The new year means it’s time for resolutions. This year I’d like to practise my guitar more, be as fit as I was in my 20s, figure out my romantic life — but I probably won’t do any of those things. But I might, with your help, finish The Witcher 3.
This is you all talking about your favourite part of The Witcher 3. I’m Geralt, walking away because I haven’t gotten to that part yet.
My colleague Patricia and I were talking today about how we’ve both recently (finally) started playing The Witcher 3. I’m only about 10 hours in, and I didn’t get my fellow Kotaku staffers’ flood of screenshots and jokes. I want to finish the game, but it’s just so long, and there are so many sidequests. I have so many games to play, and those stars in Overwatch aren’t going to get themselves…
But I want to see The Witcher 3 through. I want to share in the memories and laughter of my colleagues. I want the monsters, the cats, the frying pans, the kisses. I want the haircuts. Oh how I want the haircuts.
Many a person has climbed the seemingly insurmountable mountain of The Witcher 3 and lived to tell the tale. What’s the secret? A rigorous playing schedule? A phone app for planning your quests? Promising to buy yourself a puppy if you finish? Throwing away every other game you own?
Tell me how you finished The Witcher 3, readers. I want to know what you know. And not just so Luke Plunkett might finally think I’m cool.
Comments
32 responses to “Help Me Finish The Witcher 3”
I gave up on the witcher 3. Got it at launch, didn’t play it for a year, then got really into it, but I couldn’t beat the barons alien baby, on any difficulty (I was playing on the hardest, couldn’t even beat it on easy).
I keep thinking about it, but I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t say I think I’ve moved on from it
The way I did it, I didn’t even need to beat it.
Dont bother fighting it, Much better to do the ritual. And the story you get afterwards is much better.
Really? No offence but I didn’t think it was that hard, what you could do is choose to save the child, turn it into a lubberkin.
In that case there are just a few wraiths, I played on normal and it was easy.
I hope you enjoy the game, remember preparation is key, maybe read up on game mechanics, use potions, check the bestiary for weaknesses, don’t forget signs, learn to dodge effectively(not roll, DODGE)
All the best. Have fun.
P.s. Google strategy guides or tips, I was reading one for that fight the other day.
Honestly it might just not be the game for you, i enjoyed it so much i struggled to play anything else for weeks and when i finished i struggled to get back into other games for a few weeks as they didn’t measure up., i get that you play games for work but with the limited time i have if a game starts to feel like a chore then i stop playing. Now back to Overwatch, those stars won’t earn themselves
I had the same reaction myself – all other games just seemed so boring in comparison so my only choice after finishing Witcher 3 was to buy the DLC and play that.
So you’re saying it was too good?
Overwatch may be good but at the end of the day, it has no story and that k/d ratio means nothing.
Yes I don’t know if i would say too good but it certainly set the bar for what i expect from video games now.
Overwatch on the other hand was honestly a bit of a surprise for me, i normally don’t get into competitive FPS because of the lack of story and the focus on K/D that where you feel like a walking liability for you first 5hrs or so. I only bought Overwatch because quite a few friends were playing it and was pleasantly surprised by how much i enjoy it, mechanics are tight and enjoyable and the lack of focus on individual player performance makes it a much more enjoyable experience in my book + it has that Civ/Stardew quality of small portions of game play where you could walk away but chose not to with the excuse “just one more”
I never even had to try to finish it. It consumed me for months. Easily the most beautiful, all-encompassing, gripping RPG I’ve ever played.
Exactly, i had to TRY and get to bed at a decent time for work and i had to TRY and not ignore my wife while playing this but finishing this was never in doubt.
My word did it have some weird bugs and glitches in it though. I ran into more than my fair share of them in my playthrough.
I played The Witcher 3 during a lull in my schedule that lasted a few weeks (Uni student/casually employed so this sometimes happens). First playthrough was about 130 hours in game, took me around a week I think?
Anyway, because I had not much going on for that week my schedule was basically get up around noon, work on songwriting/recording during the day, early dinner, play The Witcher 3 from about 7pm-4am while getting absolutely shitfaced.
Not the healthiest lifestyle and not viable if you don’t have a week or two off work, HOWEVER I think playing much of the game while drunk actually really enhanced the experience. The way Geralt acts and the fact that he keeps meditating with strong alcohol mean that honestly I think I was just increasing my immersion by getting closer to the protagonists state of mind.
Plus, the more emotional scenes wouldn’t make me weep if I had been sober.
So, probably not viable for you Riley, but that was my Witcher 3 experience. My second playthrough (which I did after all the DLC came out) was much more spread out, over the course of months and usually only one or two sessions a week. This was also a good way to enjoy the game. View it as if you’re working through a bastardly long series of fantasy novels – it’s going to take a while, and you kind of just have to take it a chapter at a time, but the upshot of that is that you get to spend months with this world and these characters as part of your life, and that’s super-cool too.
Here, I’ll help: finish it you pleb. And then pick up both DLCs, because they are universally excellent.
On a serious note, I did also take a break from The Witcher 3, but only because I found myself struggling to care about the main story after I finished the Velen and Skellige sections. Ciri’s relationship with Geralt is great, but I was stuck in a rut in the Novigrad part of the story. I don’t give a crap about Dandelion, I really don’t.
