52| The Witcher

Released: October 30th, 2007

Available on: PC (Windows & Mac)

It was a dark time to be traditional Western Role Playing Game fan during mid and late 2000s. The genre had found stunning success with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as it had broke sales records for the genre. For those too young, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was the first game of the genre to truly hit the mainstream game player. Sure some would argue that technically Bioware beat Bethesda to the punch with The Knights of the Old Republic. However, as praised as that game is, most of its commercial success was due to the Star Wars license. The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion was the first IP to popularize and mainstream Western RPGs on consoles with it's own laurels. Unfortunately there was a price to this. The audience in the console market was much more casual compared to the more technical savvy PC gamer. As a result The Elder Scrolls IV felt less like a RPG and more a exploration game. It wasn't long until Bethesda managed to try the formula again, this time with the Fallout franchise. Fallout 3 was hailed to be the great return of the series. However, most of the WRPG fanbase were distasteful toward it once they realized it was being made by Bethesda. Their fears turned out to be warranted. During this time however, there was a different ambitious WRPG in development.

A completely unknown studio that's only experience was translating various role playing games to Polish, was making a big budget, or what was considered big budget at the time, WRPG. Rather than taking after The Elder Scrolls IV, it would instead take after more beloved cult classics such as the Black Isle games where the meat of the game was making morally gray choices. It focused on this so much that the game's tagline was something akin to "there aren't any choices, just consequences." When the game was finally released it lived up to its expectations.

The Witcher focuses on a man named "Geralt". It turns out he isn't much of a man at all, but rather a witcher. Witchers are essentially mutated men who wander the world as for hire monster slayers and occasional dispute solvers. In layman terms they are essentially samurai in Polish folklore. Throughout Geralt's journey he will encounter many quests that will give him the option, or outright force him, to make very tough decisions. Morality isn't measured in whether one wants to be good or evil, but rather the beliefs of the player. Questions such as who is more fit to be a mother or whether or not the public should know dire information even if they may incite violence when knowing it, are what the game focuses on. There aren't any easy choices in The Witcher. Best of all, all of these choices can have a substantial effect  the game's story and general world. As the player makes decisions, his relationships and even alliance changes throughout the course of the game. Friends become enemies, terrorists become allies, and entire communities will either hold you up or hunt you down. Thus the game offers a different experience for each player and each different playthrough.

The game is designed just like any other traditional WRPG. The player roams around the world discovering various towns as they talk with townsfolk performing a variety of quests. While on these quests key information is discovered on where to go next to progress the game. They player will follow the trail these quests lead to until they eventually get to the end area and final boss. Like most WRPGs, it isn't the main quest itself that makes the game interesting, but the journey toward completing the main quest. Discovering new locations is very exciting, and merely talking with others can be a rush itself as the result of the conversation can be creating a new friend or foe.On paper The Witcher doesn't do anything particularly new with the genre, other than bringing it to the third dimension. However, it is the fact that it does those things so very well.

Rather than being turnbased or even psuedo-turnbased, the game uses a real-time action combat. Players wield Geralt's swords around as they defeat enemies and monsters. Geralt has two swords. The steel sword is to fight off humans, while the silver sword fights off monsters. This is very important to remember as using the wrong sword severely handicaps the player. Geralt can also perform magic attacks such as lighting enemies on fire or even stopping them in their tracks.These are very useful, especially when fighting multiple enemies at once. In addition to all of this, the player can also craft potions which can result in Geralt delivering more powerful attacks, the ability to see in the dark, amongst other things. Sure the combat isn't as deep as Devil May Cry, and the magic attacks could be balanced better, but it still works very well considering that even today most open world RPGs shy away from real-time combat.

What really made The Witcher stand out during release was how adult everything was presented. Make no mistake, The Witcher is a game made by adults, for adults. Sure around the time of The Witcher's release there were plenty of games meant for "adults" but most of them earned those titles by just upping the gore factor and dirtying the language. In contrast, while The Witcher does feature naughty medieval language and violence, it doesn't let it define the game. What defines the game is the conflict and harsh realities the player comes by. The day to day conflicts of quarrels between neighbors, couples, and different factions. The realities of racism, poverty, and abuse. These are subjects that, especially at time of the game's release, are rarely touched on. It is those moments that The Witcher series is the most remember by, not its cutting edge 3D world, sense of exploration, violence, or general "coolness". Not that the game lacks any of those things, but the point is The Witcher stands out where it is suppose to stand out.

The seemingly unknown Polish developer's gamble paid off big time. The Witcher was a huge success, and probably was the last successful big budget RPG that is exclusive to the PC. Each concurrent release became more popular and successful, with the third entry reaching flagship worldwide success. Even in Japan, the Witcher series is a recognizable brand. The series developer, CDProjekt, is red hot right now due to The Witcher 3's success, their digital platform is growing, their next AAA WRPG is in development, and they recently formed a new branch. The WRPG genre is also a lot more healthy as quality titles don't seem to be in shortage. Much of this is due to the success of funding companies like Kickstarter, however, I wouldn't be surprised if The Witcher helped by proving that deep WRPG gameplay is still viable for the mass market. No matter how you look at it, The Witcher's release had quite an effect on gaming