I know The Witcher 3’s new DLC isn’t going to be some enormous expansion like Hearts of Stone or Blood & Wine. I know there aren’t going to be any new characters, or quests, or sprawling areas teeming with all manner of belligerent beasties – that doesn’t change the fact I’m more excited about this than like, half the new games due to launch this year.
It’s probably just going to be a new outfit for Geralt, or Yen, or Triss. Maybe we’ll get a different sword, or an additional set of cosmetic blinders for Roach. Hell, if WitcherCon was anything to go by, the bathtub Geralt meme could take on a whole new meaning. Regardless of what this new DLC is, and of whether it’s 100GB or 100KB, you’d better believe that as soon as it drops I’m going to reinstall The Witcher 3 and take down Eredin for the 500th time… this week.
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If you’ve never read any of my articles before, lucky you. I write about all sorts of things, but every time I’m allowed – and sometimes when I probably shouldn’t be allowed anymore – I write about The Witcher. Usually The Witcher 3, but anything Witchery will do. This week alone I’ve written about how the most recent trailer for season two of Netflix’s show nails the tone of the books, as well as how the new The Witcher: Ronin comic opens up some fascinating new possibilities for this world. On other occasions I’ve talked about how The Witcher is at its best when you’re just wandering aimlessly through its wilderness, tackling side stories as they come, or about how The Witcher 3 in particular paradoxically uses indulgent and alluring folklore to ground itself in realism. A couple of years back I even went to the set of The Witcher and spoke with people like Henry Cavill and showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich, although that was for a different website.
Basically, I like The Witcher. A lot. Honestly, even without WitcherCon, I’m perpetually around 30 seconds away from reinstalling it on one of the many platforms I own it on. I’ve read all the books, I’ve seen the show multiple times – hell, I even read all the comics, the most recent of which shows a side of Geralt I’m not sure I like very much. I listen to Marcin Przybyłowicz’ iconic Witcher 3 soundtrack multiple times per week and I am, once I eventually find something I don’t deem to be cliche or overdone or instantly recognizable, going to get a great big Witcher piece inked on my arm. I have gone on for a laboriously long time, at this point, about all of the things I reckon qualify me as The World’s Biggest Witcher Fan. The reason for that is to establish that I am in no way being hyperbolic when I say that I will redownload this game and pump yet another 50, 80, or 100 hours into it if Geralt so much as gets new shoes. Any excuse, right?
Right. In all seriousness, though, I think more of you should do the same. Some of you might not have played The Witcher 3. Some of you might have bounced off it – I know a lot of people dislike the combat, although I will say getting used to the camera and unlocking a couple of specific early game sword perks converts into an enjoyable, tactile experience fairly sharpish after the brief intro. Still, each to their own – if you don’t like the combat, just turn the difficulty down and enjoy the story. Take solace in exploring the game’s vast, gorgeous, enticing world. Meet the characters, talk to them, listen to them, think about how their place in the world influences it, and you, and everyone else. This is a game where wolves smell blood and hightail it to the source in an intimidatingly tight-knit pack, where cities have full transport lines and water sources located miles away to justify how people can possibly live in them.
It’s become a bit of a cliche to call The Witcher 3 a living world, especially when you consider the fact it’s six years old now. There are games like Red Dead Redemption 2 on the market, experiences like GTA Online that continue to become more and more impressive while more hardcore titles like EVE Online change the entire way games can possibly work. The Witcher is its own thing, though, because it is single-player and self-contained and fantastical and wildly ambitious in terms of cementing the verisimilitude needed to justify all of that. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, both the most successful fantasy game and most successful Western RPG I have ever played, not necessarily in terms of any commercial metric, but in how well it is able to hold itself together. It articulates all of its stories in accordance to extremely tight, precise design, but the whole experience of playing it is breezier than the winds whipped up by Skelligan seas.
I play The Witcher 3 probably once a year, at least. I love it more than any other game and will take any excuse as a reason to boot it back up. I was already going to play the next-gen upgrade – it’s pretty much the entire reason I bought an Xbox Series X – but this DLC just makes me even more excited to do so. Sure, I’m interested in seeing the revamped graphics. Yeah, I’m hoping for a great frame rate, and faster loading times, and all of the other snazzy buzzword bells and whistles that are touted alongside the revelation of each new console generation.
Mostly, though, I don’t much care for that stuff – I just care about skulking through Velen again, clambering over mounds and mountains in Skellige before galloping across the vast, foreboding meadows of the lavish but lurid Toussaint. I’d probably do all of that anyway, WitcherCon or not, so the fact I can do it this time around with like, a new sword, or something, just makes an already set-in-stone, already brilliant, already exciting situation even more of all of those things. Roll on The Witcher 3’s new DLC, regardless of whether it’s a whole host of story material or a new skin for bathtub Geralt that only affects the first four seconds of the game.
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