The Witcher 1 Game Review
The 1st game in the trilogy — a unique atmosphere
It was a winter night, I was in the countryside where my family has a house. Everything was prepared for Christmas. The tree was done, the fire was made in the stove, it started snowing.
I was just reading about this new game called The Witcher 3, knowing nothing about the other ones in the trilogy. I looked on YouTube, where I found a video presentation about the game. I felt attracted to The Witcher 3 immediately, but I wanted to take it all from the beginning, from the first game, so I started by playing The Witcher 1 first.
The Story Behind the Game Trilogy
The game trilogy The Witcher is inspired by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, who wrote a series of books called The Witcher, to whom the team behind the game, CD Projekt Red, has initially proposed the game idea, but the author was skeptical about its potential success and didn’t care about receiving royalties from the game. He just accepted a one-time payment.
Later, after the games from The Witcher trilogy gained international success, the author demanded more money in court. Eventually, the situation was resolved and both parties reached an agreement.
The Game Story
This is the story of Geralt of Rivia, a witcher, in a medieval fantasy world with a dark atmosphere that I love. The job of a witcher is to slay monsters so that the people are not disturbed or attacked by these beasts. You gain in-game money by killing these monsters.
The story begins where the books end. Everybody knows that once the war with the Nilfgard Empire ended, the legendary Gerald Of Rivia died. The truth is, he didn’t die, as he was saved by fellow witchers and taken to a safe place. The place is raided by peasants and this is where Gerald escapes and starts his journey to other places like the city of Vizima, to meet old friends and to fight monsters, trying to regain his lost memory.
The story is very complex, with levels of details that you won’t find often in other games in the genre, especially in the way NPC’s are scripted, and how they interact with you. There is also a great level of detail for the environment and the night/day changes.
In the first game, released in 2007, the story is part of a whole timeline, from which the novels written by Andrzej Sapkowsk are also part, and also the other 2 games of the trilogy, and there is also a Netflix series. The story in the first Witcher game takes place after the one in the novels, Gerald having amnesia about what happened in the past, and slowly regains his memory during the game trilogy.
The game starts with the intro video, about a contract between the witcher and a monarch, in which Gerald has to lift the curse from the monarch’s daughter, who transforms at night into a deadly beast.
You can see the cinematic trailer right here:
Gameplay
Character
A witcher is trained from a young age and then takes a cocktail of mutagenic plants to gain a set of skills that makes him better against monsters. Gerald carries two main weapons: a steel sword, better against human opponents, and a silver sword, better against monsters. He can carry other weapons as well and he has magical abilities.
Potions, attributes, talents
Gerald of Rivia uses potions to enhance his senses so that he can see beyond the veil of the physical world, but also to have the power of the beasts of the night. A system of attributes and talents helps you to choose the way the witcher's powers will evolve.
Camera & controls
The camera is mainly third person, over the shoulder (the one that I used the most), but there are also two isometric modes. You select the target by clicking on it, then with another click you start attacking, and the more you click the attack progresses and come to a point when a critical strike can finish the target. You get used to it rapidly.
My gameplay experience
I played this game and, once you manage the controls and get into the immersive story, it is hard to leave it. It is addictive. You complete a mission and then you go to the NPC to give you another one, more interesting than the previous and you play again for hours. It has a unique feeling given by the immersive story and the good voice acting.
All this combined with the Christmas ambiance in a village house in the countryside and a glass of wine goes along perfectly. It is a bit different from the casual RPG. In this game, it’s exciting to even simply go to a tavern, where you can talk to people and play dice with them, as you can also make money in the game by playing dice.
Graphics, Sound & System Requirements
The graphics are mesmerizing sometimes. Water sparkles and reflections, fields full of colored flowers, at night the moon can be seen rising behind the clouds, there are dialogs with the camera on the characters, in-game cinematics, you have an intuitive game interface, and many other things that make the game an immersive experience.
Keep in mind this is a game released in 2007. Don’t expect too much from the graphics from such an old game. All I can say is that I enjoyed the graphics very much.
To be able to play the game decently (not at minimum), you need a minimum of Windows 7, a Pentium or Athlon processor of 3 GHz, 2 Gb of system memory, and a good video card is recommended, like a GeForce 7800 GTX or Radeon X1950 XT.
I played it on an i5 laptop with 8 GB of memory and an Nvidia GTX 1050 video card. It just flies with this configuration on maximum resolution and all settings maxed. It is the best way to enjoy it and feel the dark atmosphere in the game’s environment.
Conclusion
If you feel attracted somehow to the Witcher 3 game, which is the most popular, or maybe you have seen the Netflix series, you need to start with the beginning. This means either reading the novels from the Polish author or playing the first game in the trilogy The Witcher.
You will have a lot of hours of fun, intrigue, adrenaline, and immersion in a beautiful dark fantasy world with a unique atmosphere. When it comes to reading the books from Andrzej Sapkowski, I have all the novels myself, but I didn’t finish reading them. I will make a review as soon as I am done reading.
If you like what you are reading here, you could help me by subscribing to medium. You will get full access to all medium articles ever written. We both win!
