord and meet his death. Unless you’ve saved recently or the autosave function is feeling generous, it’s easy to lose a lot of progress here. I’ve turned the game off in the past because of this, annoyed that such a weird barrier to enjoyment has been placed in an otherwise masterful RPG.
I wouldn’t mind if it was realistic, but it isn’t. I’ve jumped down hills almost double the maximum height Geralt is capable of leaping from without dying. I walked it off and carried on with my day, while our white-haired hero tapped out within seconds. I suppose Geralt is wearing heavy armour and wields a bunch of weapons, so the landing probably isn’t too kind on the ol’ bones, but instant death? I don’t think so.
You’d think our boy would have picked up some parkour skills alongside his decades of fighting for his life against monsters and soldiers – I mean, just look at Ciri dancing around the practice beams in Kaer Morhen. If there’s one improvement I’d love to see implemented into the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 versions of The Witcher 3 beyond sharper visuals and higher performance, it would be a toggle to turn off fall damage completely. It’s a load of rubbish, and the game is better off without it.
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