The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an action role-playing video game developed by Polish developer CD Projekt Red and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The game was first released in May 2015 for personal computers, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and later updates of the game allowed for it to be played on more updated consoles, such as PlayStation 5 (PS5). It is part of The Witcher video game series, which began in 2007 when Witcher 1 was released.

Game cover for The Witcher: Wild Hunt

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the sequel to the second game of the series, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. In the game series, players are in an open world with a third-person perspective. The games are based on The Witcher series of fantasy novels written by Andrzej Sapkowski.

The game begins in the year 1272 and takes place in a fictional fantasy land that is only known as "the continent." On that continent are feuding kingdoms and empires. The main character, Geralt of Rivia, is on a quest to find his former lover, Yennefer of Vengerberg, a sorceress. Geralt is a "witcher," and in this game, that means that he is a monster killer. His quest is initiated after Yennefer sends him a letter explaining that their adopted daughter, Cirilla (also known as Ciri), has been practicing witchcraft without guidance.

The wild hunt that is mentioned in the game's title is actually a group of ghosts that bring war, plague, and death. In the game, Geralt needs to find Yennefer and Ciri before the Wild Hunt steals the young Ciri's soul. Depending on the choices that the player makes throughout the game, there are three possible endings of the game with different conclusions for the main characters.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Cinematic Trailer

The objective of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is to reunite Geralt with Yennefer and Ciri to protect Ciri from the Wild Hunt. Players need to make choices to get Geralt through quests and activities. The character needs to fight dangerous opponents in the game with weapons and magic, interact with non-player characters, and complete quests to acquire experience points and gold, which are used to increase Geralt's abilities and purchase equipment.

The development of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was self-funded after the success of the first two games in the series. It took nearly four years to develop with a team of 150-250 people developing the game and conducting quality assurance.

The game was first released in May 2015, and over the next several years, more versions of the game to be played on different consoles, such as PS5, were released. There are sixteen pieces of free downloadable content (DLC). Two expansions have been released: Hearts of Stone in late 2015 and Blood and Wine in 2016.A release of a next-generation update to the game came out in December 2022 for the personal computer (PC) version of the game and the versions for XBox Series X|S and PS5.

In July 2023, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released with updates that were inspired by the Netflix TV series that was developed based on the game and released in 2019.