Funnily enough, what prompted me to come back was I upgraded my GPU and monitor and thought “what’s the prettiest game I own to test out this 1440p goodness?” and settled on The Witcher. I’m so glad I did, because I finished the main game, plowed through both utterly fantastic DLCs, and have started a NG+ with mods.
One of my absolute favourite games.
I’ve been playing for an hour each morning before work along with rare weekend stints. I’m 70+ hours through and I’m consistently in awe of the world they’ve created.
Finish Witcher 3, what the hell is that
Yeah I could have sworn it was Polish.
I think I was about six months late to the Witcher 3. It took me roughly one year to play through it and both the expansions. I had a few breaks here and there, but if you stick to it, you’ll be right.
The only part of Witcher 3 that I struggled through was all the undiscovered locations in the water in Skellige. That took hours.
The rest was an absolute joy. Nearly finished B&W. I want more Witcher.
Those hidden locations took forever, and none of the loot was very interesting, I ended up just selling it all or even dumping it cause the shopkeepers ran out of money lol. Not only that but you didn’t even get anything for finding them all.
Finished it twice. And both DLCs. Platinum’d it the second time.
You want to finish it so you can remember what an actual game is. What actual “DLC” (expansions) actually are.
Not only is it fantastic in its own right, so much of a living world. So much to do, to see, to take in and learn, but it also shows you a game that is worth every cent.
With so much milking and money grabbing these days the fact that it came out as a game with everything available at launch, cost the same as every other game and then on top of that both expansions only cost as much as a couple cars in GTA V its hard to pass up just how awesome the game is over all.
I agree.
I am playing Dragon Age Inquisition currently, they expect us to buy horses! Literally dlc to get rainbow colour unicorns & random reskins!
Also the gameplay feels terrible on PC.
The witcher series is quite easily up there on my top 5 series of games to play. Loved witcher 1 and 2, each has an amazing story which anyone who loves a good fantasy game needs to experience. Both expansions are polished typo the same level as witcher it self. I’ve recently started working through all of the achievements, 10 to go and I will have obtained them all. To get one of them, I’ll need to finish it one more time at least, it’s really a shame I enjoy it so much 😉
I’ve just put down the Witcher, gaming time is rather limited but now I’m 90 hours in and barely playing anything else.
I’ll get back to it and finish it, but need to try power through some shorter games. Finished a Second Son playthrough today and started on Until Dawn. Probably give Doom a runthrough too before I consider hopping back in.
Don’t try. I read the books first, all 7 of them before the game came out. When I finally got the game I played it almost non-stop. I was even going to work and acting like Geralt. It’s too immersive to just dabble. Your next article will be on how to stop playing it. I beat every side quest, completed the Gwent collection, romances all those sorceresses, and even had a hold gilded roach. When I’m looking for something to play it takes everything in me not to click the witcher tile, but I know if I do 1000 hrs could turn into 2000, so I don’t. Good luck and try not to lose yourself in the beauty of the Witcher. CD projekt red nailed this.
Stop thinking of it as one game an instead a series of adventures. I have finished it twice now (once on regular and once of death March) and I would grab all of the quests humanly possible and then pick one at random and set off. If you feel bridled by the main story you are 1. Going to miss out on great content and 2. Get worn out way to quickly
Once you get through novigrad the game isn’t as slow and flows a lot better
The only thing I was really disinterested in this game was Gwent. I know some players love it but it didn’t really do it for me at all. I didn’t mind the dice poker in the first two games but Gwent just didn’t click with me, so I never bothered with it. I still had 100+ hours clocked on the game when I finished it despite the fact I skipped Gwent.
I don’t really understand why people didn’t like Novigrad though, I enjoyed that section (I did Novigrad before Skellige). After wandering around the massively open and empty land mass of Velen for hours on end, I enjoyed the change of scenery and a bit of a change of pace in missions that Novigrad offered.
Word! Then the next DLC. For
a rather perfect fourth-wall breaking smile from Geralt at the end.None of these things. Just play the game.
I am in the same boat, but further along – I started it months ago, and only just made it to Skellige the other night. I will sit down for a session, ready to make a dent in the main storyline… and then run around for 2 hours playing gwent with anyone that I can find.
Seriously, how good is gwent.
If you are limited on playing time just do the quests region by region. The Witcher 3 was amazing in every aspect, the game is easily one of my favorite RPG’s of all time and the sheer amount of quality and content in this game puts it miles ahead of everything else. While i was playing this i didnt want to play anything else, all i wanted to do was jump back in and explore Geralts world.
I suppose the key to finishing it is to love it.Really,really love it.I’m on my 5th playthrough,117 hours,level 52(DLC included).Have done every quest,hunt etc and have just finished all Q marks in Toussaint and Velen.Now I’m looking at everything in Skellige and it’s a struggle to stay motivated.After that I have to clear every cave and I can start again.If you’re only 10 hrs in,you’ve seen nothing yet and you’ll probably have an ‘oh wow’ moment that will hook you forever.Or not.I suppose mine coulda been the rat tower,werewolf love triangle,the masked ball,Priscilla’s song,dinner with Keira,meeting the witches,gwent,travelling to meet Ge’els,unicorn sex,Triss, poor old Skjall,finding junior,the barons child,beserker pow-wow,dozens of others…Good luck